Sol Luna Bay & Mare Resort
Hotel review Sol Luna Bay & Mare Resort
Age: 31-35
Travel time: in July 11
I travelled as: Family
Children: 1
Duration: 1 week
Type of trip: Beach Holiday
Recommendation: No
Average rating of this review: 2.5
First disappointment we had in 6 years to Bulgaria
Enlarge letters A A Downsize letters A AWe had high hopes for this hotel after seeing the reviews but it proved to be a big disappointment.
We have paid for sea view rooms and on arrival they gave us "side" sea view rooms. We had to argue a lot to receive frontal view as they were saying that since you can see the (corner) of the sea from the room, it's considered frontal sea view.
Supposedly everybody has 2 sunchairs + 1 umbrella on the beach. However they have split the beach in two parts, one where you have to fight for a sunchair and if you don't wake up at 7 then the chances to get one are zero. Therefore for the other part of the beach you have to pay. This is also on the beach in front of the hotel, so they intentionally don't have enough capacity on the free beach so you pay them extra.
I don't recommend this hotel at all for a couple with baby becouse:
- the beach was full of cigarette buds, Maybe the tourists quality is a problem but also there were not enugh garbage bins. I didn't like that my kid kept finding cigarette buds while playing in the sand
- the kids swimming pool had cockroaches in it
- most of the week we had to smell dead algies as there was a storm one night and the beach was full of algies and nobody cared to clean them
- the bathroom had pregnant urin smell
Location
It is a good location if you want to stay in one place. There was no promenade towards Obzor so if you can't carry the baby in your arms for a 20 minutes walk on the beach, then the only option to reach "civilisation" is by car.
The staff were neither rude nor polite. The cleaning lady could hardly speak english and our baby was sleeping from 13 to 16 every day. Half of the time she wanted to clean the room in that time so the room was not cleaned every day.
Gastronomy
The food was not much varied and it was a smell of fish or kebab (depending on the day) all over the restaurant as they were cooking inside. The wine was very bad, only the beer was drinkable.
In 7 days, there was only one italian evening (and that meant they had lasagna), otherwise it was the same tasteless food.
At other hotels in Bulgaria they had thematic evenings every night.
At the lobby bar there was a big queue every evening and of course at the beach bar every day since there was only one waiter. You had to stay in line even if you wanted to get a coke (there was a self-service for softdrinks, beer and wine, but at the other end of the hotel)
Sport & Entertainment
The fact that there were cockroaches in the kids swimming pool is totally unacceptable. The indoor simming pool was very small and also the outdoor swimming pool was not that big. The advantage was that the hotel is on the beach so you didn't have to use the swimming pool. That is if you could stand the smell of rotten algies, crabs and sea shells.
The internet was very very slow. Sometimes, after complaining at the reception about this, they were restarting something and it was moving a little bit faster, but otherwise you could sleep while waiting for emails to download.
Room
Room size is decent. Not as big as I thought, but acceptable.
You have to pay for the minibar (although we had all inclusive).
Also you have to pay for use of the safe.
There was no coffe machine or other "fancy" facilities.
The air condition was not capable of cooling the room.
The furniture looks very communist. It's strange that a new hotel has such old-fashioned furniture.
The rooms were clean, except the smell in the bathroom.
Tips and recommendations
The conclusion is that in 6 years of going to Bulgaria's sea side, this is the first disappointment we had. We stayed at 3 star hotels that were bettern than this. Most tourists were from bulgaria, romania and russia. Maybe when you go for the first time at a 4 star hotel and you are used with 2 stars, east european beach hotels, then you find this acceptable. But if you've been in other bulgarian 4 star hotels (not to mention greece or turkey), then it's definitely not a good money/value hotel. At 150 eur / room / night we had much more expectations.
Hotelier's comment
Dear Mr. Ciprian,Thank you very much for your review. We are very sorry to know that you are disappointed with your stay in our hotel. Anyway there are few statements in your review which we totally disagree with and which can be very misleading for our future guests. Therefore we would like to comment the following statements in your review:
“We have paid for sea view rooms and on arrival they gave us "side" sea view rooms. We had to argue a lot to receive frontal view as they were saying that since you can see the (corner) of the sea from the room, it's considered frontal sea view.”
We remember your case very good and I can guarantee you that the rooms which were given to you on the arrival were definitely front sea view rooms. Our side sea view rooms are in the other part of the hotel. There is part of the forest to see from these rooms, it’s true, but these are front sea view rooms for sure. You can imagine that as we have 458 rooms, it is impossible that every room will have the same sea view perspective. Anyway, one of our biggest strengths is that we are trying to solve guest’s problems immediately, so you were given other rooms within only 2 hours, because we had free rooms available at this moment and because we wanted to make you feel good even you were not right about the rooms.
“Supposedly everybody has 2 sunchairs + 1 umbrella on the beach. However they have split the beach in two parts, one where you have to fight for a sunchair and if you don't wake up at 7 then the chances to get one are zero. Therefore for the other part of the beach you have to pay. This is also on the beach in front of the hotel, so they intentionally don't have enough capacity on the free beach so you pay them extra.”
First, we offer sun chairs and parasols for our guests on the beach and on the pools, not only on the beach. It is totally normal that if you go to the beach at 11:00 o’clock a.m. you will not find the best place ever. So the guests who cannot find free chairs and parasols on the beach have to go to the pools. There you have always enough free space and sun chairs. We cannot guarantee everybody sun chairs and parasols on the beach, we do not promise this. Therefore in our contracts with the tourist agencies and in all our hotel descriptions we have written that the sun chairs and the parasols are upon availability. The paid zone takes only a small part of the beach and does not belong to the hotel.
“- the beach was full of cigarette buds, Maybe the tourists quality is a problem but also there were not enugh garbage bins. I didn't like that my kid kept finding cigarette buds while playing in the sand”
This is the first claim this season that our beach zone is dirty. There are two employees from our Housekeeping department who are cleaning the beach zone from 6:00 a.m. till 10:00 p.m. every day. They are cleaning cigarettes buds as well. There are more than enough trash bins, on the beach and on the beach alley as well.
“- the kids swimming pool had cockroaches in it”
There are no cockroaches in our hotel. As you know cockroaches are met mostly in the cities. The bugs you have seen are the so called “tiger-beetles” or corny. Every year when the harvest starts they are coming along the sea cost for couple of days and then they are gone. These bugs are totally harmless and do not sting
“- most of the week we had to smell dead algies as there was a storm one night and the beach was full of algies and nobody cared to clean them”
It is true that there was a storm and after the storm the sea brought lot of algae to the beach, but it is not true that we didn’t try to clean it. Couple of days long our cleaning staff cleaned the algae but the sea brought new one on the other morning. There were tons of algae which were not in human forces to be cleaned, not even with a tractor or other machine. This is the nature and we are not going to apologize that the nature was against us. Just e few days later the sea itself cleaned everything.
“It is a good location if you want to stay in one place. There was no promenade towards Obzor so if you can't carry the baby in your arms for a 20 minutes walk on the beach, then the only option to reach "civilisation" is by car.”
In the hotel description it is clearly said that the hotel is located far from other hotels and about 3 km from the town centre of Obzor. Just the location is one of the biggest advantages of our resort, because it is on a quiet place, surrounded by trees and the beach, perfect for romantic walks along the beach. For those who have baby buggies or don’t want to walk there is a shuttle bus.
“The staff was neither rude nor polite. The cleaning lady could hardly speak english and our baby was sleeping from 13 to 16 every day. Half of the time she wanted to clean the room in that time so the room was not cleaned every day.”
The rooms are cleaned every day from 8:30 a.m. till 4:00 p.m. If there are guests with special wishes (the room to be cleaned earlier) we always try to fulfill them.
“The food was not much varied and it was a smell of fish or kebab (depending on the day) all over the restaurant as they were cooking inside. The wine was very bad, only the beer was drinkable.
In 7 days, there was only one italian evening (and that meant they had lasagna), otherwise it was the same tasteless food.
At other hotels in Bulgaria they had thematic evenings every night.”
We were very delighted as we red that at least one thing of our food and beverage offers fitted your sophisticated taste – the beer. We have a 14 days menu and two themed evenings – every Monday is the Italian evening and every Thursday – the Bulgarian night. In all restaurants which have a show cooking it is fully normal that there is a little smell of grilled meat or fish inside, this is part of the charm of the show cooking concept. Please tell us the names of the other Bulgarian hotels with themed evenings every night because we would like to spend our vacation there.
“At the lobby bar there was a big queue every evening and of course at the beach bar every day since there was only one waiter. You had to stay in line even if you wanted to get a coke (there was a self-service for softdrinks, beer and wine, but at the other end of the hotel)”
There are at least two barkeepers per shift on the pool bar and between 6 and 7 barkeepers and waiters on the lobby bar in the evenings. Yes, you have to wait if there is a queue during the rush hours to get a coke, but no longer than one or two minutes. If you don’t want to wait you have always the option of our self service bar.
“You have to pay for the minibar (although we had all inclusive).”
” Also you have to pay for use of the safe.”
All inclusive does not mean that everything is gratis. We have clearly noticed in our description what is included and what is for extra charge. Yes, there is another concept which is called “Ultra all inclusive” where for a very different price than ours you have the mini bar included.
“There was no coffe machine or other "fancy" facilities.”
These services are usually offered in city hotels. For a four star all inclusive vacation hotel this is not a standard.
“The air condition was not capable of cooling the room.”
The air conditioning keeps the temperature between 22 and 24 degrees if the balcony door is closed and it is not switched off for hours. This temperature is optimal regarding the weather conditions outside (30-33 degrees).
“The conclusion is that in 6 years of going to Bulgaria's sea side, this is the first disappointment we had. We stayed at 3 star hotels that were bettern than this. Most tourists were from bulgaria, romania and russia. Maybe when you go for the first time at a 4 star hotel and you are used with 2 stars, east european beach hotels, then you find this acceptable. But if you've been in other bulgarian 4 star hotels (not to mention greece or turkey), then it's definitely not a good money/value hotel. At 150 eur / room / night we had much more expectations.”
Our conclusion is that if you are not satisfied with the money/value of our hotel, then spend your vacation in 2 or 3 star hotels for less money. There are Bulgarians, Russians and Romanians in our hotel but more than 50 % are Germans and if you can understand German you can read their reviews – people who definitely are not used with 2 star east European beach hotels and have travelled all around the world and seen 4 star all inclusive hotels more than you on your age, we suppose.
Sincerely,
Sol Luna Bay Management
Additional info concerning your hotel review Sol Luna Bay & Mare Resort
| What type of room did you review? | Double room Superior with view Sea/lake |
| Did the hotel meet the standards of its official catalogue description? | No, worse |
| Does the hotel deserve its official star rating? | No, worse |
| How would you describe the value for money? | Very poor |
| Which tour operator did you travel with? | No details |
