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Reviews of Festa Winter Palace

5 out of 5
Festa Winter Palace
Borovets, Samokov

Reviews

8.0

Very good

Rating 10 - Excellent. 19 out of 49 reviews" "
Rating 8 - Good. 18 out of 49 reviews" "
Rating 6 - Okay. 6 out of 49 reviews" "
Rating 4 - Poor. 5 out of 49 reviews" "
Rating 2 - Terrible. 1 out of 49 reviews" "

8.8/10

Cleanliness

8.2/10

Staff & service

8.8/10

Amenities

7.8/10

Property conditions & facilities

7.4/10

Eco-friendliness

Reviews

4/10 Poor

Elizabeth

Travelled with family
Liked: Room comfort
Disliked: Property conditions & facilities
The hotel is dated throughout. The staff were
Stayed 4 nights in Feb 2022

10/10 Excellent

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
Stayed 1 night in Jun 2021

10/10 Excellent

Verified traveller

Travelled with partner
Liked: Staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
Our stay was great. I definitely recommend this hotel.
Stayed 2 nights in Mar 2021

10/10 Excellent

Stanimir

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Classy holiday in a real palace.
We had a great winter vacation in this classy hotel. The personnel was kind and helpful.
Stayed 3 nights in Feb 2021

8/10 Good

Mihai

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 6 nights in Feb 2021

10/10 Excellent

Ivan

Travelled with group
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Amazing hotel! Great location and such a good stuff! Definitely will come back!
Stayed 1 night in Feb 2021

10/10 Excellent

Ivan

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, room comfort
Great hotel with nice location and amazing stuff! Food was good. Honestly we had a great time here! Definitely will come back again soon!
Stayed 2 nights in Feb 2021

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Travelled with family
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities, property conditions & facilities
It was quiet, well maintaiined.The staff was very friendly.My recommendation is to pay more attention on meals in the restaurant.
Stayed 2 nights in Feb 2021
Response from Sales Team on 14 Feb 2021
Dear Guest, Thank for your feedback. Your opinion is very important to us as we always strive to provide excellent services and product. Looking forward to welcome you again at Festa Winter Palace. Kind regards,

4/10 Poor

Verified traveller

Stayed 2 nights in Dec 2020
Response from Sales Team on 14 Feb 2021
Dear Guest, Thank you for leaving your score. Our main aim is to continue developing and improving our services therefore we would be very grateful if could provide us more details about your stay at sales@festahotels.com Looking forward to your feedback. Kind regards,

10/10 Excellent

Petko, Sofia

Travelled with partner
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, amenities
Had an amazing stay at this hotel. Been provided a free room upgrade. The staff are so kind. I like the size of the rooms - they're all big with large bathroom and comfy beds. Ordered a room service which was great too.
Stayed 1 night in Oct 2020
Response from Reservation's Department of Festa Hotels on 19 Nov 2020
Dear Sir/Madam, Thank you for choosing Festa Hotels for your stay! We are very happy to see a positive comment from a guest and we really hope that your stay has left you very good memories. We hope that in the future you can be our guest again!

10/10 Excellent

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service
Stayed 1 night in Oct 2020
Response from Reservation's Department of Festa Hotels on 19 Nov 2020
Dear Sir/Madam, Thank you for choosing Festa Hotels for your stay! We are very glad to hear that you enjoyed your stay at Festa Winter Palace. Hope you can visit us again soon!

8/10 Good

ron

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 1 night in Sep 2020
Response from Reservation's Department of Festa Hotels on 19 Nov 2020
Dear Sir/Madam, Thank you for choosing Festa hotels for your stay! We hope that you had a pleasant stay in Festa Winter Palace hotel and hope you can be our guest again soon.

10/10 Excellent

Carl

Travelled with family
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Brilliant stay at the winter palace
We stayed to meet up with family on a skiing trip for 4 days. The check in was smooth, the view was amazing from our 5th floor junior suite overlooking the black slope (room 506). Breakfast was lovely, always plenty of food and a microwave if you wanted to warm anything up. The evening meal was tasty, salad bar amazing, not to my taste of evening meal but always enough to choose from. Checkout was easy and we left our luggage while we went for lunch too. Brilliant location just a short walk to the slopes. Will be looking to book again for next year.
Stayed 3 nights in Mar 2020

8/10 Good

John

Travelled with group
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Room not as advertised
The room I was initially given was nothing like the description given on your website, no balcony, no bath tub, it was just a standard room. I complained to reception and they moved me to a suit with balcony but still no bath tub, they said there would be no extra cost which was good of them considering it was still below the standard described on your website when booking.
Stayed 4 nights in Mar 2020

2/10 Terrible

Tenna Ann

Disliked: Staff & service, room comfort
Not a 5 star hotel
Our first visit to Bulgaria and we ended up at this 5* hotel (5* - really)?? - The x-mas lights were turned on in september and the smell of wunderbaum and horse droppings was quite overwhelming. Anyway, we arrived late in the evening, which we had notified the hotel about, and were 'welcomed' by a very rude male-receptionist, who said that our reservation had been cancelled. We had ordered and paid for half board and a deluxe room with mountain views and we showed him all the documentation to confirm our booking. We never figured out why and how our booking was cancelled? We were shown a room in the back of the hotel by a young man with absolutely no english skills. The room had no views and we were told that due to high demand there would be no guarantee that a room with a view would be available for us the next day. After having called the receptionist at Festa Winter Palace 3 times, who repeated what he had told us, the booking team at hotels.com offered us an alternative hotel option, but not a 5 star and not half board. My daughter luckily managed to find another option at a competetive site and hotels.com accepted that solution and returned our payment. But what a bad experience for a first visit to Bulgaria. The country is very beautiful but the people have a lot to learn when it comes to customer service and attitude. Not to mention the lack of language skills, especially english. What a shame ...
Stayed 5 nights in Sep 2019

8/10 Good

Dan Cristian

Travelled with family
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 1 night in Sep 2019
Response from Georgi on 25 Sept 2019
Thank you for staying with us and for your positive feedback.We are glad that you enjoyed your stay in Festa Winter Palace Hotel and we hope to see you again.

4/10 Poor

William

Disliked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities
1-2 star hotel. Lots of others in the area
Very run down. Staff not overly nice. Given a horrible room. Just not worth the value, 2 star quality max.
Stayed 1 night in Jul 2018

6/10 Okay

Verified traveller

Liked: Staff & service
Disliked: Cleanliness, room comfort
Don't stay here if you expect 5-star hotel/service
This hotel is 2.5-stars at the most. The staff is nice and trying to be accommodating but the entire place is a joke. As soon as we arrived we found out the mini fridge in the room doesn't work. One of the towels had holes in it, HOLES in a towel at a 5-star hotel! We stayed in the middle of July but the entire hotel interior still had Christmas and New Year decorations. Bar and restaurants are not open at all even though they say they are and many time if you need something like a drink or food you have to talk to reception. The internet is in and out and so is the TV. My child wanted to watch TV one morning and the TV was not working so when I went to ask in Reception what the problem was they told me I probably don't know how to turn it on properly. WOW! We watched TV the night before and apparently my "turn on TV skills" were good back then. Turned out their internet was out and so was the TV signal. It is extremely rude of stuff to suggest something wrong with the room is their customer's fault. Our room was never properly cleaned when house keeping services passed by. Only thing they did was put on the bed cover and hang towels... The list goes on and on... I am not sure why the hotel is 5-stars. It is just bizarre. The only positive thing was how nice and friendly the staff was but unfortunately they couldn't make up for such badly run hotel.
Stayed 4 nights in Jul 2018

10/10 Excellent

jon, Wales

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
better than recent reviews
Recent improvements Free outside parking available
Stayed 7 nights in Feb 2018
Response from Ivaylo on 1 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback.

10/10 Excellent

peter

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Third consecutive visit
Nice hotel, my third visit in three years. Nice and clean, very warm and comfortable but always a few snags - broken light bulbs, missing tiles, radiator not properly screwed to wall. Nothing major to put me off and I'll be booking again for next year, probably not half board though as the food is a bit luke warm.
Response from Ivaylo on 1 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback.

8/10 Good

Louis

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, room comfort
Response from Ivaylo on 1 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback.

8/10 Good

Alan & Debbie, England

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities
Great position near slopes
Lovely hotel, but not 5 star. Certain staff could benefit from more training. Breakfast brilliant, but better understanding needed of the timing of bringing out meal courses. TV had no English channels as advertised.
Stayed 7 nights in Jan 2018
Response from Ivaylo on 1 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback.

10/10 Excellent

Aleksandar

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Excellent experience
Amazing place to rest and recharge. Excellent for young family with small children. Lots of activities around.
Stayed 6 nights in May 2017
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

10/10 Excellent

Aleksandra

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Great time in Borovets
Awesome hotel and staff. It's a bit tough to find as there are not a lot of signs. Otherwise location was great and so were the facilities. Staff was extremely friendly and accommodating. We found out that May is low season for them and thus a lot of the shops were not open in the area. Other than that we still had a great time
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

8/10 Good

Kieran

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Bit of a trek to the slopes and ski rental places, but doable
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

8/10 Good

Krasimira, Sofia, BG

Liked: Cleanliness, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Great choice; close to the ski slopes
Good room size; great location; excellent breakfast No ramp available at the main entrance and to Season Restaurant, which was very inconvenient with our baby stroller
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

10/10 Excellent

Lin, Fareham UK

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Nice hotel and excellent location.
We had a warm and friendly welcome to the hotel. Very helpful and cheerful staff. We are a family of four adults and three children. The food was excellent for the adults. Good choice of meats and fresh vegetables. They had pasta with a sauce and pizza but I would suggest they add something like homemade chicken goujons for the children especially during school holidays. The swimming pool, like all others this time of year in Bulgaria, was cold to get into. The best way is to shower first and gradually reduce the temperature to cold. The pool seemed quite warm after that! The hotel's about 75 to 100 metres from the toboggan park so our little ones thought it was great. It's only a short walk to the chair lifts as well. The gondola is about 400 metres away. There isn't as much for the children to do in the hotel as there is at the nearby huge Hotel Rila or slightly further away Hotel Samakov but the hotel itself is much nicer. The other hotels don't seem to mind you using their facilities which are paid for separately such as the shooting gallery, pool, ceramic painting etc. We were lucky with the conditions as it had snowed the day before we arrived so all the runs were open. Generally, we really enjoyed our stay here and would certainly return.
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

6/10 Okay

Verified traveller

Liked: Staff & service
Disliked: Cleanliness, room comfort
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

6/10 Okay

M

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities
The stuff at the hotel was really nice. The gourmet restaurant wasn't gourmet at all. The level of all of the meals that we tried was 0 (and I am polite). The massage was very good.
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

8/10 Good

Kostadin

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

8/10 Good

Nikolay, Burgas

Liked: Cleanliness, room comfort
Awful breakfast!
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

10/10 Excellent

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Nice hotel close to slopes Staff very helpful Poland spa excellent
Response from Dimitrov on 10 Sept 2016
Thank you for choosing to be our guest.

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Nice hotel good facilities excellent location needed more snow in resort
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

10/10 Excellent

angus, Scotland/Bulgaria

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Fantastic
Fantastic hotel, this is our third time there and it certainly isn't our last, fantastic staff highly recommend :-)
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

6/10 Okay

Ivan

Liked: Cleanliness, room comfort
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

8/10 Good

karen, uk

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Great location very close to slopes yet quiet
Very nice hotel. We had bed and breakfast. Breakfast buffet had something for everyone. The spa was a lovely treat after a days skiing. Conveniently located for the skiing yet set back in a wooded quiet location. Friendly reception staff and manager. Nice big clean rooms. Overall pleasant experience would recommend
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Good location close to the slopes
I visited Festa Winter Palace for a few days in January 2015. It is fancy hotel , beautiful and comfortable rooms with good heating The SPA is good and free of charge, Good location close to the slopes A rich breakfast but not at the level of 5-star hotel for example :Very bad coffee. Very petty check out : require an extra charge on topics such as using the each Capsule of the coffee machine in the room , late check out at 13:00 instead of 12:00 will be charged too
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

6/10 Okay

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness
Disliked: Staff & service
good hotel but manage your expectations
I am told that the hotel was the best in Borovets and was a five star hotel. I would say that it was more of a 3 or 3.5 rather than a 5 star. the good thing about the hotel was the cleanliness of the room and hotel and the location which was central. The hotel did have a spa, gym and swimming pool which were good quality. the rooms were a good size the bad points were the quality of staff as they needed training and lack of care towards resolving customer queries. the problems we faced included we had to ask for quite a few small things which should have been there without asking and it became a nuisance, these include No tea/ coffee facilities in the room. they did provide a kettle however no cups so we had to ask for cups quite a few times including spoons, saucers and sugar. They did pick it up after 3-4 times. The fridge wasnt working and even after asking it wasnt fixed Ordering room service was very challenging as no one on the other end of the phone could speak english. Again staff delivering room service could be trained better as we didn't get cutlery a few times. There was no telephone in our room but had one in the bathroom. The ringer was faulty so we couldnt receive any calls. Even after complaining the problem wasnt fixed during our stay. The staff didnt know anything about excursions or local facilities there is an additional charge for safe which was 7 levs per day The breakfast was really poor however the quality of the food at dinner was good
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

4/10 Poor

Jaws

Liked: Cleanliness, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Disliked: Staff & service
5 star hotel with 1 star service
The hotel had a very large room with high quality fittings. Limited English TV channels and often TV service not available. Breakfast buffet was only available 1 out of 3 days and was dreadful. Other days offered very limited menu though better quality items. The hotel has good facilities but seems to be run as a hobby rather than a business.
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

8/10 Good

Polina, Moscow, Russia

Liked: Cleanliness, room comfort
Not bad
Not bad, not far from the slopes. But defenately not a 5 star hotel. Probably not renovated ong time.
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

10/10 Excellent

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, room comfort
PERFECT
VERY VERY GOOD-ONLY THE POOL WAS VERY COLD
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

10/10 Excellent

Vasil

Travelled with family
Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 6 nights in Feb 2022

4/10 Poor

Verified traveller

Travelled with partner
Liked: Cleanliness, property conditions & facilities
Disliked: Staff & service
Bell’albergo, posizione ottima, ma il personale andrebbe riformato o cambiato - niente inglese, scortesia. Al ristorante punto DOLENTE. Cibo senza indicazioni di ingredienti - io intollerante al lattosio e vegetariana non capivo che cosa fossero i piatti, alla domanda cosa fosse - mi ricevevo un “Non lo so”. Al ristorante ci hanno trattato diverse volte come persone non grate o come se volessimo scappare. Niente saluto al ricevimento, neanche ricambiato. 5 stelle indicato è solo per bellezza
Stayed 4 nights in Mar 2021

10/10 Excellent

daniele

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Séjour à borovetz
Hôtel à taille humaine par rapport aux mastodontes russes et très agréable. Petit déjeuner copieux mais pas de repas. Une vraie piscine ( 20m) d'autant plus agréable que j'étais seule à en profiter. Chambre cossue mais lit un peu mou. Belles balades à pied dans le coin
Stayed 5 nights in Sep 2019

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, room comfort
Stayed 3 nights in Jul 2018

8/10 Good

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Stayed 2 nights in Mar 2018
Response from ID on 20 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback.

8/10 Good

KOSTAS

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Σε καλή θέση πολύ καλά spa αλλά το δωμάτιο δεν είχε μπαλκόνι λόγω του ότι βρισκόταν στον τελευταίο όροφο
Stayed 2 nights in Mar 2018
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

10/10 Excellent

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service, property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback

6/10 Okay

Verified traveller

Liked: Cleanliness, staff & service
Disliked: Property conditions & facilities, room comfort
Nettes Hotel gute Lage für Skifahrer
Schönes sauberes hotel im wintersportparadies Borovets
Response from ID on 23 Mar 2018
Thank you for your feedback