Has anybody booked via Balkan Holidays?

[RobertClementHughes]

Looking at December 2022 to Borovets as a family of 4 (me, 3DC who will then be 18,14 and 8) all complete beginners bar my one week on a school trip 25 years ago!

Borovets comes up again and again as good for beginners plus as a family friendly resort for all ages. Balkan Holidays have some good deals for all-in packages including flights/ transfers/ accommodation/ ski school/ equipment hire and their ABTA number is valid, but as a novice ski holiday booker I'm a bit wary of the unfamiliar!

Has anyone got feedback on their booking experiences with them?

Our first ski holiday, 15 years ago was this exact trip as we knew no better and it was cheap. We had poor snow, pretty bad instruction and son got food poisoning so spent the last 3 days of the holiday stuck in the hotel room.
I would seriously do more research, look on here further down this topic and go anywhere else.

There are cheaper ways to do a ski holiday than booking a package deal if you are prepared to put in the effort to look for the best value.

Would you consider term time? We found that for a family of 4 in February flights dropped from £3000 to £300 by moving it to the week before half term, and accommodation dropped from £1400 to £700. Covered the £240 we had to pay in fines easily.

We are going over Christmas this year as flights then we're cheaper than February half term (alas now we have to stick to holidays).

Would you consider self-catering? We self-cater and incorporate our weekly shopping budget into the holiday budget, buying some essentials for the apartment and eating out other times. We generally have breakfast and evening meal in the apartment and lunch out, though occasionally I pack a lunch instead.

Our apartment was via VRBO, which is similar to Airbnb.

We book our lessons and hire directly with the ski school and have found them fairly reasonable. It's passes that are the killer. The online advice for those is to save save save.

Oh no @whereshalligo, that sounds awful! I was hoping that Borovets might be better than that now as I think they were still developing the ski industry there back then- but the lack of snow is a big one for skiing isn't it

@RhubarbFairy term time is out unfortunately, ds1 will be in his last year of A levels and ds2 last year of GCSEs so neither can afford to miss the teaching.

I definitely prefer self catering, ds1 in particular would enjoy being able to get out and about in the evenings so a resort with easy access to reasonably priced restaurants and cafes would help that.

I wonder if anyone has any experience/views on Borovets itself? Or a similar alternative? Perhaps Andorra?

I've not used them myself, but this company was recommended for good budget skiing trips www.action-outdoors.co.uk/winter/information/planning-packing/beginner-ski-holidays.

We did our first ski holiday last year and went to Rauris, Austria on a recommendation. It's just down the road from the much bigger and well known Zell am See.

We found it to be the perfect beginner and family friendly resort as it's fairly small. We liked that we couldn't get lost and everything was easily accessible.

We are going this December as it was a cheaper alternative to February half term and are going over Christmas as that's cheaper than New Year.

Flights were about £700 for 2 adults and 2 children. We got our accommodation for a steal, but self-catering for that week would be around £2-2.k for a 3 bed apartment (assuming that's what you want).

We opt to transfer by train as it's a direct service from Salzburg city centre and a taxi for the 5 miles between station and resort.

The village and lots of apartments are less than a 10 minute walk from the ski school and main lift, but there is a ski bus too if you're on the other side of the village. There's not a major après scene in terms of partying, but there are cafes and restaurants. It might be a bit too sleepy for your older teen though.

As beginners we were happy to ski the same few runs on repeat as we were more focused on improving (read: getting down without falling over) than bothered about always having somewhere new to ski. There was comfort in the familiarity of the same runs as it was one less thing to have to think about.

Would Easter be out due to revision? It's often cheaper at Easter and from what I understand Cervinia in Italy is beginner and family friendly and still snow sure at Easter?

Wish I could edit my post. Just realised that there's 4 of you. In which case if you were happy to share a double with one child and put the other two in a twin, you're looking at around £1400 (ish) for a 2 bed apartment.