Festa Via Pontica

Stayed here as a family of 7, 3 adults and 4 kids middle to end of September, arrived late at night to be greeted by a lovely lady on reception who checked us in me gave us all a pre packed lunch which was a nice surprise as we weren’t expecting anything, it contained rock hard sandwich with ham which looked like it had gone off the week before and a hard croissant, bottle of water and an apple, lovely offer but the water and apple was appreciated by all. Rooms are lovely and clean and very modern! Unfortunately there is little to no space for storage which meant the 4 of us were living out of our suitcases all week and no where to store them so felt like they were kinda in the way! The pools were by far the best thing about the place, we spent 5 out of 7 days in and out the pool the kids loved it, but cold when you first get in but you soon warm up with the warm weather All inclusive drinks were okay, abit hit and miss with the cocktails and the wine because end of season literally giving us whatever they had left! Now to the food! Oh my wow! I could have gone to prison and been fed better, on a morning breakfast had an omelette station, when she was there, a few times we asked and they just said no not today, once they said that I got beans on toast (literally only other edible thing other than the omelette on the buffet!) sat down and out come the chef asking if I wanted the omelette, by this point was just having my beans on toast! Lunch and dinner looked like the chef was just throwing whatever he could find and serving it! By day 2 they ran out of tomato sauce so said not getting anymore in! End of season! Got sick of listening to that by the need of the holiday, I understand it’s end of season but surely we shouldn’t get just the leftovers and scraps! No shops nearby as all had closed and no other restaurants other than a 30 min bus ride away into sunny beach, which we done and ate out twice! My 5 year old son had tears in his eyes when he had a bite of his food at the restaurant because it’s the only decent thing he had tasted! I’m not a fussy eater but everything looked either undercooked or just thrown together as all inclusive the food is a big part and it was a massive let down! The hotel itself is literally in the middle of derelict buildings! Everything including other hotels is boarded up! There is literally nothing about unless you want a 30 min bus ride, entertainment consisted off a 30 minute mini disco for the kids every night at 8-8.30 but exact same thing every night by day 4 my kids were just making their own entertainment playing football or in the nearby park by the beach, beach is abit run down too but I’m guessing that’s because there’s nothing about All in all if I came back to Bulgaria I would not go anywhere near this hotel! reception staff are absolutely lovely! Bar staff too busy on their phones to care and entertainment team you see for about 30 mins a day if that!

Hotel room - nice hotel. Got a 6th floor room. Spacious. But not much cupboard space. Nice bathroom. Big lovely powerful shower. Very clean. Nice balcony overlooking the pool and lovely trees in the hotel grounds. Food - I liked it but many UK citizens didn’t. Kids play areas - good. Staff - good but young. No one in charge especially in the restaurant / food hall - kids running about playing. Usually at hotels like this there is someone in charge to welcome you into the restaurant - but not at this restaurant. People - young people from Kyrgyzstan in the restaurant were smiley and nice. The locals generally arn’t. They seem to be living under a cloud - very gloomy. Location - Oh dear!!! Most of the hotels in that area have been closed. There’s grass and trees growing out of them. A huge hotel with 2000 beds just across the road from the Via Pontica is totally empty. Because of this there are very few shops and cafes in the surrounding area - most of them are boarded up - there’s nowhere to walk to. The hotel is kind of spookily isolated. Beach - nice - but again it was run down and tacky because hotels along the beach front were boarded up. Note - there doesn’t seem to be any town planners. This is important because nothing in the built environment is joined up. For example - pavements are often broken and there is no dropped pavements - so avoid if you are using a wheelchair or pushchair. Visited the central beach area in the main part of Pomorie. Central Pomorie along the seafront here is probably the worst beach holiday destination I’ve ever visited in my life. Horrendous. Also visited Sunny Beach. Cheap as chips resort - loud music - all day English breakfast - cheap ale - gangs of young guys wandering about shouting. What I saw of Bulgaria is that it is decades behind other beach holiday destinations in southern Europe and Turkey. Bulgaria seems more like a 3rd World country than a member of the EU. Which is a shame because this little corner of Pomorie around the Via Pontica Hotel could be made to be nice.

Hotel lovely staff great room bright and comfortable beds great big shower always plenty of hot water grounds are kept really well .2 minutes from beach with free sunbeds and parasols now thats where it stops Food is disgusting name tags didn't fit the meal shown so pot luck on what you were eating and it was lukewarm or cold even when it was just coming out of the kitchen the snack bar food was also cold would be good if he had a bell to ring so you knew he was cooking fresh burgers and fries the only hot food we ate in 7 days we were there was fresh omelette on morning soup and the donuts. Even when going down at the time of opening food was edging on been cold, I wasn't expecting pie and mash or fish chips n mushy peas, but something edible would be nice. Dublin bar at the back of the hotel is nice lady friendly over the week we ate there a few times . If expecting any adult entertainment then don't none on at all and a couple had been there 10 days before us no entertainment then people were just sat playing cards as nothing else to do even outside of hotel nothing round about at all except for Dublin bar for food and penelope's heading down to beach

When we arrived, we were dropped off outside. We were the only ones that got off the coach. Honestly, I wish we hadn't. We went upstairs in the lift and walked to reception, we were informed that there would be no tui rep here during our stay and if we required any assistance that we would find an online chat on the tui app. We signed in at reception, and we were asked for our booking form. I told her we didn't receive a booking form and showed her th3 holiday booking on the Tui app. We were given 4 brown paper bags that had an apple, a warm roll, and a warm bottle of water in. We were shown to our room, which felt like it was miles away, we had to go up one elevator walk to another side of the building, then go down another elevator. The elevators were so small we couldn't fit us and our cases in, so we had to go 2 at a time, which wasn't a problem. We got to our room and were very impressed by the size. Although the toilets were square and very uncomfortable to sit on, the children's beds were very flimsy and collapsed on them a couple of times. The rooms were very dark with only a lamp as lighting. The air conditioning was very good (when it worked) we only had one single wardrobe for the 4 of us, which wasn't enough space, so we ended up living out of our suitcases. We did have a safe and small fridge, which came in useful. The next morning, we went to the restaurant for breakfast. It's not a great selection, hot dogs, cold eggs, and cold beans. Some bread and some bacon, lots of salad. They also had a waffle station. Which on the first day my children loved. We all had waffles with some chocolate spread. We then went to have a look around...there were 2 small shops, one near the beach, and th3 other behind the hotel. Both were extremely expensive and didn't have a large selection. We bought a couple of pool floats for the kids and went to the pool. The pools were filthy. Grime marks around the sides, and debris sat at the bottom. It was very windy, which didn't bother us that much, until the umbrellas started flying about, as well as the bins. The drinks were very hit and miss. The sprite tasted like soda water and the Fanta like pure syrup, so we had to order both and mix them together. Food at lunch and dinner were pretty much the same, some veg, rice and pork, all cold, pasta either mushy and cold or only half cooked with crunchy bits. It was disgusting the selection was poor. My kids wouldn't eat anything. So we had to go out to eat the snack bar on occasion was a little better. Although the chips were usually okay, the burgers, sandwiches and pizza was poor quality. The doughnuts were pretty good though. Same thing seemed to be served every day, whatever wasn't used would be served at the next service. The July thing that seemed fresh was the fruit and salad, which would have been fine if my family could stomach eating only salad everyday which when you have 2 small children, they won't. For the first few days we didn't see the ente

The rooms are spacious and cosy! The hotel is clean and well-maintained! It’s close to the beach, and the sea view was just beautiful! The hotel staff is very friendly and we have to say thank you to Stelios and Aneliya! I loved every single second of our stay! We would definitely come back next year!

One of the worst hotels that we have been to. The staff were rude and would laugh at us if we had any issues. The food was average and the same daily. The entertainment staff were nice but thats about the only good thing. Everyone was very hostile with us and again the staff were very unhelpful and useless. It is also surrounded by derelict hotels and there is nothing for a 10 min+ car ride. If you want to be treated with respect then choose a different hotel.