Barcelo Royal Beach

"Terrible. Avoid this hotel like the plague. Dated rooms. Staff very rude and unhelpful. Food nice but not a huge variety and the same food night after night. Room service HAHA. We made our own beds. No bedding change all week. We had to ask for toilet rolls. All inclusive but we had to buy bottled water. Big joke. Drinks were all inclusive but water wasn't on the all inclusive package.."

"We chose the Royal Barcelo for its 5 stars, we knew that Bulgarian rating system is different to other countries but thought they would have extras that differed from their local competition. How wrong we were. We got to the hotel at 1am, got given a sandwich bag which albeit a nice touch, that's where the niceties ended. At 1am we just wanted to freshen up and to get into bed. The shower door would not close, the drains were almost completely blocked and the water was leaking out of the door that wouldn't close. After paddling around, I used the toilet where the flush was jammed on and a continuous stream of water was hitting the bottom of the toilet creating a very loud waterfall. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, it did when I got into bed, the mattress or bedframe had absolutely zero support, I sunk and almost rolled out of bed. I had to sleep on my wife's side of the bed until I could mention it to reception staff the following morning. We did this first thing in the morning where the receptionist noted down our issues on a piece of paper and we thought we'd give them the benefit of the day and went by the pool. Came back at the end of the day, the toilet had stopped gushing but the bed remained the same, no mattress changed. However bizarrely, whoever came to our room left a toy car on my side of the bed and an old dusty aloe Vera bottle and a luigi keyring on my wife's side. We contacted Jet2 who told us to go visit the guest relations manager. As we did he greeted us with "oh, I thought it was an old couple coming to complain but you're young" (like that should make any difference!). He told us the flusher has been fixed, however it hadn't because it did the same thing again earlier in the day, and the bed frame slats were broke and it had been replaced. We requested a change of room but this was denied. The final straw came on the 2nd night where I was sick after a day of feeling unwell, possibly putting it down to either the stress of the beginning of our holiday, or the recycled food that had been put out for dinner that they also had out for lunch. This, along with the daggers we felt from the unfriendly and hostile staff made it clear we wanted to move hotels, which Jet2 arranged. We were quickly accepted the next morning to a nearby hotel. We went down to reception to check out and asked the receptionist to order us a taxi. The receptionist recognised our leaving date and asked why (even though he would've been told by Jet2 we'd be transferring) he asked us where we were going and told him the name of the hotel and without hesitation and with attitude "are you SURE you want to go THERE?" the answer was either there or home because the Barcelo is THAT bad. Other side notes, bottled water not all inclusive, refilling your own bottles is frowned upon, the pool is ridiculously freezing cold, the sports bar was not open once in the 3 2 days we stayed there and they didn't open the second restaurant either. We did salvage our holiday with a wonderful 4 night stay at our new hotel. Avoid this hotel at all costs and do not be fooled by the "5 star" it's a 3 at very best."

"This is a good hotel in a good location. Rooms are spacious & clean with very comfortable beds. The pool area is lovely with plenty of sunbeds. Service at the bar is good with snacks from 12. The restaurant food is generally good with a wide choice of meals for lunch & dinner. I loved the salad bar & cheese selection. The only thing that could be improved is that often the main meals were not hot enough. If this could be improved then it would be 5 stars. It would not put me off staying again though. Only a few minutes to the main beach strip & same to the main bars/flower street. We are out twice - La Flor was fantastic & would recommend."