"We got home last week from a nice week away at the Melia Sunny Beach, which was a great value hotel for the price my mum and I paid for a start of season getaway. This hotel is very much a family resort, so if you’re looking for peace and quiet without children, this wouldn’t be for you, but we were more than ok being at a family resort.
The hotel complex is huge, right next to the Sunny Beach Strip and the beach. The strip was an experience, very loud and in your face, but we got some nice things from the shops when we ventured out on an evening. The beach was busy and hot so we only nipped down once to take a look, have a dip in the sea but we preferred the pool area. The hotel has a number of huge pools - these were really cold though so we went to the indoor pool a lot which was a better temperature. There were plenty of sunbeds around the pool, which meant that there wasn’t a mad dash in the morning to reserve beds. There were also lots of parasols around which was great.
Our room was lovely. We were in block 3 on the 8th floor, which overlooked the main pool area and had a slight view of the sea. The balcony was nice and spacious. The AC worked well once we worked out how to use it and our room was quiet, despite it overlooking the main entertainment area. The room had a mini fridge (not stocked) and a safe which we were happy about and it looked as though our bathroom had been recently refurbished. One aspect of the bathroom we were really happy about were the toiletries provided, which were Rituals! If we’d known this, we wouldn’t have brought any of our own shampoo etc. as they were so nice.
One aspect of this resort that was inconsistent were the food offerings. There are three buffet restaurants, each in one of the different blocks and you could use any of the restaurants regardless of which block you were staying in. We worked out that we liked the Spanish themed one best, as this was least like a busy canteen and had the best food offering. But it was so repetitive! I’m not sure I can look at paella or prawns again for a while! There were lovely fresh salads, bread, fruit and desserts, but the savoury hot dishes were so repetitive. If you were a picky eater, you would also struggle a bit. Sometimes the meat looked a bit mystery - it didn’t always align with what it said it was. Also, the fish on many days was tilapia or dogfish - I understand one or two days serving this but it being everyday was disappointing. The prawns with their shells on were nice when the chef wasn’t too heavy handed with the salt, otherwise they were pretty inedible as it was like they’d been cooked in sea water.
We were happy but also rather annoyed on our last day of our trip, as the food on the lunchtime in the Spanish buffet was superb. Fresh salmon and sea bream, beef fillet, tomato and buffalo mozzarella salad, proper Spanish cheese and meats, a selection of olives etc. The reason for the improvement in that lunch that one day seemed to be that the hotel guest experience manager was leading a Familiarisation trip lunch with travel agents from different countries. So a show was put on with the food - it was so annoying as they’d been giving us dogfish, leftover meat in stews etc. then suddenly it improved drastically when external agents were visiting! Really not great - if the food had been like that day over the whole week, we would have been really impressed with the food offering at this hotel.
We went into the Bulgarian buffet restaurant for dinner and for breakfast one morning in the Italian buffet restaurant. These felt a lot busier than the other buffet restaurant. The restaurants all seemed to serve very similar food and didn’t really live up to their themes, apart from the Spanish which did have lots of Spanish dishes on repeat everyday.
We’d read reviews that the Indian restaurant was really good at this resort and we did really enjoy the food in this restaurant. If you’re wanting an Indian meal like you get in Britain, you might not like the food here though. It was quite traditional, authentic Indian cuisine which was very flavoursome, which you would expect when the head chef for this restaurant was Indian himself. But he was rather rude when we spoke to him one night. We asked whether the menu changes and he said ‘well, if I can be bothered to update it outside on the board’. Not really what you want to hear. We only went back another night as the food in the buffet was so poor on that particular evening.
We visited the snack bar once during the week when we came back from a day trip out and the food here was lovely, freshly served and hot. We also tried some of the pizza slices one afternoon which were also great.
We were really happy with the drinks at this hotel - self-serve soft drinks were always available and prosecco/wine/beer was good quality. The only small gripe we had was that even on an evening at the pool bar, drinks were served in paper cups. Of course we understood this during the day around the pool and we got used to this as the week went on, but on an evening, plastic flutes/cups for drinks would have felt a bit nicer! You did get served proper glasses when eating in the restaurants which was nice.
One thing to mention is that the waiting/bar staff at this resort are so hard working, constantly tidying up, cleaning etc. A lot of them were seasonal workers from India, Egypt and Ukrainian staff. The language barrier was a bit difficult at times, but they tried their best and they were so friendly. A particular shout out to Ukrainian Katerina; Samir Daud; Mohan, Anubhav (who was the politest person ever) and Jade.
Strangely for an all inclusive the animation team were practically invisible, which suited us fine as we just wanted to relax and not be bothered, but for people wanting to do some activities, I'm not sure where these were happening? Maybe it was because it was the start of the season, but the only time we saw them was when they led the hotel dance on the stage on an evening. The entertainment on an evening was not great, the best evenings were the live music from the Irish guy and watching the Bulgarian culture show. Apart from this, it was slapstick circus, magic and variety show performances - not great but I suppose that’s personal preference.
Finally, a note for those who don't like birds: there are A LOT of seagulls. I am absolutely terrified of birds, but they actually didn't bother me. They only care about unattended food plates, so as long as you don't leave your table unattended or leave food around, you'll be fine.
All in all, a nice, relaxing week and good value for money. We won't rush back to the resort or the area, but I'd definitely recommend it for anyone looking for a budget-friendly getaway."
