Helena Park - Ultra All Inclusive

I stayed here for four nights with my 17 year old daughter. Good choice of food. Impressive breakfast. There is a themed a la carte night in the pool restaurant 3 times a week but you have to book at least a day before so we didn’t get chance to try it. Cash machine in lobby. Aldo across the road. Beach is reached through Helena Sands. The sun bed area for the beach for Helena guests is not directly outside the hotel, it is a little to the right. Life guards on duty. We enjoyed watching the sunrise at 6am, while swimming in the sea, which was amazing and it was surprising how many people were there doing the same thing at that time. We have use of Helena Sands, but not the outside pool, which we hadn’t realised til we were (politely) asked to leave the pool. Helena Sands has a wonderful atmosphere, larger pool and beautiful reception area with lots of fish tanks. It was more serene than Helena Park and is not AI. Helena Park has a group of entertainment staff that work really hard at getting people involved. This seemed a bit much at first, but at times they weren’t there we missed them. A great mix of nationalities in the hotel - German, Polish and not many English. There are 4 bars - pool, restaurant, lobby and saloon bar. On the last evening we got the train outside of HelenaSands . This led us to a whole new world that we were previously unaware of which was 6 lev each way. It was a mix of Vegas, Blackpool and a fun fair. And was very busy. Who knew! My daughter and I did karaoke. Glad our hotel was at one end of the beach and not in the middle of all that. As others say, the beach bar is not part of AI. Got the bus for 3 lev each way to Nessebar, from the bus stop out side the hotel, across the road outside Aldo. There is a schedule of bus times up in reception. This was a lovely historic place. About 15/20 mins on the bus. Did a half day jeep tour which took us into the mountains and gave us some insight into the real Bulgaria. We flew back at 10pm (pick up at 7pm) and had the vacate the room at 12. This was fine as we still had use of all inclusive, and the pool and use of courtesy room for half an hour, which we booked the day before (you can’t book earlier than the day before). Overall we had a great time (once we worked out what we could and couldn’t do) and wished we could stay a bit longer.

Excellent stay. We went before the school summer holidays, so hotel wasn't full and entertainment wasn't fully up and running, which was fine with us as we were with our 19 year old son, who had just finished college. Had to nice big rooms, next door to each other. Staff were courteous, not always smiley, but that seems to be a Bulgarian thing. Free safe in room. Food was fine, as were drinks at the bars. Good and cheap supermarket on corner, across the road. We both have arthritis and were a bit worried about how slippy the bath was however, asked reception for a bath mat, which the housekeeping staff left the next day. Also, the hairdryers were hopeless. Indoor pool was usually empty, so we enjoyed that and kept out of the scorching sun. Bonus for peely-wally Scots, including one ginger. We used the gym a few times also. Not the best, but probably above average for a lot of hotel gyms. Both the indoor pool and gym are located in Helena Sands Hotel but we didn't feel unwanted. On the quiet end of the promenade, but nice stroll, or we used the train and bus. Bus was packed, but we managed to get seats on each trip, maybe after first stop, including trip to Nessebar. Got water taxi back from Nessebar and queue looked chaotic

I have stayed in this hotel for the past 5 years and love it I have written reviews on this before with little niggles and tips so here are some tips and an honest review. Ladies take your own hairdryer the ones in the room are a waste of time, If you own a fire stick take it as the only English Channel is sky news. Other reviews say the staff are rude I have never come across this admittedly they don’t smile much but that’s their way. The only issue we had was the lifeguard last year he was obnoxious and threw towels at us the 1st day can still see his face when I threw them back at him lol he handed them to us the rest of our stay so I put it down to he was having a bad day. It is very annoying that we can’t use the sister hotels pool as often empty and loads of sunbeds when our one is full or the sunbeds are all save I do feel the hotel needs to look into this. The Main Street is called flower street and lots of pubs and restaurants also some pubs have tribute acts the hotel entertainment is awful. Lots of fake bag/clothes stalls. All in all a great hotel and I am going back in September can’t wait.