The hotel is pretty ok, although the finishings started decaying. Not all staff speaks English, but you can get along with them. Restaurant and food are ok, although a fresh orange juice is NOT included in the so-called Ultra All Inclusive! Jim Beam and Grant's do.

Many German tourists in the hotel and the resort. Very noisy and uncivilized. Made noise in the lobbies, in the resort and all night long in the streets. We got pretty upset by that German "education" and "civilization".

We stayed in August with our 8 months old daughter. We loved it and she loved it :).
We were kinda stressing that this is a young's resort, so it will be a lot of noise and it won't be proper for a family with child. We were wrong :) There were so many children, every table had at least one children.
The sea and the beach are great, simply great! The sand is very smooth, and the sea offered us some waves so we played a lot, it was great!
Ups:
-The family rooms are quite large
-Every room has sea view
-The food is very good
-Staff is friendly and the cleanliness is ok
-The drinks (whiskey, bear) are ok. The juice however and the coffee...not so good.
-The pool is nice, fairly sized
-Private beach with sun beds and umbrellas, included drinks

Downs:
-no apartments
-the idiots and the elevators (it's not that the elevators are not enough, it's the idiotic people that push both up and down; thus, one lives at the 3rd floor and wants to go downstairs...well, instead of pushing only the button for down, the idiots pushed both buttons and then went into the elevator going up, please imagine that they were unhappy that they stopped each floor going up and then, when the elevator stopped again at the 3rd floor and no one appeared they were in shock-their little brains did not comprehend that the elevator stopped there because they pushed the button for down also)
Overall, very satisfied! We stayed in Bulgaria before and frankly did not expect much, so Hotel Astera was a nice surprise!

Astera is the best hotel in the golden sands , foods are very delicious , rooms are so clean and the important things about this hotel is all the rooms have see view , and it is so close to the beach and it has private beach with exclusive buffet , and best club and disco "Arrogance" is under this hotel ,and the hotel staff are very polite and friendly , the only problem in this hotel is the elevator you have to stay about 5 minutes to go downstairs or upstairs

I really enjoyed this hotel ...we spent there 2 weeks in August 2007
The location was great, food even better (we were having breakfast and dinner there) rooms were clean and comfortable. next to the beach, sea . Most of the hotels in Golden Sands Bulgaria have a very small pool, because of lack of territory, but hotel Astera has a large pool on the second floor of the building with a bar and a cafe. also there is a casino.
Really enjoyed my time there. I wanted to spend there my summer vacation this year but unfortunately they've raised the prices i guess, so that's the only minus for me :P In general i had there a good-quality time.