We stayed at the Unsaphire hotel in Tekirova. I booked this hotel on the basis that it was being sold to be as a five-star hotel. However, we were shocked upon arrival – we went on holiday on the basis of relaxing in a comfortable climate and we have come back exhausted, we have lost weight and we are extremely stressed.
The hotel looks as if it has not been decorated for the last twenty five years – paint peels off all the walls, there is damp in the bathrooms and a smell of damp throughout the hotel. The hotel is adorned with 70’s style patterned carpet in mustard and red, the curtains do not match and are equally old fashioned. The bar looks like a Warsaw cabaret club – there were fake flowers on each table, filthy mirrored walls.
As for the bedrooms, the website says: “all have balconies and satellite television”. This is not true. We stayed in room 261 which did not have a balcony. When we asked to move, we were told that the hotel was full. The satellite TV was in Russian and German – the only English channel was CNN.
We were told that the rooms had daily housekeeping – yes, this is vaguely true. There was in fact only one member of staff to clean the entire hotel interior and consequently, our sheets were not changed daily as they were supposed to have been. The sheets we did have were stained. In the bathroom, the plug holes were not cleaned out (I had to do this myself). The floor was never mopped (I know this as our feet were dirty whenever we walked in the room without shoes). Toilet rolls were not replaced. As for the mini bar that we were told was stocked daily, it was only restocked once (on day two of the holiday). The “full” complimentary minibar consisted of two cartons of juice, one small bottle of water and one can of beer.
We were the only non-Russian guests in the hotel that week and were told that we were the first British people to have ever visited the hotel. The consequence of this was that only one waiter and one receptionist spoke English – we do not normally have an issue with cultural diversity but when far from home on a holiday we have paid close to £650pp for, we need to know that the staff can competently deal with any issues we have. Had we known that the hotel has never been frequented by Brits and so does not provide for such, we would not have paid such a large amount to stay in a place that could not cater for us – especially as it is supposed to be of such a high standard.
The hygiene of the hotel was disgusting. We did not see the pool being cleaned at all. Neither were the deck chairs. The beach towels were stained and ripped – we ended up going into town to buy our own towels.
The absolute worst parts of the hotel were the restaurants and food in general. When I stated at the top of this email that we lost weight, this is without exaggeration. Firstly, in regard to hygiene, in the restaurant, pool bar and bar, cutlery, plates and glasses were dirty. It was disgusting – at each meal I felt nauseous. I found glasses with lipstick marks on three occasions and at each meal we had to scan through the pile of plates to find clean ones and regularly ask the waiters to replace our cutlery. By day three our meals consisted of the following: bread with plain butter for breakfast (flies swarmed over everything else or the bowls they were stored in were unclean); Lunch was a pancake on the beach (served on a paper plate); At dinner time we just lived off plain rice or chips – we are seasoned travellers and adore indulging in food abroad but the hotel used poor cuts of meat and everything was swamped in a vile watery tomato sauce. The salads were also covered in flies and desserts tasted as if they had been bought from a cheap supermarket.
Our attempts to eat in the two speciality restaurants were a disaster. Firstly, you need to amend your website – the Mediterranean restaurant is in fact just a fish restaurant – we booked to eat there on the fourth day of the trip. We got there an hour early to have a drink by the sea and were shocked to see that the fish starters were already laid out uncovered at each table an hour before the guests were due to arrive – in the open air at temperatures of around 30 degrees, this is surely another health and safety risk. We ended up having chips at the buffet restaurant.
On day five we booked to go to the Chinese restaurant which ended up being a clip out of Fawlty Towers. We were told to arrive at 7pm and did so. The restaurant is in fact just the terrace of their conference centre. The red tablecloth was filthy. There was one waiter for a total of about 20 tables. At 7:15pm the waiter told us that our 7pm dinner would in fact be served at 7:30pm and that we could “enjoy a drink in the meantime”. At 7:30pm the waiter came to take our drink orders. He brought our drinks at 7:45 along with a photocopied menu that was in Russian and German. After having been seated for 45 minutes with nothing but a glass of sour wine, we left and had another night of chips by the pool.
To top it off, the hotel had a collection of about 20 cats and these were fed by the guests at mealtimes – despite our protests to staff and guests we were ignored and so had cats crawling around our feet and on two occasions, jumping onto chairs to eat from the table. With rabies, fleas and goodness knows what else, this represents a really health and safety risk. My fiancé is allergic to cats and so every meal was a trauma.
The toilets at the hotel were not cleaned either – whenever I used any of the loos, the bins were always overflowing and the chart of cleaning times on the door of the bathrooms did not ever change. Once we were seated in reception and the cleaner walked past us with a mop and just traced a half meter line with the mop in front of our chairs so that it would look to any passing eyes as if the floors were being cleaned.
As for the watersports, we had three attempts at taking out the hotel’s complimentary canoes and water bikes. Each time we were told (in sign language as he spoke no English) that the sea was too choppy. Note that the weather was hot with barely a breeze and the sea was still and full of swimmers - at the adjacent hotel, their guests were happily using all the water sports. The chap did however each time try to offer us the water sports that we would need to pay for. We then observed throughout the course of the week that none of the guests were using the complimentary sports and the water sports staff spent the entire day bumming around on their paraglising boat blaring music – it was clear that they were just too lazy to allow us to use the facilities.
We then went to play tennis on the sixth day – whilst the courts were fine (bar the dead leaves all over them), in order to get to the courts, you have to walk past the staff/ service entrance to the hotel which is full of rubbish, dirty towels, food delivery vehicles and smells appalling.
We are used to the high standards of a five star hotel. After such a week we felt that we needed another holiday.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
