Felt the need to stick another review of Bansko on here. I skied the weekend 1st March.

Bansko is a small resort. There's no doubt that there is too much accommodation and not enough pistes, but I think the recent poor reviews here are unfair. Get up early and you'll walk on to the gondola, no problem, we didn't queue once. Wait until ski school and all the stag weekenders to get up though and you'll queue obviously. As you would in Kitzbuhel or Les Deux Alpes or Morzine. In fact, anywhere with limited lifts up the mountain. On the mountain there is one bottleneck, avoid that (which is easy) and you'll have little issue with the chairs, all of which are fine. The pistes are very high quality and the review stating they're "unmarked" is rubbish. Truth be told, there's no way anyone could get lost anyway. Again, skiing at peak times on the blues can be busy but Bansko is a resort aimed at beginners. They go on blues so what do you expect? Beginners often fall over too so seeing that a few times is hardly a surprise. Is Bansko any worse than anywhere else though? No, it is not.

In town, particularly up near the gondola, is a bit tacky. Bars like Amigos cater to the idiots which, again, you can find in 90% of European resorts if you want to. Walk down to the old town though and you'll find some absolutely wonderful Mehanas serving totally authentic food and drink. Again, LIKE EVERYWHERE ELSE, you can see what you want to see.

I've been skiing in Bansko for over 20 years. The people have always been great. Yes, the guys that have to put up with tourists all day are a bit surly (and show me a French lift attendant who isn't) but Bulgarians also have a very dry sense of humor and a rather blunt demeanor so I'd politely suggest that people who think they're rude probably misunderstand them half the time. I have never had an issue. Not once.

So, in summary, I'd personally ignore the negative reviews here. If you want a short ski break on decent slopes in a place set up for new skiers and don't want to pay a fortune you could do far worse than Bansko.