Villa List Hotel in Sozopol

Sozopol is a nice and quiet little village. The location of the hotel is great. It is a minute walk to the beach and the hotel is in the middle of Sozopol. The beach is clean and the sea water is clear.

But the hotel is not a four-star hotel, at least not by the standards of tourists from Western and Northern Europe. The room was relatively new and clean and the air conditioning worked well in building D.

What surprised me was that half board does not include any drinks with meals, not even water, so in practice you are forced to take full board at an additional cost. We have never been to a hotel like this where half board does not include drinks with meals and we have been to dozens of hotels around Europe.

The pool bar only serves drinks to customers who have purchased full board. You cannot even buy drinks at the pool bar with money. Ice cream is available for full board customers, but you cannot get it from the pool bar and you have to leave the pool area to the restaurant, where you are not allowed to go in a swimsuit. The men working at the bars were nice, however. If you go to a restaurant in a swimsuit to get ice cream, the hotel manager will yell at you.

If you want hot food cold and appetizers warm, this is your hotel. The food is inedible except for ice cream and salads.

The cleaners leave threatening messages in your room, for example, you will have to pay a 20 euro fine if they notice drinks or food in your room. In addition, there are threatening messages in the toilet, if you mess up your towel you will have to pay a fine.

Based on the above, we will definitely visit Bulgaria again, but not at the Villa List hotel.

It is obvious that the tourist season does not start in may. We stayed here from may 22-25, and when we arrived there was alot og things that werent done. They were still cleaning the hotell and making it ready for tourist-season when we were there. The pool was very cold and dirty, and there was alot of bird poop on the sunbeds. The generall cleanliness of the hotell is ok. The towels does have some spots.

The mini-fridge in the room does not work. There is no way to block the sun out from your room, so you will wake up with the sun. We also got woken up by housekeeping at 09:00 our first morning.

The food is quite ok, despite there being a very slim selection. The drinks from the bar will vary quite alot. If you are lucky you get a bartender that makes good drinks, or if youre unlucky; one that seems to have never made one before in their life.
The bar in the dining area closed during our stay, so we had only the bar in the reception we could use. There was no pool-bar or any other bar available. The bar also closes at 22:00, witch I think is a little too early..
The reception is not open 24/7, even though the website says it is.
Nothing of the spa is open, and the sauna does not work.

I honestly dont feel like this hotel gives you what they say they will. It didnt really feel like an all-inclusive stay. And it certainly does not feel like a 4-star hotel.

The staff speaks very little english. Only those in the reception speaks a little english, all the others doesnt really speak any or understand any english.
Some of the staff also gives of a very strange authoritarian-vibe, witch can make you feel kinda akward..

But I will say this, they were very helpfull with helping us getting from the trainstation in Burgas to the hotell, explaining to us how we could find either a taxi or a buss (witch btw. is super cheap!). And very helpfull fixing us a taxi to the airport.
They were also super sweet to me when I accidentally dropped and broke a plate. I was so embarassed and went straight back to my table, and they came by with a new dessertplate and a drink for me and my husband and told me not to worry.

Sozopol is a really nice area. The beach is beautifull and the town is very charming. But I will absolutly find other accomodations if I were to visit again. I dont feel like I got what I paid for.

Somewhere between bad and okay standard of the hotel, I don't think it should be rated as four star. The breakfast buffet was bordering on inedible. Rotting fruit, strangely sweet bread, lukewarm fried eggs. The coffee was okay. At the bar I bought a toast which I had to throw away. Not even being able to make an edible toast is beyond all criticism.

It is also worth noting that the hotel has an incomprehensible layout. Everywhere small stairs and elevators (which sometimes break). The elevators are also very slow. Expect 10 minutes of wandering in stairs and elevators just to get to the lobby.

Must give a shout out to the staff though who were very helpful.

Not a 4 star hotel!Overall, terrible experience. When we arrived, the lady at reception was very nice to give us the location to the parking without mentioning that they do not have available parking for the hotel itself and purposely did not tell us it will cost us 30 leva for two nights - i consider this as a pure scam, if you don’t have parking space just include it in the price. The bartender/server on the reception bar was arrogant, rest of the staff were ok. There were no welcoming treats for the expected 4 star quality (not even one bottle of water), only warnings that if we consume something or damage any towels we will have to pay. And to make sure we pay for any potential damage on our checkout we waited at the reception for the review of the cleaning staff. The CHEAPEST ATTITUDE we have ever seen from a hotel. Also the interior of the room was ugly outdated and worn out. P.s the gym is ridiculous, broken equipment and small space. Else breakfast was good.

Worst customer service I’ve ever experienced. Old and very dated property, inedible breakfast. Elevator next to room would make loud noises that kept us up all night that would go off on every floor, requested it to be fixed multiple times which was finally addressed after two days of no sleep. Our bathroom smelled like a urinal and the manager was reluctant to send the maid to actually clean the bathroom. No blackout curtains so be prepared to be up early whether you want to or not. Worst experience and would never stay here again.