Hey all,

My wife and I have just returned from a two week honeymoon in Sunny Beach and thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience.

We flew from Exeter and landed in Bourgas with temperatures at 35 degrees. I think the Bulgarian baggage handlers aren't quite as efficient as the British as it took 1 hr 30 minutes for the bags to start coming through. This resulted in an arrival at the hotel at 4am.

We stayed at the Iberostar and were welcomed warmly our bags taken to our room. Unfortunately the hotel does not offer a room service so we had to be up by 10am to be down for breakfast. But it was worth it. Buffet style with everything you can think of. Cooked breakfasts or continental style and pancakes, fruit and allsorts of other items. Watch our for the bizarre breakfaster choice each day which was cauliflower, sweetcorn, green beans, marrow and broccoli.

We decided to rent a safety deposit box which was 50 lev for the two weeks and is well worth the money to keep passports, tickets and money safe from wandering hands!

We had £500 in Sterling to spend and as our Nationwide Flex A/c cards did not arrive in time we took the money over there so we could change it into Bulgarian levs.

We met our rep at the welcome meeting and asked him the the direction to the nearest banks so we could change into levs. He offered to change our money at a rate of 2.8 lev to the pound which we decided to accept and met him at the hotel in the evening to do the transaction.

Unfortunately we also decided to do one of the organised trips to the blue mountains which was the most awful trip I have ever had the misfortune to go on. The so called air condition coach arrived at 8:30am with an open window in the roof. With temperatures at 40 degrees the coach trip was extremely uncomfortable. The trip consisted of a visit to a town with a church, then on to the coach for another hour and half before arriving at the mountains. An option cable car ride to the bottom (which was excellent) and then on to the coach to lunch. You would be forgiven for thinking it may be a nice lunch overlooking the mountains when you arrived into a courtyard withan empty swimming pool. After lunch it was off to the crystal shop where you could purchase souvenirs and then 45 mins free time in Sliven which was spent drinking cool beer in a air conditioned bar before heading back on the 45 degree coach journey.

We visited the Aqua Park in Sunny Beach which was well worth the money and is a full day. Some of the slides are very quick and steep but there are plenty of sun beds. Also the trip on the free bus will give you a view of the poverty of the country just yards away from Sunny Beach.

Sunny Beach itself in my opinion is a very good resort. There is lots to do and the prices are extremely reasonable, even in the most expensive bars. In most of the bars you can get a 'big beer' for 1 lev which is about 30p!

All in all we had a super break and didn't want to come home !