Booked a 10 day holiday to Bulgaria. The whole booking experience was fine and hunky dory. However a week into the holiday my partner and I came down with severe food poisoning caused by eating at the hotel we were staying at. We were out of action for 3 days and when we returned still poorly for a week afterwards. We spoke to Love holidays during our stay and there response was far from satisfactory. They simply didn’t care.

Our 10 day holiday was really a 7 day holiday as we spend 3 days in our room running to the toilet.

The hotel although it looked nice from the outside, was clearly unhygienic as many other people had similar issues.

When asked for compensation; Love holidays response was extremely poor, and wanted proof that we were ill. I’m sorry but I’m not going to photograph the result of the food poisoning and I was too ill to find a local doctor, indeed the cost of paying for a local doctor was somewhat prohibiting. My GP when I got home did confirm food poisoning and advised to go down the insurance route, but why should I pay the excess when I stayed in a unhygienic/dirty hotel?

we found the staff were polite.the cleaners always said hello.the bar staff were wonderful with a tongue in cheek sense of humour.we only ate there twice,first meal was speghetti carbonara which was plain speghetti with ham and no sauce,second was a pizza which was so salty we had to hit the pool bar to get rid of the thirst(any excuse for a drink!!).like a lot of guests we had a few meals at the friends across the road.one thing that was a big miss was no kettle in the room.i thought even basic hotels had this as standard.it was a 5 min walk to start of strip.this end tended to shut earlier than the other end it was a lot livelier.we got ripped off on 1 of the rickshaws.we got charged 40lev to go from halfway along the strip to the other end.i learned later it should have only been 10 so always ask for a price before you get in.all in all we had a great holiday.lots of restaraunts and shops.crying out for a rock bar though.sunny beach is like a new resort just finding its feet.

This is our third time at the Ivana Palace and found that this year the staff were much friendlier and more helpful this is due to the manager who is a lovely woman who we shared a few drinks with in Delian and Darina,s lobby bar a very nice couple who give an excellent service and who act as an a unofficial liason between the hotel staff . Our six year old granddaughter loved it here because off the pool and excellent ice cream, we have booked to go back again next year because we enjoy bulgaria so much.

The hotel Ivana Palace is a modern hotel built in 2002 and is situated to the north of the sunny beach resort within easy and short walking distance of the beach and Sunny Beach centre.
The rooms are very well appointed with carpeted rooms, and modern furniture, TV, Fridge etc. All rooms and common passages are very clean and the cleaning staff are extremely helpful, towels are changed when required (every day if you require) just place them in the bath and the will be exchanged.
The bedding is again changed on a regular basis around every 3 days.
The bathrooms are again excellent quality, tiled throughout, large bath with shower, toilet and washhand basin with the normal complimentary shampoo and soap on arrival. Negative in the bathroom is there was a constant lack of toilet paper in the rooms, but feel free to ask for more at reception. The brochures state a Mini bar in your room, please note there isn't.
The air conditioning in your room is absolutely useless I complained over a 3 day period to repair or resolve the problem, however the outcome by the maintainance manager was the A/C was useless so please dont expect more than a fan blowing luke warm air around your room. average temp in our room was 26c.
The hotel bar is resonably priced however resembles a airport waiting area, no music just a TV on the bar,with Eurosports or Bulgarian pop music, lite or no atmosphere here and pretty tragic.
There are 3 lifts in the hotel that take a maximum of 7/8 people which is far short of the need of a hotel with circa 450 guests over 5 floors, and recommend the stairs at breakfast or peak times.
The reception staff are friendly but speak limited english so be patient when trying to explain or gain information.
The pool area is nice however far to small for the needs of the hotel as it is open to all the appartments in the area and not just the hotel residents. Sunbeds are in short supply and were all taken by 7.30am every morning, however I did complain to the manager on the shortage of sunbeds and 2 days later had 30 more delivered, so dont be afraid to speak up. The pool bar is well manned but again tragic, drinks only, no food or snacks.
The dining room is small with a patio area, the food is poor and insufficiently warmed on the servery, 65c is the UK Food Hygiene boards recommended and legal standard in the UK, food here was maximum 35c, food handling routines were suspect as cooked and raw meats/ diary products were handled with same utencils and in my opinion this is a food poisioning risk pending. The toaster in the breakfast bar was totally useless and could just manage to warm the bread in 5 mins, so forget toast. Cold breakfast food was simply the food left over from dinner the previous evening Ham and pasta salad for example. I believe after talking with other guests that dinner was as bad if not worse. The best alternative is the "Friends" bar over the road were the food, service and atmosphere are much better, and the hotel staff eat there too, if that doesn't say it all!
The hotel is multinational, with a strong scandinavian presence, Danish, Norweigien, Swedish and Finnish as this is in all the main scandinavian brochures. Many Russian ,Polish and British also.

Hi all,

Just returned from Ivana Palace. We werent sure what to expect as we were never there before.
The hotel was very nice and the pool area was fantastic. Weather was also great which helped.The reception staff had very little english snd were very poor from the moment we arrived it was as if they couldnt have cared less whether we were there or not.

On arrival we were given 2 apartments ,2 doubles and 1 single when in fact we had booked 3 apartments, 1 double and 1 single. This was due to the air con not working in one of the apartments and they had to move half way through the first week. None of this was explained to us on check in and when we went back down to query the room we were told to return the following day as they did not know what was going on.

The rooms were fairly big. The only problem was that everyroom is a different size. The single room that we booked was in fact bigger than the double room.
The rooms were in good condition. Except for the damp patch in the ceiling of the living area of our apartment.

Cleaners in my apartment were great it was the same lady eveyday and I gave her a 5lv tip the first day so I never had a problem with her she was excellent .
However the rest of the group werent so lucky two rooms got called to reception over towels where they were asked to pay for the towls as there was sand from the beach and a bit of make-up on them .. We were not impressed as the manner in which the reception staff handled it was a disgrace they never tried to get the stains out and just wanted the money. The bill was paid and we brought the towels up to the room and left them soaking ourselves and returned to snow white towels. When we went down to reception to show them they totally ignored us and told us that we were a dirty group..
When I was checking out I seen them carrying on the same with a young couple who had a very young baby and got a bit of chocolate on the bed sheets they wanted the couple to pay 45 lv for the sheet, so we think this might be a bit of a scam that they have to get money.

The lobby bar was lovely and they served drink all night.. Also security were very nice once you treated them with respect and didnt take advantage of the fact that they had a job to do.

The location was good it was walking distance to the strand and beach and 5 mins from the main street - flower street.

Overall my experience of Sunny Beach was excellent and I will return next year but ubfortunitly I cannot say the same about this hotel.

Our only complaint about the holiday was our hotel, Ivana Palace. The hotel has the makings of a good hotel, the rooms are spacious and the pool is brilliant. However customer service does not appear to have reached the reception staff at the hotel and security is non-exsistent. Each time we left the hotel we would hand in our keys. On numerous occassions when we went back for them we were informed that they did not have them and we had not handed them in. As far as they are concerned that is it. Your problem. They start talking to each other and ignore you. You stand there like an idiot. When they realise you are not going away they start searching again. On two occassions they key was actually thrown at me across the counter when it was found and landed on the floor! No apology. One night a girl spent ages looking for our key and informed us that she was not sure where it was as she did not work at the hotel she was the security guards girlfriend. We rented a security box from the hotel. However when we requested them to open the door and use their key to open our box (it worked on two keys, one we kept, one they kept), they rarely could find their key to the security room. We waited in a queue one morning for fiftheen minutes whilst they looked for their key.

Breakfast was unedible but we expected this before we went. What we did not expect was to be surrounded by so many wasps. Thankfully Friends Hotel and Bar is opposite Ivana and everyone appeared to go there to eat.

On checking out we were informed that we had stained two sheets whilst we were there and that we were to be charged 40 lev. We were at the Ivana for two weeks and the sheets were not changed in that time, so they may have been right! We refused to pay for the sheets and asked to see them. They produced two sheets from the office behind them that had massive stains on them. This was not done by us and we refused to pay. We put our suitcases in the holding room and went to Friends. When we returned to our cases a little while later two of them had gone. We went to reception and asked for the Police to be called as our bags had been stolen and were informed that they had taken them and would not return them until we paid 40 lev and that they had been told to do this by the Balkain holiday rep. We went to the General Manager and demanded that our bags be returned. She refused. I asked for the rep to be called and she again refused. So we sat in her office and in the end she called the rep and spoke to him in Bulgarian. She then gave me the phone to talk to him and he told me to just pay the 40 lev as it wasn't much. I told him the amount was not the point and we would not pay and why had he told them to take our bags. He said he had not said that and they were lying. I asked him to come to the hotel but he informed me that he was back at the office and too busy and to pay the amount and if we did not then they would increase it! We had no choice but to pay and we insisted on taking the sheets. I asked for a complaints form and was informed by the General Manager that they did not accept complaints. She even refused to give her name! We put the sheets in a dumpster opposite the hotel and later saw reception staff going to the dumpster and pulling out the sheets.

Back from Sunny Beach yesterday (12/7/08) after our first time to Bulgaria/SB. We loved the IVANA PALACE hotel (went with Balkan Holidays). It is a large, modern hotel set back off the main road at the northern end of SB, but only 5 min to beach front and prom (across the busy main road, but has a light controlled crossing and bus stop.
We had requested a "higher floor and pool view room, I emailed the hotel a week before we went, and we got exactly that - the 4th floor and a pool view (room 411). The top floor (5th) are larger family rooms which Balkan do not offer online.

Our room was really nice, clean, big and bright (the outside/balcony wall of the rrom is all glass - windows with a central lockable door. Room had twin beds, double wardrobe and shelves (take some extra hangers, plenty room for storage for us two, dressing table unit with cupboard, TV with cable/music channels, phone, coffee table, bed setee (if needed this is the third bed and not very big), mini fridge which was empty so you can put your own stuff in it, water, drinks etc).
Nice, modern, clean fully tiled bathroom with over-bath shower, plenty hot water, hair dryer.

Balacony was a bit narrow but fine for us two, glass sides and front, so may be a worry if you've got young kids, plastic table and 2 chairs on balcony, plus a useful dryer for clothes. We had a pool view, rooms on other side of hotel look out over the entrance and other hotels/Apartments and Friends Pub/bar. I would certainly request a pool view room if possible.


Maid service was excellant on our floor, room cleaned every day, towels changed regularly if you put them in the bath, bedding changed twice in the week, beds were comfortable & have summer weight quilts and a cover.


Pool and sun terrace are really nice, lovely big main pool with central 'mushroom' fountain, bridge over to pool bar and a smaller kids pool with fountain. Both pools cleaned every day and have 'walk-in' steps at either end, main pool 1.2 - 1.5 meters deep. Plenty sun beds, matteresses and sun brollies, BUT if you want pool front beds or those in a particular place (eg sunny spot all day), you'll need to get up to put towels out from 6.30 - 7.00. Generally all beds had towels on by 8.30, and the hotel does NOT have any rules about this, some sunbeds with towels on did remain unoccupied for long periods, put no one seemed to complain, we simply had to join this or missout, so towels out early with all the others. We were lucky and always got the 2 beds we wanted, most people kept to their regular spot each day around the pool - funny isn't it!

This is a multi national hotel, but quite a lot of Brits/Irish so you are not out numbered. Mainly couples and families when we were there, some groups of younger people but no bother.


We put our 2 towels out then went in for breakfast (from 7.30 - 9.30). B'fast same every day, was ok for a week but would have got sick of it after that. Cereal, bread/toaster, salad, hot (Warm !!!) selection, hotdog style sausage, fried-bolied-scrambled eggs, french toast, small cakes, juice, tea, coffee, yogurt & some fruit. You MUST show your meal card at breakfast as they check it everyday. Tables cleared & cleaned quickly, the staff were pleasant but rarely smiled and most of the girls looked half dead each morning (had been out on the town the night before?). Restaurant manager kept them at it, but was himself not very friendly (none of them said good morning), but overall not a problem, as we were only in for b'fast for about 30 mins each morning. If you go down later there was less selection as stuff did not seem to be replaced very often and the water for coffee/tea got cooler!
There is a handy cafe-bar (FRIENDS pub) opposite the front of the Ivana selling English b'fast, snacks etc.and main meals in the evening. You can pay for A'la Carte meals in the Ivana in the evening, but I would not bother as eating out was very good value.


Hotel has a very nice bright lobby/24 hour reception and money change, 09.00 -22.00 (closed 13.00-14.00 for lunch). Lobby bar is ran by a lovely couple, excellent range of beers, spirits & cocktails etc at reasonable prices, no happy hour that I was aware of. Bar seemed to be open all hours, but never too noisy, has one pool table.
There is also a very usefull well stocked mini supermarket off reception, selling water (big 5L was 3.5 Lev), drinks, sweets, crisps,icecream, fruit etc etc, open till late and good prices. Another good s'market at EFIR Apartments just in front of the Ivana, on the main road, a bit cheaper, more selection (bread, meats etc) and only 2 mins away. The Ivana had no rules that we were aware of about bring food or drink into the hotel. We usually bought our water and soft drinks from the mini market in the hotel and took them out to our sunbeds. The pool bar sells drinks and ices all day and is open until late at night but was rarely busy at night as most people used the lobby bar.


There is a bus stop on the main road in front of EFIR Aparts only 2 min from hotel,regular buses to central SB (Kuban Hotel-tower block is classed as the 'centre', or further to Nessebar (which is really lovely, well worth a visit. All fares are 1 lev per person regardless of stop, pay the conductor on the bus, can be very busy but the Ivana/Efir stop is before the main strip so better chance of getting on & getting a seat!Not child or buggy friendly, so if you've got kids you'll need to fold the buggy before getting on. Only 5 nims along to centre, for the market or Flower Street (Kuban hotel).

We loved the Ivana for it's good location, quiet nights, lovelly pool and big room, and would certainly go back, also have NO problems with Balkan holidays, flights on time (oldish planes but ok), reps good and on time at hotel, do a useful Welcome meeting at the Fat Cat bar (beach front) on first morning (free bus there and back from hotel).
We booked KHAN's TENT night at