Grand Hotel and SPA Primoretz score by the 5D Sensograph of placescases.com: 4.2 out of 5.

August 2019

 

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Reading time: 3.5 min

Fast mode reading time (bold and coloured text): 2 min

Grand Hotel and SPA Primoretz has a 60-years anniversary. Happy Anniversary to the team of Primoretz! I wish them to develop their services further and to reach the level of world high-level hotels!

My wish is not accidental. The hotel is one of the best in Burgas. It has a unique location-in the Sea Garden, on the first line of the beach, i.e. only the garden separates it from it. It has a swimming pool, which is extremely pleasant. The beach area of the hotel is large, with very fine sand, with tents for the hotel guests.

Unfortunately, apart from Primoretz reservation department, all other divisions have major omissions. The main reason, I think, is the poor staff coaching. I feel that these people have never been trained modern hospitality methods and they do not have the necessary communication skills. A much better service and customer relations management is needed. I believe some improvement of processes is also required.

See ….

…. The hotel is luxurious, with huge comfortable rooms. There is no analogue of this comfort in the city and maybe the whole South Black Sea. It is possible that there is a similar one at Sunny Beach but I do not visit this resort and I cannot compare, at least at this point. I see that hotel “Bulgaria” in Burgas is under reconstruction and it is possible to become a serious competitor;

…. There are nice prints all over the walls. They are not copyrighted but are beautiful and create a very pleasant artistic atmosphere;

…. But besides these prints, there are paintings of one of the distinguished and good contemporary Bulgarian painters Pavel Mitkov. I have seen his paintings also in Hotel Yastrebets in Borovets. He has his own gallery in here. Joy for the eyes are his works and a wonderful stylish touch to the hotels’ interior design;

…. Many artificial flowers and bouquets as decorations. Being artificial doesn’t affect badly the interior, because the spaces are huge and you have no business getting close to them to notice they’re not real.

Feel ….

…. In general, employees endeavour to be polite with guests but it is obvious that they lack general communication skills and hospitality training. For example, at reception some members of the team are not smiling at all, others feel bothered with the new software and are more busy with it, instead of with the guests;

Hotel Primoretz is the only one in Bulgaria that we visit at least twice a year. No other hotel enjoys our presence so often.  Another hotel which we visit regularly is Yastrebets in Borovets. Unlike the last one, where we are already known by all employees and addressed by our names, here in Primoretz they always ask us for ID cards, instead of checking if we were already guests of the hotel and using the available in their system data. We were never remembered at the restaurant and never greeted for returning, although we celebrate a birthday there regularly every year.

…. The service is worst in the restaurant. Nothing changes there over the years and I am afraid it is even deteriorating – they keep the same managers, who have no desire for improvement, not even to change the a la carte menu. And we are talking here about one of the few fine-dining restaurants in the city- Salini. The prices are high, of course.

The hotel breakfast takes place in Salini. In the morning you can see many waiters around, but most do not dare to talk to the guests because they do not understand English or Bulgarian well. They run forth and backwards, refuel constantly, but the whole thing looks more like chaos, because you can see waste rolled here and there, dirty pots in the place of the clean, while the latter are missing, etc. It is difficult to catch a waiter to whom to order an espresso (which is paid by the way).

The most outrageous thing is that there’s a table in the corner that’s been permanently booked for years, can you imagine- at breakfast, no matter how many people there are and whether there is not place for guests to sit. Little kids with plates in their hands are wandering around looking for a table, but they can’t sit there and do you know why? This table stands empty because it is reserved, “for the Boss” as one of the waiters explain to me once. Great, we’re still in the last century of Bulgarian tourism, when the boss was more important than the customers!

The ways of the socialist Balkantourist service and its bugs are obviously kept in the heart of some hotelier and restaurateur. When exactly will it be clear to these people that they should put the guest as a priority in their efforts, who should be not only accommodated, but also cared for and satisfied? First comes the customer, not the boss and his claims to have a permanently booked table, a parking space in front, the best apartment in the hotel, and so on!

…. The pool/beach towels provided by the hotel are a metaphor for its “customer care”-undersized, able to cover only half of the sunbeds, thin and worn. People take 2 to cover their own sunbeds and to wipe out effectively. Also, you have to take them out by yourself from a chest. Usually the lifeguard was giving them out to the customers but now he was often missing and whoever was unaware of the self-service option, waited hopelessly someone to pay attention to them and give them a towel;

…. This year there was a pleasant novelty at the beach- a bar offering drinks and simple snacks. As far as I understood, the hotel has nothing to do with it. Only, the sunbeds in front of the bar cost EUR 10. They are very pleasant, but quite far from the sea;

…. The hotel has its own area with tents on the beach, which are included in the price of the accommodation. However, very often the boy who serves them lets people who are not guests of the hotel (I suppose that it may even be for a fee for himself but cannot claim it for sure). Accordingly, when there were no seats for us, we were seated on sunbeds in the neighbouring area. The other unpleasant thing is that no matter how expensive suite you have rented, the best places on the beach on the first line are occupied by free visitors with their own umbrellas and towels. To get into the water, you go through their dense barricade. Well the beach is state property, and everyone has the right to settle wherever they wish. What to do, we must accept it;

…. Wi-Fi this year was not with constant quality. There were some restrictions and I could not connect through it with my Microsoft account or stream HBO GO;

…. In general the house keeping is doing decently, but there is no standard of work- sometimes one towel was replaced and the other – not, sometimes they wash the sink, and others- not….;

…. Primoretz’s elevators are one of the most sluggish I’ve used in the last 20 years. It can make you claustrophobic until you reach the last (5th) floor. And if you happen to be in the apartment wing, it can’t be reached only by lift. You go through a maze of corridors, stairs up, stairs down, until you reach your suite. You can get lost. The piccolos that carry the luggage are dragging the suitcases up and down by foot because the elevators of the suite wing do not reach the reception. Poor guys! You give them a bigger tip since you feel sorry to them.

Hear ….

…. In general the hotel is quiet, only the surf of the sea is heard. Even when there is a wedding, it is in the mezzanine restaurant and nothing is heard on the other floors. Only occasional drunk wedding guests can disturb you by banging doors and yelling in the corridors. But in general, it happened to us only once.

Movie watching time: 2.36 min.

Smell ….

…. There are aromatizing devices that spray essence in the corridors which was not intrusive and is even pleasant;

…. The cosmetics in the bathroom are really nice,  Herba Logica brand with a flavour of verbena. 

Taste ….

…. The breakfast is rich, but it’s not something special. The cheese pastry pie most of the time was dry, the mekitsa (traditional Bulgarian fried dough pie) was ok. The charcuterie was not of the best quality. For a few days the white cheese was brittle, obviously different delivery, because after that it got better. The tomatoes and cucumbers were delicious, the fruits too. The eggs were scrambled and boiled, but they could also make them fried or as omelette;

…. No compliment coffee in the rooms, while in hotel Promenade nearby there are espresso machines and good coffee in the rooms;

…. At breakfast there was something like a hostess, but she does not accommodate people, does not communicate much with customers, only smiles at them and serves… And was dressed in a colourful dress.  I am not sure what her exact purpose was;

…. We’ve rented two rooms –in both of them the air conditioner wasn’t working. I did not report at the reception because we didn’t need it;

In general, the service in Primoretz reminds me of the old Balkantourist style of customer care, however, not of its best qualities but the worst.

A lot of criticism took Primoretz and on their anniversary year, but I believe it is better for them to know their weaknesses. The rooms are expensive, the double is above EUR 150, the apartments cost even more. It is appropriate to match the quality of service with their own price level.

How to book your stay in Burgas?

Despite of the above criticism, Promenade and Grand Hotel Primoretz remain the two best hotels in Burgas. I personally would like to see the second further developing, to enjoy improvements for good and to be a leader on the southern Black Sea coast. I recommend you book your stay here.For your convenience, I added a booking.com box, which refers directly to their site. I guarantee you’re going to use all your genius discounts and privileges they would offer to you. Just enter the dates of your trip, then hit the Search button and voila. In addition, booking.com are doing their best to make sure that your expectations as a customer are fulfilled. I’ve described an example about the latter in  my story about our stay in Shangri-La hotel in Singapore.

Booking.com

How to get to Grand Hotel Primoretz in Burgas?

Don’t worry about getting to Grand Hotel and SPA Primoretz in Burgas. Just use the Google map here by clicking on the red pin of its location and then select directions:

ул. „Княз Александър Батенберг“ 2, 8000 Бургас Център, Бургас, България

А: 2 “Knyaz Alexander Batenberg” str, 8000 Burgas Center, Burgas

T: + 359 56 812 345

If you need a rent-a-car, you can book it here in the box of the largest booking platform.

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