Spoiled holiday with Algol

A trip with Algol to Bulgaria.

Despite everything, I still visited Bulgaria. True, with Algol - for the first and last time.

Our adventures began in Ukraine. We were given a Bulgarian bus, which looked to be 15-20 years old. The distances between the seats were so narrow that you had to sit diagonally. And in addition, on the seat in front of the passenger there was a broken table (it opened and fell) and a mesh that was incomprehensible in function - after all, if you put something there, then there will not be enough space even for a 5-year-old child. In the ashtrays (no, probably this bus was made back when it was possible to smoke on buses - about forty years ago) there was garbage and chewing gum. Dirty red capes hung from the headrests. The whole bus gave the impression that all the good things were behind him long ago. And now he is already a well-deserved pensioner, who was asked to replace a young colleague in the hot summer season. As it turned out later, the Bulgarian partners of Algol, the Shans-Tour company, had all 20 buses of the same “pensioners”

With us was a guide Ulyana - a girl of 20-22 years old. Despite all our adventures, she still tried. And it is not her fault that she was not properly trained, had no clear route of stops, was not provided with normal drinks and food, movie discs and, I don’t even stutter, a DVD with a description of the country where we were going. There was nothing. For some reason, all this is in normal regular intercity buses. There is coffee-tea-water for free at any time - and not at night. Sandwiches, mineral-sweet water, beer, chips, pistachios, nuts for an additional fee. There is a refrigerator, a microwave oven and even (oh miracle!) There is a working toilet, which, however, is opened only in extreme cases. The bus in which we had to travel 28 hours (as it later turned out - much more) was none of this! No, there were still instant coffee and tea. They were brewed with water from a thermos. But, Ulyana, I don't drink coffee at twelve at night. We even had a TV - one black and white, no - red and white, and the second one was found by the passengers themselves - the guide was sincerely surprised that he did exist. Such a small folding one - they put it in cars, but not in buses. But here's the bad luck - they started showing it to us only when one of the passengers presented his disk with cartoons! Is it really that hard to record 5-6 movie CDs for a family audience? (When on the way back, with a full bus, the children began to show "300 Spartans", whoever saw it would understand that the passengers almost beat the guide).

And so we left. We were given passports and information, which mainly contained warnings that we could be robbed, deceived at exchange offices, dropped off the bus if we got drunk - but we still wanted to get drunk after 8 hours of the trip! And the company for all this, of course, is not responsible! The salvation of the drowning is the work of the drowning themselves!

The first surprise - we did not go through Stryi, but through Bibrka. So let's get there faster! No. It did not work out faster, because in Ivano-Frankivsk it was necessary to pick up passengers. First "sanitary" stop. Cafe "Klen". Cafe is a big word! Eatery "Maple". Here, it's more correct. Near it is a toilet "like a toilet." Terrible, dirty - he already charged with a positive charge and tuned in to a good rest. For some reason, I didn’t want to eat here - probably, I wanted to save my health and the money of insurance partners. Coffee, however, I still ventured to drink, because no one on the bus offered it to us. Next, we pick up passengers at the station in Chernivtsi, where we were not allowed to go to the toilet - our guide does not know that there is a toilet at every station!

And here is a stop at a normal gas station with a cafe and a supermarket, where we were told that we can relax and eat and buy, as we have to wait for another "Algol" bus, since it is easier to cross the border together. As it turned out later, we had to wait more than three hours for the second bus, and not at all in order to “pass the border”, but because the children from the second bus were registered with our guide! And we were forced to stand because of the "Algol" shortcomings for an extra three hours.

But we did not know that our adventures were just beginning and that the most "fun" we have yet to come!

Border! Finally! We very briskly drove to the border, and an endless line of cars stretched to the left. Dozens, if not hundreds of tourists, shuttles and other people in cars and only our second bus is ahead! Our passports were taken from us... and they didn't return them. An hour passed, a second, a third - the passports were finally returned, but not for everyone: first three children were taken from the bus, then two more. Our guide fought for them with all her might, but the customs was adamant - the documents were drawn up incorrectly! The power of attorney for the accompanying children was issued for 18 people, for almost everyone who works at Algol, except ... our guide! We missed three Belarusian buses, three Ukrainian ones, but they kept holding us and holding us! There was no toilet, no cafe ... Duty free was adamant - no passport - no service! Only three hours later we were able to get into the Ukrainian duty free. Yes, after duty free in Boryspil or St. Petersburg - a pitiful sight! I’ll jump ahead right away: the Romanians don’t have them at all, the Bulgarians have a free shop one and a half to two times more expensive than ours, the Turks have a kiosk! At the beginning of the fourth hour, they nevertheless let us through, removing five from the bus. And here is another three hours of waiting already in line with the Romanians. At 23-00 we were offered tea and coffee, but we no longer wanted anything - we just wanted to go. The children who were going to the camp, having seized upon a free life, got drunk on cheap whiskey from duty free and, not calculating their strength, “brought it back” for half a bus! The guide was practically dead from all these adventures. She couldn't have dragged the drunk teenagers out of the bus herself! To somehow get rid of the smell, she poured air freshener on the bus. Midnight. The Romanians finally returned the passports and we went, leaving five people in Ukraine.

As a result, having arrived at the border at 16-30, we entered Romania at midnight!

We drove for an hour and a half, suddenly stopped and the guide said that she was called and told to wait for the children, who were taken off the bus. The indignation of the passengers knew no bounds! After eight hours of standing, we have to stand still, no one knows how long, and wait for the passengers, who were removed due to the negligent work of Algol! Passengers were ready to drop off the guide and go further - at least. As a maximum, call television from Chernivtsi and give Algol a complete dressing down. In the end, we moved on.

Six in the morning. We stood in an open field and they announced to us: a toilet! In field! It's like we're some kind of beast! And we are still waiting for the disembarked children, who are being taken after us on the bus! As a result, the disembarked passengers were put back and we went through the country, it is not clear how, that ended up in the European Union - through Romania!

All the way through Romania, I asked myself the question - Why are they in the European Union, and not us? What did they find that we don't have? Imagine the contrast: the suburbs of Chernivtsi and three-four-story palaces of millionaires who came out of the "Kalinovsky" market and "ordinary" Ukrainian customs officers and a standard Romanian village with one-story houses with rickety roofs! The contrast is impressive!

At four o'clock we were told that three or four hours were left before the border. At ten o'clock, after a continuous drive (I don't take stopping in corn seriously), we did stop at a gas station, but it turned out that the stop was not for us, but for the driver! I fought my way with the child to the toilet and buy coffee. I repeat, no one else offered us coffee. Thank you Romanians! I would never have thought after all that I heard about them that they can be sensitive and sympathetic people! At the gas station, they didn’t accept my euros and an English-speaking Romanian treated me to coffee for free! I was genuinely surprised, especially since coffee at gas stations is not cheap - 2-3 euros.

By some miracle, we ended up in Constanta! It turned out that we were driving all around Romania to visit the most extreme Bulgarian resorts! And here is the long-awaited stop! Just not how we imagined it: IMPACT, PUSH, ACCIDENT! Six cars wrecked by our bus! Gypsies burst into the salon with shouts and fists and almost beat our driver! All passengers are shocked! To the credit of the Romanians (or our luck), the police showed up 10 minutes later. It turned out that we had an accident two hundred meters from the police station. We were also lucky that our bus was ancient, but strong. Logan's trunk was broken "soft-boiled", and the bus only split the bumper in two places and knocked out several protective glasses on the headlights. We were also lucky that there was a Good Samaritan who volunteered to be an interpreter and took our driver and guide to the police station in his car and stayed with them for two hours as an interpreter!

We were left alone in a foreign country, on the outskirts of Constanta, in a gypsy region. Without food (and it was already about one in the afternoon), without water, without the ability to get into the toilet, which we stopped for the last time at two in the morning.

About two hours later, our driver and guide appeared and drove on on our battered bus. Later, we learned that the same bus had already been in an accident on August 7 - the driver did not fit into the turn on the highway and tore off the side and bumper.

At 15-30 we reached the Romanian-Bulgarian border, although we were supposed to be there at six in the morning. Toilet, water. Free shop (a very expensive option for duty free), in which only water and chocolates. No cafe, no seedy diner! We very quickly crossed the border, in 40 minutes, and drove on. And by eight o'clock - half past nine in the evening (instead of 12 noon), almost in a coma, we ended up in Nessebar. We quickly found a taxi (thanks to Ulyana - she helped me find an exchanger at seven in the evening), showed the taxi driver a map and arrived at our hotel. The staff, seeing our voucher, quickly checked the list and showed us to the room without even asking for our passports. The room turned out to be the last free one with a view of the construction site, gypsy barracks and wastelands. But in our state, there was simply no strength to argue with anyone. I did not say anything about the fact that papers and magazines remained in the room after the previous tenants, who were a month and a half ago. The fact that the number was not removed. I did not pay attention to the fact that the bed, which we made ourselves, was covered in black and yellow spots. The room was dusty and dirty - I myself took a broom, a mop and cleaned the room. There was also no DVD player, which was promised on the Algol website, on which we counted heavily. After all, it is so convenient to start cartoons for children and go to a disco. And in addition to everything, without even having time to wash, the light turned off in Sunny Beach! In the dark, almost to the touch, dirty and hungry, we still managed to find a good cafe, the prudent owners of which took care of the generator.

As it turned out later, the staff of our hotel understands only two languages: Italian and Bulgarian, and a little bit of English. Our requests on the fourth day to change towels and part of the bed ended in a scandal on the seventh day, and only the night watchman responded to them, personally collecting clean bedding and towels in unoccupied rooms. The room, of course, was not cleaned by anyone, the sink in the kitchen, as it was clogged, remained until the very end, and we were offered to take out the garbage ourselves. We had to buy toilet paper and a pack of trash bags on our own from a nearby supermarket.

Yes, the pool at the time of our arrival was more or less clean, but wildly chlorinated. We even swam in it twice! By the end of our stay, the pool turned green, because no one cleaned it. We are almost used to the gypsies under the window. They even found their pluses in this: the children were happy with the goats and donkeys, and we were happy with the relative silence and the absence of music from the pool.

Bulgaria itself left an ambivalent impression. The sea is warm, even hot, but full of algae, which no one removes, although they were removed even in the Iron Port. The beach with sun loungers is more or less clean, but it is far from Ilyichevsk, where the sand is sifted every day and you will not find a single cigarette butt! The price for a sunbed / umbrella is 3.5 euros, although the mattresses on the sunbeds are 3-4 years old. The dirtiest beach and at the same time the steepest beach in Sunny Beach is Cocoa Beach. Bottles, cigarette butts on the sand and in the sea, and a five-meter strip of evergreen garbage that starts on the beach and ends in the sea. And a cool disco scene with mega sound and light.

Eating in a cafe costs 60-70 levs (300-350 hryvnias) for four people. There are cafes and cheaper ones, but in our area they had to be looked for. To our surprise, the cheapest, and at the same time not bad, cafes were located in the center of Sunny Beach, where you could have a good meal with beer and brandy, not much flashy, for 200 hryvnias for four. Cheap clothes, watches and at the same time fruits for 35-40 hryvnia per kg. In the markets, the proud descendants of the Gabrovites will not pay a cent, although later it turned out that also rose jam in the supermarket costs exactly half as much! Juice in the store costs 1.5-2 euros, beer both in cafes and in shops - 2 leva (1 euro). Beer is no worse and no better than Ukrainian. The cost of a meat dish in a cafe is from 10 to 26 leva (5-13 euros). Legendary huge portions start at a price of 7 euros. Salad from 2.5 to 4 euros.

Attractions on the beach: a banana 5-7.5 euros per person, a bun - 20 euros for a bun up to three people, a scooter 20-30 euros for ten to fifteen minutes, a parachute - 40 euros for 1-2 people. Helicopter - 35 euros per person for 3-5 minutes. Water park - 12 euros for half a day per person. City bus - 0.5 euros. Open steam locomotive - 1.5 euros. But keep in mind that he goes only two or three stops and you have to change constantly. Therefore, travel through the entire Sunny Beach will cost 6 or more euros.

Separately, I want to tell you how Bulgarian travel agencies work. We bought a one and a half day excursion to Istanbul. Departure at 21-30. We had a multilingual guide Andrey with us. He spoke Bulgarian, Russian, Hungarian, German, English and Turkish! He told in detail what awaits us, where the stops are, where and how much the toilet costs, how to quickly pass the border in order to still be able to sleep on the bus. After the Ukrainian side, we were simply amazed. True, compared with the Poles and Italians, the Russians were given a bus worse, but also two heads better than the one we took to Bulgaria. For the tour, which cost 50 euros per adult and 25 euros per child, we were fed twice, given the newest bus in Istanbul, we had a wonderful Turkish guide Burkhan with us, we traveled around Istanbul and through the Bosphorus, visited the Blue Mosque and the square with obelisks, visited the Egyptian market, on the way back we made a stop at seven in the evening near the bistro, where they accepted euros and we were able to have a bite to eat! Notice that they took half the price from children, with full two meals a day, like adults, and Algol took the full price, arguing that children take up a whole place, and do not sit on their hands! And most of all I was struck by the fact that the guides almost fought among themselves, whose group will be the first to eat!!! Seeing a queue in front of us, our guide immediately agreed with a neighboring hotel, which was no worse, and there we were promptly fed so that we could go on an excursion at 7-45, exactly on schedule!

And now Sunny Beach, beaches, attractions, water parks, Old and New Nessebar, St. Vlas are behind us and we are returning home!

What was our surprise and amazement when we saw our emergency bus! But fortunately, another bus came right after him and we, satisfied, loaded up and went home! On the bus, we were accompanied by a girl who warned that she was with us temporarily, and our permanent guide sat down to us from the oncoming bus. We never learned his name until the end of our journey. Judging by the remarks of the people who traveled with him to Bulgaria, his name was Yura.

The first stop with the new guide is the border. No, at first the drivers stopped before the border, took coffee for themselves in a cafe, without letting the passengers out, smoked relish in the bus and drove to the border. To all the indignation of the passengers, the drivers pretended not to understand Russian. And our unnamed guide eliminated the problem of smoking in the passenger compartment of the bus, where many children were traveling. As a result, the smell of diesel fuel and cigarettes accompanied us all the way, which practically brought to naught all our and our children's health improvement at sea. Border, border guard, passports and sump on the Romanian side. Not a single passenger dared to enter the Romanian toilet ... To say that he was terrible is to say nothing! But we haven't stopped for three or four hours. In the nearest corn field, a wild-looking Romanian ran around with a hammer and drove out all the tourists. We, illegal immigrants, without passports, crossed the border and returned to Bulgaria to get into a more or less decent Bulgarian toilet, which we remembered on the way there. Further night, the road, another stop at the gas station after several reminders, an hour-long queue in the toilet, coffee-tea from the guide, the road, 4 a.m., gas station, toilet, an hour-long queue, screaming music from the gas station and nearby restaurants, seven in the morning, the border.

Already not even hoping to cross the border quickly, we were surprised that the Romanians issued us in 30-40 minutes. We were not even struck by the dirt at the Romanian customs and one working cubicle in the Romanian toilet for 45 people - we were just glad that we were finally almost home. But…

UKRAINE! Clean, flowers, a huge toilet without queues, customs officers working even during shift changes, and ... .. problems with the Bulgarian bus. Customs said that the bus has broken numbers on the back! We were let through only three hours later. Meanwhile, Bulgarian drivers peacefully smoked, washed, shaved - in general, it seemed that they were truck drivers, and we were just cargo, a trailer, a herd of sheep transported in a back. Even at the customs, the guide assured us that we would have breakfast right after the customs. And as soon as we left, we were told that we were going to Lviv almost without stops, and we had to eat at customs, because there was a lot of time! Dear unnamed guide! There are no cafes and shops at customs, and duty free does not sell at the entrance! Dear company "Algol"! Is it really so difficult to develop a route that includes stops near normal cafes, and not near smelly eateries like "Maple" and toilets, like "too"?! After all, not the poorest people go to Bulgaria and can afford to eat in a mid-level cafe. I'm not even talking about the fact that it would be possible to raise the ticket price by 5-10 dollars and provide a normal dinner and breakfast in a cafe from a travel agency! Our guide did stop the bus after violent outrages, but unfortunately the young man did not know the way and chose a gas station with chips, biscuits and a toilet with one (!) booth for 45 people, although the previous three had cafes and bistros ... And already in conclusion, 40 km from Lviv, I asked to stop at a gas station to use the toilet after five (!) hours of driving. I was stopped with a big creak.

We arrived in Lviv at the beginning of the sixth evening, instead of two in the afternoon.

instead of an epilogue.

Having traveled with the Algol company, I and 90 other people were once again convinced that you need to fly by plane on vacation and carefully approach the choice of a travel agency, not ignoring bad reviews about it. It is also necessary to demand that an additional contract be drawn up, where all seemingly trifles should be written: from cleaning the room to the brand and year of manufacture of the bus, from the frequency of stops along the way, to the languages ​​spoken by the hotel staff.

With respect and hope that this is the last bad review about Algol and the company's management will draw a conclusion and correct the situation for the better, replace the technical director and several employees responsible for paperwork, selection of a carrier partner and careful development of the route.

Sincerely, Dmitry.

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