The Skiers' Guide to Bansko

As with any resort, food and drink on the mountain is much more expensive. Bansko has an old town away from the tourist part and the local food is much cheaper and delicious.

Apres starts at Happy End bar and there's plenty of options to party until early morning if that's what you're looking for.

A great and relatively cheap place to go skiing. I was a beginner and was going down reds by the end of the week. Lift wasn’t too busy to get up there but we weren’t there in peak holidays

Excellent for beginners, also apre ski is fantastic. Very inexpensive, if you’re on more of a budget.

Great budget option for a ski trip with friends! The upper ski area is amazing! People love to party and it’s very well priced. Main drawbacks are that there’s only one small gondola from the village to the mountain (absurd waiting times!) and that the lower ski area is a bit disappointing, too mellow.

Good variety of pisted runs
Efficient lifts, great apres down the ski road but it does get busy.
Lively nightlife in the town
Queue for gondola in the morning is pretty bad. If the mountain road is open you can get a taxi to the mid mountain to save the queue.

Amazing for my first experience after learning how to ride. Good for a new rider but after the first time it gets a bit tedious.

Bansko is a lively, fun town set up to entertain tourists during the ski season. The slopes are well maintained though can be busy at times as the resort attracts many new skiers and boarders due to affordable ski-schools. Choose your visit outside school and peak times as the main gondola also gets very busy. To avoid this take a taxi to the mid-station. Thermal baths, ice skating and the old town are a must see. Food, drink and music are fantastic, cheaper than other resorts.

We visited during a powder dump so had an awesome time. Lots of great lines on the mountain plus loads of tree runs, although these did get tracked out quick quickly. Good food on the mountain for a very nice price, two of ate a huge platter with drinks for around €35. Loved the top to bottom ski road , which is a great way to end the day. One drawback is the huge line to get on the gondola up in the morning. Also quite busy in a lot of places which can be hard work.

Try and visit outside major holidays like Xmas and Easter as queues for gondola can be crazy . Or you have to get to gondola v early , sometimes waiting in the snow ! Lots of apres ski to suit all budgets . Everywhere very friendly

Bansko is a nice resort but prices are too high for what it is. The Apres is good but the ski area is too removed from the main town, which detracts from the experience. The main gondola lift has awful queues, even at non-peak, so avoid until they build another gondola.

If you're looking for a low budget ski holidays Bansko is great. Sometimes big queue at the gondola. The only thing they need to improve is the snowpark.

If you go during school holidays / peak times, expect to queue for up to 2 hours for the gondola if you like to get on the piste nice and early; however, a short taxi ride takes you to the mid station in 10 minutes. Alternatively, get up late, have a leisurely breakfast and get straight on the gondola at 0930-1000. Then you get the pistes almost to yourself while everybody else stops for a mid-morning coffee/beer/gluhwein.
North facing slopes ensure great conditions up the mountain. Unfortunately, it can get rather sticky if you want to ski all the way back down, with the last 400-500m being a workout in itself.
Catering facilities are fairly basic, but relatively cheap (compared to the Alps) and provide a light lunch / snack option to keep you going through to afternoon tea & cake or 'Apres', as preferred.
Getting more expensive, struggling to keep lower pistes usable, and overcrowded in peak season / school holidays as the resort has been overdeveloped (just not enough room on the slopes for everyone if all the hotels are full - gets dangerous). I would probably return for the right price, but Andorra competes on price and has generally better skiing, and Italy is also becoming more competitive on price and is definitely more beautiful than both Bulgaria or Andorra.

A great Ski resort for families, well worth a visit. Great ski runs through the trees, ski instructors happy to help.

The resort is great. It has everything you could want. However, the only way up the mountain, is one cable car. Going February half term meant daily queues of 2.5/3 hours to get up the slope. This meant missing ski school unless you took the taxi up the mountain. This is a deal breaker and many we unfortunately wouldn't take the risk in returning to Bansko

Bansko is the best value in the world for big mountain groomed skiing, the lifts are great the on hill food is good. The bars at the base are great all have Eurosport on all the time! The accommodations at the spas especially in the private cabins are amazing, modern clean and comfortable.

We had an awesome private cabin for 6, a full meal plan and full access to the very large clean and fantastic spa area for $1100 Cdn for 4 days. Lift tickets are $50 Cdn.

It is truly a hidden gem!

Great budget ski option. I went with my partner as an extra to our annual french ski trip and decided to use the extra week to learn snowboarding. Decent runs, a lot of novice skiers though that are out of control so you need to watch out - one person blatantly pushed my partner over and skied off (going too quick and not in control). Cheap pints on the mountain, food is about 20 Euros for a decent meal on the mountain (we usually shared a pizza which were tasty!)

Busy resort crowded slopes. Long que for Gondola in morning. Good value for money . Excellent hotels and great food

A little difficult to get to.
Finding good quality accommodation was a task.
This is a small resort, the range and number of runs is not great.
For a cheap extra top up of skiing, it's a great destination.
All the ski lift personnel are really friendly.

Be warned, the Gondola queues in the morning are epically long. I went at the end of January 2025. The lift staff should enforce 8 people per pod and open the Gondola earlier to manage the the queue. I had ski lessons so opted to fork out 100 lev for queue jump for the week via Crystal Ski. This should be already included in my opinion.

Found the pistes to be poorly signed, with not enough piste maps or clocks at each lift.

Everywhere is hot. The hotels, rooms, pubs, restaurants really uncomfortable.

There seems to be live bands everywhere whether you like it or not so shouting or putting up with dodgy covers is part of the evening.

Bansko is a lovely affordable ski resort especially out of school season.

Because of the height of the base resort being less than 1000m the ski road home from the main slope area may be closed at certain times of year due to lack of snow so the gondola down or a taxi back is your only choice.

Outside of School holidays the gondola is no issues, but during school holidays either get there early or be prepared to wait 1-2 hours to get up the mountain. There is also taxis / minibuses that charge a small amount 5lev(last time I was there) to drop you to the top of the gondola.( This is also generally quicker than the gondola )

Conditions up the top of the plateau ( todorka ) peak of the resort vary massively due to it's open piste wind can be a real factor at times.

As you come lower the tree coverage will generally protect you from this and the coverage of snow is maintained well throughout by the resort team. I do wish they concentrated on the chalin vlog black / reds more as this is a lovely area with a nice drag for beginners also in the area on ski road 1a that passes through chalin vlog and would take the strain off the piste 1 above the gondola for the beginners while those more advanced can let of some steam on pistes 15/16s red and black within the same area.

Most of the bars / restaurants on the slopes are Ulen owned so basically all a set price.

Non Ulen restaurants on the slopes
There's a BBQ restaurant picnic bar in the woods in chalin vlog off ski road 1a as you enter chalin vlog on the right I'm the trees.
Ski road 1 there are two restaurants
Peshterite and kolibata both on the left hand of the ski road just after you pass the 1A split. Both play music for Apres.

Apres is good at happy end bar which is huge inside and out.
The hub is brilliant for sports and cheap happy hour.
Amigos is good fo the live music but is very repetitive.

Food, to be honest there's a lot of good restaurants and id definitely recommend going deeper into old town to try some of the traditional Bulgarian restaurants.

Overall the resort is brilliant, but the gondola situation can be a real issue during the peak times of the season. If they could overcome this the resorts appeal and ratings would spike drastically.