Poiana Brasov, Hotel Poiana

Hotel Poiana is a fantastic ski school, beautiful scenery, superb value for money - what else can you say? Had an amazing week, highly recommended!

This resort is fantastic value. It is our third year to visit and with the patience of our ski instructor have all become more competent skiers. Romania is a charming place and we have become completely spellbound with the place. You will make lots of friends as the whole holiday is a friendly experience and when you return you will recognise friends from previous years. I would totally recommend this holiday. We will again return in 2009.

This was our first family skiing holiday, although our boys have been with school and were almost professional!! We loved every minute of it, we did not do any trips apart from the last night, Ski group party, which was fab. The instructors were so patient, especially ours, he was a gem. The Hotel Pioana where we stayed was always warm, and immaculately clean, clean bedding most days and very pleasant staff. We had an absolutely fab time, met lots of new friends, and cannot wait to go back again next year. Holiday 16 -- 23 February 2008.

The place was fantastic I spent a week there and the instructors are brilliant and you go home with loads of new friends and great memories. Food was great, instructors were excellent always willing to help. The place is excellent right next to the mountain and I had a fantastic holiday and met loads of friends which is easy at Poiana Brasov as you are all together and can go to the bar with them and ski together. Altogether I would love to go again and it was a great holiday.

At the Poiana Brasov resort in Romania, there are 3 hotels situated right next to one another, which belong to a chain called the Ana hotels group, The Hotel Poiana, The Hotel Sport and The Hotel Bradul.

My husband and I went half board and stayed in the hotel Poiana, which has a bar and that is where the breakfast is served also. They also have a ski locker room. The rooms were very nice and always cleaned everyday, each room had a mini bar where we had to pay for the drinks, a TV and telephone, the bathrooms had powerful showers, which are invigorating and ideal for washing hair, it is the cheapest hotel to stay in out of the three.

The Hotel Sport was the most expensive to stay in out of the 3 hotels, it has a sauna, massage and ski shop, the rooms also have TVs and telephones. In there is the Champion Bar where we went for unlimited free booze, using our wristbands from our package deal. The restaurant was very spacious, this was where we had our buffet style evening meals, which were nice, plus the staff were very friendly. The ski and snowboard hire place was situated in the Hotel Sport, there we collected our ski equipment and our lift passes.

The Hotel Bradul has a pool table plus TVs, telephones and a hairdryer in every room. If you decide to stay in the Poiana and Sport Hotels, then it is worth bringing a hairdryer with you.

Once we all had collected our equipment, we went over to the nursery slope where an instructor would split everybody up into two large groups consisting of beginners and intermediates. When everyone was sorted into their own groups, the beginners went off to the nearby gentle slopes with some instructors and us intermediates were taken onto the nursery slope so that the instructors could check every one's capabilities. There were three intermediate groups, higher, middle and lower, my husband was in the middle group and I was in the lower one. During the first day, we all spent some time on the slope, then after lunch, both of the higher groups went up to the top of the mountain and did the blue runs. Whereas my group stayed on the nursery slope for the next couple of days but did not go to the top of the mountain until the Wednesday, instead of the Tuesday, which was a little disappointing but the instructor wanted to make sure that we were more confident. The views at the top of the mountain were fantastic, especially on a sunny day. You could see for miles, over the town of Brasov and other mountain ranges. There was also a good restaurant near the top of the mountain where we stopped for a coffee and a meal. Towards the end of our holiday, the blue run lower down the mountain started to get icy and horrible and more difficult to keep control on. The blue run itself was too narrow to parallel down therefore we could only plough but it was still lovely being in between the woods. The red and black runs were very wide, in fact we did a bit of a red run as soon as we came off the gondola and it was lovely and powdery.

While off the slopes, there were plenty of excursions and fun nights to go on. For instance, there was a Romanian meal night, a candle lit walk in the resort, a night visiting Brasov town where one could go shopping or clubbing. Land of Legend is a visit to Bran Castle, home of Count Dracula, which is definitely well worth visiting. Last of all 'passion fashion' which was a night out with your ski group and instructor to a club where you get a diploma from the ski school. Plus a chance to watch a DVD of your class in action, which was highly amusing as the DVD focused on who fell over in their group, plus you can buy the DVD of your own group plus a photograph. Myself and my husband did the Bran Castle tour, which was a lovely day, plus the story of the castle was amazing as well as the views from the top, this excursion included a visit to the local market for souvenirs, a ride to the restaurant in a horse and cart plus a three course meal.

The only hiccup I can honestly say about this resort is that you have to keep an eye on your equipment, especially outside the restaurant near the top of the mountain. In particular snowboarders need to be careful because some of the local youngsters have been known to steal snowboards off tourists who have hired them. Plus some one's skis went missing too, otherwise you would end up paying a large fine to recover it. Also, there are a lot of wild dogs roaming around the mountain and resort, which could turn nasty if in a pack, especially at night. There are no creche facilities, therefore it would be unsuitable to take very young children and babies. The barman in the Champion bar was very miserable and rude to the tourists but thankfully he has been replaced by two lovely, friendly female barmaids. We would recommend this resort to beginners and intermediates who want to brush up on their skiing or snowboarding, as there are a lot of blue and red runs, plus an excellent nursery slope, all the three hotels were very close to the nursery slopes and gondolas. If you stayed in any one of the hotels, then you get access to all the facilities of the 3 hotels. A free ski school ticket is included in the package, which is highly recommended as you get to do 6 days of intense skiing and believe me, you do learn a lot in 6 days. Plus the instructors prefer people to go up the mountain in groups as you could very easily get lost and take the wrong turn, we both had a great time, made a lot of new friends and will be going again but earlier in the year next time, we went just as the season was about to end.