The 3rd trip 17/Sept 2005

The 3rd trip 17/Sept 2005

Two weeks holiday !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The ticket for this trip had been booked well in advace to basically coincide with the completion date of the apartments but it soon became clear that that date would come & go with no hope of completion. In fact it would be well into 2006 before they would be complete.

The hotel Toni in Old Nessebar was booked during our June trip when we were walking through the town one night it had a nice sea view and a brilliant rooftop terrace and it also turned out to be quite cheap so we paid him a deposit & he even agreed to pick us up from the airport at an ungodly hour. So this trip although we would not be able to use the apartment was going to be more of a holiday than the other 2 trips, or so we thought.

View from the Hotel Toni balcony

Relaxing on the Toni terrace

See, no balcony!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It actually turned out to be more business and more stressful than the other two trips put together but with less rushing around in cars. As we were quite central in Old Nessebar we decided to forgo a car and use buses & taxi's to get around and went straight to the Property Company's office in Sunny Beach the next morning to be taken to see the apartments. This was on the Saturday. Upon arriving at the site I immediatly noticed a big problem, my balcony. There wasn't one........'Oh!' I said to our guide, 'The builders have made a mistake they have not built my balcony all the way round.' 'This one doesn't have a balcony all the way round.' said our guide.

'Oh yes it does.' said I, 'Do you have the website plans in the car?'. 'Yes.' 'Can you get them?' 'Yes.'

'Look the balcony goes all the way round.' 'Oh so it does.' said our guide.

A long way from completion

On entering the apartment there was another problem.

Where the bedroom should have had a patio door opening onto my now non balcony there was a window, and where there should have been a curved alcove with a slit window there was now a door and my alcove was outside that door becoming a small patio, too small for anything but standing there and screaming.

To say I was not best pleased was an understatment & the locals learned a few new words that day as I went balistic, in fact if you took all the expletives out of my conversation I would have said nothing.

We headed back to Sunny Beach and a phone call to the MD who said he would 'Give us our money back.' but that was not what we wanted. We wanted this mess sorted out and sorted out quickly and told him. 'I want someone who knows this project out to the site on Monday to solve this horrendous problem.'

Needless to say Saturday was not a good day for us and we spent quite a bit of it in an internet cafe we knew informing other buyers that there could be a potential problem as some of the others apartments did not look as they should have done on the website plans.

On Sunday we had arranged to meet a couple from the internet forum we use who had bought an apartment in Ravda.

We met them in the Krim on the coast road in Old Nessebar.

Well two meals,loads of drink, and I do mean loads and seven yes seven hours later we parted company, thank goodness our hotel was only a two min walk/stagger away.

On Monday we went into the Sunny Beach office to see what had been arranged & were given the telephone No. of the person we were to meet. It was the same guy who had helped us in choosing the flooring & he arranged to pick us up to take us to the site. We were met on site by the building company technical bod who was accompanied by another person who was quite knowledgable and another couple of people.

We were told how the problem had occured. Someone had posted the wrong plans on the company website!!!!!!!!!!!

'That' I said 'Is not my problem as I bought off the website.'

'That is the design I have chosen that is what I want how can you resolve the problem?'

Resolve the problem they did albeit ever so slightly different from the plan.They said they could build the balcony but would I mind if the balcony started from where the door now was and not where it should have been. I agreed that was ok and in fact it gave me more balcony but did take the alcove away which was still going to be a small patio but now at least part of the all round balcony. We also found out during the course of talking to the builder that the Vrachanski stone (marble) we had chosen might not be up to the job so later that week it was off to the suppliers again to find a couple of other alternatives.

On top of all this the build looked to me to be well behind shedule and I mean well behind.

So after the events of Saturday and a Sunday spent in the Krim, plus wondering what would transpire from Mondays meeting it was off to New Nessebar on Tuesday to look at furniture etc so still no holiday. Still at least the weather was good so far and we stopped every so often for drinks of the alchoholic sort.

What we did not know then was that events were about to take a nasty turn on Wednesday the day of Julie's birthday, which made us realise how vulnerable you can be in a crowded place.

We had just come out of the Raffiesen bank after enquiring about an account and boarded the bus for Sunny beach. The bus was jammed solid and you could feel bodies and hands everywhere and I suddenly felt that something had been taken & it had. My mobile phone had just been nicked. I told Julie to phone it from hers but guess what. Yes it had been switched off. All this happened in the space of a couple of mins and people were getting on and off the bus so that was it, forget it, phone gone.

That one event made us more security concious than we have ever been on holiday before, & after that I noticed Bulgarians travelling on public transport clutched everything to their chest in front of them so that night I scoured Old Nessebar for the Italian mans accessory. Yep I was now the proud owner of a "mans clutch bag."

You soon get over feeling self concious about carrying one especially when you know you have everything safely in one place. 'Just dont leave it anywhere' said Julie. (Ive still got it) But the most important thing now was to go & find another phone straight away because it was our lifeline to everyone, we had loads of contacts in its memory that were vital to us and luckily they were also in a little black book, so after having bought a phone we sat in a cafe for ages inputting all our contacts and texting people with our new number. What a waste of time money & effort and I hope the thieving scroat gets his/her come-uppance!

In Onkle's on Julie's birthday

That evening however restored our faith in human nature when we eat out at Onkle George's in the heart of Old Nessebar, the owners wife (Lilly) gave Julie a birthday present a glass paperweight with a humming bird in the centre in 3D. How they make them I dont know but it was a brilliant gesture and on top of that the foods always good so we were feeling a lot better on leaving and a little squiffy!!!!