Snow Brainer - www.snowbrainer.com

Booked ski and snowboarding equipment through these people while planning a trip to Bulgaria.

Firstly nice website easy to navigate, pics of equipment of what you should receive.

All booked ok, booked Saturday to Saturday equipment (rare) as you normally sort kit out the day after you arrive. Booked a flight from another airport to arrive early on Saturday and to leave late the following Saturday.

Snow and Wake Bulgaria Club Hotel Yanakiev, PO Box 23, 2010 Borovets (Alpineresorts.com)

Arrive to pick up equipment, no one at the equipment side spoke good english. Fair enough they should know my order. As I put height,weight, age, shoe size all down on the website. Nope, did not know the order but seems to suggest that they did have some dealings with this company. Showed the paperwork ofcourse all in english, this did not help. So had to do all the sizes again. After all this was done we were presented what appeared to be at least 3 year old kit. Well work boots and skis and the snowboarding boots had rips in them showing the insulation. After listening to the staff arguing and very much frustrated at all this hassle. We were told we could not have the equipment till Sunday. Even though I had paid for the Sat- Sat and paid more to get premium equipment (first time skiing for some members, so wanted to make sure they would be happy).

After discussing the issues we left without equipment and had to get equipment the day after and pay another company but at least the kit was of good standard and more importantly fitted correctly. So emailed Snowbrainer while on the resort and got no reply, in fact its been 5 weeks since returning from the holiday only to be told the had spoken with the staff and were did not collect the equipment.

So my advice to anyone looking to go with this company, is don't but if you do. Take pictures of the equipment and the times you were at the equipment hire place. Also translate the equipment letter into the language of the country you are visiting. Also to pay with a credit card this company is based in Bratislava. This way you have some come back. I tried to save money and get a better deal, it ended up costing more. Lesson has been learnt.

i pre booked my hire online from snowbrainer.com with collection from sport2000 in Tignes and the kit was very poor. i upgraded to the so called 5Star kit as i experienced advanced rider. IT WAS NOT. was given a knocked up beginner board. So DON'T WASTE FOR MONEY ON UPGRADES. i even purchased the added insurance thinking it was a good board, not sure the added cost was worth more than the board itself. They were also unable to supply me a board of correct length, which i had ordered online weeks in advanced. This was my experience, others in my group were also not happy, lack of correct board length for many although they also had ordered online weeks before and bindings not setup right for any of my group. Poor service all round,