Just back from a week in Portoroz in the Slovenian Riveria and while it is lovely and has some good facilities, it would not be a destination that I would recommend. Firstly I should say we are not the "lie by the pool" kinda people and thought that Slovenia would have some cultural areas that we could explore while also availing of the R&R of a pakage holiday.
We travelled with Concorde travel and were bumped in with Topflight travellers who got slightly more for their money. Our rep wasnt very interested and couldnt recommend good local restuarants or even tell us about surrounding villages.
We stayed in the Hotel Roza which is part of the metropole group and luckily we were able to use the facilities of the group (some free and some at an extra cost). The hotel itself is clean and basic. The Metropole group has however got a casino, two swimming pools, tennis courts, crazy golf course, health spa etc. We only used the seawater swimming pool as the beach is not really a beach but more like a series of piers - similar to Dunlaoighre!
Portoroz is a manmade tourist village which runs in a strip along the coast and is called the Slovenian Riveria (another word for Rip Off) Everything in Portoroz was at a cost very comparative to Dublin. Coming from Ireland, I did not think it would be possible to find a destination more expensive than at home but Slovenia is a very close second. Alcohol is slightly cheaper but the food is almost the same in price.
Most restuarants specialise in Italian with a lot of fish dishes. Being lovers of both fish and italian food we were happy but we found a nice mexican in Portoroz also which offered some variety.
We took a bus to Piran (10mins) which is a beautiful little village on the headland. It has way more character than Portoroz. It however is still quiet expensive especially to eat in some of the restuarants along the coastline but away from the coastline you will find more reasonably priced restaurants. It is a small village with some shops and markets which are aimed at the tourist but it is beautiful and can be explored on foot. I would definately recommend visiting here or even trying to stay in Piran as it has way more to offer than Portoroz.
We tried to do some excursions from Protoroz but found that all tour operators have the same schedule so if you didnt go the day they operate - tough!
We wanted to go to Ljubjana but not the day after we arrived (which was the only option on the schedule unless we wanted to visit some caves). We found a tour which would cost 40Euro per person but it was cancelled due to lack of interest. The public bus travelled around the world and would take about 3hrs and left at 7am and return was at 5pm. We later learned from someone who took one of the trips and said it was disappointing and pretty much under construction.
The options to do stuff other than sunbath were fairly limited. There is a possibility to do some boat tours to Venice etc. We planned to do one but unfortunately the boat had techical problems one day and the next it was pouring out of the sky so did not run either. not our luck I guess!
The weather was nice in general but then we had some rain too! Not like Irish rain though! It was light and still warm! All in all if you are looking for a lie by the pool kinda holiday then this is an option to consider but for those that like to do some tours and see some of the real character of the country then this is definately not the one for you! Might be an option to consider Ljubjana or lake Bled.