Holiday destinations that were unexpectedly lovely OR awful.

I'm Australian and I'm not offended I do think the UK is my spiritual home though. One of the things I hate most here is you can get on an (often expensive) domestic flight, fly for hours and when you get off the plane it's not that different from where you came from!

I really need to get to Tasmania one day.

Love -
Berlin - all the history and culture.
Castelldefels near Barcelona - it's further along the coast. Was great with children - lovely shallow water at the beach and only half an hour into the city.
Bali - Especially Ubud- the temples, lovely people, beautiful rice terraces - amazing. Wasn't so keen on Seminyak - beach nothing to speak of and got harassed by hawkers a lot.
Dorset - love Durdledoor/Lulworth Cove and fossil hunting in Charmouth. Lyme Regis is only 1.5 hrs from where we live so sometimes go for the day. I was expecting it to be a tacky seaside resort but it's fab.
Aberdovey in West Wales - seems to have its own micro climate. Also an amazing ice cream shop.

Wasn't keen in Gran Canaria - where we stayed was very concrete and full of pissed up tourists (pre children many years ago!).

Marrakesh - probably didn't help that I was pregnant so couldn't go to the baths and wasn't keen on mountain trekking! Went with a friend and we stayed in a Riad instead of a big hotel. No TV and not much to do in the evening once you've eaten. The weather was also unusually cold for the time of year.

One other thing that I disliked about Australia. If you don't immediately LOVE it and rave about it then Australians get really unpleasant. I don't expect everyone to love where I'm from - I can both its good and bad points - but criticise anything about Australia at your peril. Nothing short of saying its amazing and you want to emigrate there immediately will do!

I want to go to Lanzarote even more after reading this thread. Where is nice to stay; not too quiet and not too noisy, with a teen? I love the green-ness of Corfu.

Playa Blanca (on the south coast) is where we stayed. Its very dry and a bit dusty, but it has the best sunshine. You can drive anywhere on the island in an hour too, so hire a car and explore that way - the roads are excellent. However, the island is most definitely NOT green. Its a volcanic island and much of the vulcanism has been recent, so expect lots of black lava, craters, etc. There is a stark beauty to it, but if you want 'green' you might prefer one of the other Canary islands.

Dislike Dublin. Booked a very cheap flight there when we were young and skint thinking it would be more fun than a break in a British city and the absolutely jawdroppingly expense of everything was a horrible shock. Bars with people dressed as leprechauns and fiddlers and hugely overpriced drinks. I did love one restaurant called the Elephant and Castle and also the art gallery was good but large parts of it were just like a boring high street.

Sienna was lovely to look at but nothing to do except sit in bars around the square and wander a bit.

Salzburg and Vienna were just amazing. We went to Salzburg during the festival of their patron saint and the whole city were out in lederhosen and dirndle skirts in the evening with beer stalls and food and music, it was amazing. And the city feels so bright and fresh being up in the mountains. Vienna is stunning and just gleams and seemed very well off without being pretentious. I think I should go to more places in Austria now.

County Cork in Ireland is stunning and the little towns such as Clonakilty are beautiful and friendly. I would never go to Dublin again but would visit 'real' Ireland!

Florence is magical. I just feel happy walking around the streets. Don't go in the summer and pre book things such as the Uffizi and it's not so difficult with crowds. Also pedestrianised in the centre so it's not so hard to walk around (like Rome, amazing, crazy and beautiful but I got to the point where I had to really build myself up to cross the road the traffic is so mental)

Disappointing: Sicily. I'd ALWAYS wanted to go there and I was so looking forward to it. We stayed in a village outside Palermo and although the villa was lovely, the whole place was a dump. Poverty, graffiti, stray animals, litter everywhere. Even driving out to more remote coastal areas, most of the beaches were privately owned with huge fences, barbed wire and guard dogs. There were huge unfinished villas everywhere that looked like they'd been abandoned for years or even decades, presumably related to money laundering. It didn't really feel safe. On the final day we did drive a bit further round and the scenery there was breathtaking, exactly what I'd imaged Sicily to be. I would go back but I'd do my research first.

Lovely: Wales, Gower Pensinsular. Wasn't really expecting much from a UK camping holiday, but we pitched our tent in Oxwich Bay overlooking the most enormous and picturesque sandy beach and the weather was incredible. Absolutely stunning part of the world. Every day we drove to another beautiful, empty unspoilt beach or scenic location, it was bliss.

stately get yourself to Perth and then go south to Tall Trees country. Loads of wonderful walking, and the car distances are manageable, not a big dull desert.

Anyone who thinks Australia has nothing to see needs to get to Tasmania. You don't go there to sit on beaches, shop or get pissed (you can do all that in Europe or indeed in the UK) but to see scenery and animals like nowhere else.

The town of Celebration, near Orlando. The town was planned and built by Disney, and has very strict rules about what all houses look like.
We rented a villa from friends, and I loved it despite expecting it to be twee and naff.
Absolutely charming, much nicer than most Florida developments.

Florida - here at the moment doing Disney and Universal theme parks. It wasn't my choice of destination but came for the boys. I thought I'd hate it as its everything I dislike, it's bright, loud and brash but I absolutely love it! It is like a strange alternate universe. It's sunny (and very very hot) and everyone is so friendly. Seeing the boys so relaxed and happy and making some amazing family memories before they grow up too much is just such a perfect holiday.

France. I love France and have been lots of times before but the last time we went was awful. We hired a gite with my parents and DB and DSiL. The gite was dirty and tired, the garden over grown with 3 plastic chairs as the promised garden furniture. The pool was tiny and had a strange lid that couldn't be removed and had to be propped open. Instead of being able to walk into the village for breakfast croissants and dinner as we had imagined we (well DH and DDad) had to drive everywhere. Oh and it rained for nearly 2 weeks! We had a good time because the company was fun and we saw some lovely places but it was spoilt by the substandard accommodation and location that was far from accurate to that we had booked.

Disliked surprisingly:

Morocco: Toured for three weeks and spent three weeks arguing with people just to get anything done. The premier hotel in Tangiers didn't have our room ready when we arrived at 10PM and we had to badger them constantly to let us in.

Copenhagen: Overpriced and unfriendly. Food bland!

Vancouver: Hugely pretentious and quite the drug problem. I grew up in Canada and visited it with dp from the UK.

Paris is also very over-rated and we went twice just to check.

Loved surprisingly:

Singapore - thought it'd just be shopping. People were friendly, it was easy to get around and it's very multicultural.

The Azores: This was a 'halfway point' between Toronto and London for meeting an old school friend. Was prepared to be bored shitless on my alone days, brought books and work and didn't touch them. People relaxed and friendly, food amazing, things to do, weather awesome even a week before Christmas!

Berlin: As before. Been three times now. So much history. Old people there must have lived through so much!

Sri Lanka: Only had a two day stopover but lovely genuine people and didn't feel ripped off (even though I likely was). Didn't get the trots!

Australia- did not like at all, in fact when in Sidney I found locals so rude, we left early.

Ibiza- incredibly beautiful island. San Antonio Bay (just outside club district) is very picturesque and quiet, I would totally recommend it to any young family

I want to go to Lanzarote even more after reading this thread. Where is nice to stay; not too quiet and not too noisy, with a teen?
I'm on holiday ten minutes drive from Sidari in Corfu at the moment. Where we are is very quiet and a beautiful temperature. I love the green-ness of Corfu. I think you need a car or to go on boat trips if you visit. It feels almost tropical at times and in the spring it will be covered on flowers.

Loved Lanzarote far more than I imagined. It was so relaxing and different to other sun and sand resorts I've been to.

Dublin and Edinburgh leave me disappointed. I've been to both a couple of times and never get that good feeling I've felt in other cities.

In the UK, I absolutely love Edinburgh and Liverpool. Just so cultured and friendly and compact and so much to see and do, lots of it free.

Not keen on Manchester, Blackpool or Newquay.

Abroad, I love Munich, Madrid and Nice. Also Dubrovnik- great place.

I didn't like Cancun in Mexico, not a fan of manufactured places.
Also hated Kos - just a dump of an island.

Lots of love for Lanzarote on this thread, think I might have to look into it!

Prague - it had been built up as this magical place and when I got there I just couldn't get past the sinister vibe there. Hard to explain but I just didn't like it there.

Stonehenge- booked a day trip from London despite reading about how many people felt it was a let down. Being a cold, blustery January day it wasn't exactly heaving with crowds and I found it fascinating.

So should have done that Nickname
We were young at the time and hadn't much money so thought an all inclusive would be fab as we could drink what we liked so felt trapped in the hotel
By the end of the week DH was paid so we blew a fair bit on day trips.

It didn't help either that we went to a water park on the first day and the slides were super dangerous I slammed my head into a rock on one slide with the speed of the water and had to gp and have first aid and was too shaken to go on anything else.

Loved turkey although I wouldn't go there at the moment. Have recently fallen in love with the Isle of Wight, loved Australia, New York, Florida.

Dubai is a soulless cultureless place as is Singapore. The problem with the Caribian ime is that there is too much of a divide between rich and poor and that you have to be protected within a tourist bubble. In which case what's the point, you could be holiday'ing anywhere in the world.

We didn't care for Alcudia either, but enjoyed other parts of Majorca. We didn't have very good weather and kept our hire car for 10 days instead of the 3 days we had originally booked. As a result we got to see a lot more of the island and found some lovely places.

Loved Albania- beautiful country, stunning scenery, friendly people. Also loved moriara in Spain and San Remo in Italy and Croatia and Cambodia.
Liked Seoul, NZ and Melbourne
Hated most of China - rude people, horrible food. Loved Cambodia
I live in WA and love it here too!

Stately - yes re Istanbul one of my favourite cities in the world - did a lot of work there in a previous life - LOVE the place.

Pre - motherhood
Me and my DH went to Alcidia in Mallorca and stayed in a complex of hotels called the Saturn Marte and Jupiter.
we were literally the only childless couple and we were bored shitless as the complex was quite far from the town. Every day they played Rolf Harris songs (before they discovered he was a very naughty boy)
It was pure torture.

I love South Wales, Dorset, Yorkshire and Norfolk all stunningly beautiful

If the weather isn't too bad and there are nice walks/beaches I am fine with not have anything else to do it works for us I love having not much to do and not rushing around

Also loved Sri Lanka it's a beautiful country, south Vietnam, Thailand (not Patayya ), California is beautiful (LA you need someone who knows the place well to show you the best bits much of LA is dull), Barcelona, Kherla, Australia Sydeny, Pebbly Beach and Byron Bay Area my favourite places), Amsterdam, Paris and I absolutely love Italy. The smaller resorts where few tourists go are much nice and found the people lovely

Feeling really nervous that I have booked to go to Santorini now after reading some of the negative comments.

Places I was really underwhelmed by:

Dublin
Milan
Pisa
Waterford

Places I have loved:

Lake Garda
Rome
Paris
Marrakech
Vendee
Nice
Lake Annecy

I am hoping Santorini makes it onto that loved list!

Hated:

• Porto Rico in gran canaria. A recommendation by one of DH's work colleagues for a spot of winter sun. Awful. Windy, tacky, crowded. We ended up getting the bus to mogan every day to get away from it.

• El Gouna in Egypt. Where were all the women?

• Tunisia. Nobody knew what to make of me and my husband (we are a mixed race couple) and we got a lot of unwanted attention. I also had a mc.

• LA. Had to drive everywhere, really seedy place with an air of menace.

Loved:

• Fiji. Just beautiful.

• Tanjung Benoa in Bali. Off the beaten track, and gorgeous.

• Toronto. Vibrant yet compact city.

• New York. Expected to hate it but really loved it, so much so I have been several times

• Amsterdam. Expected it to be seedy and nasty but it was beautiful.

• coast of the Netherlands. Huge beaches and nobody on them!

• Sydney. Not much love on here but I really enjoyed it. Very family friendly, great food, wonderful weather.