Have you ever been anywhere on holiday that was like the emperors new clothes?

[Cheeseandlobster]

I did. Last year I went to a very small hotel in Greece. 16 rooms only with pages and pages of great reviews.

When I arrived all the tables were pushed together and everyone was sat together pissed as farts getting louder and louder. One woman was drunker and swearier than the rest and it turned out she was the owner.

It was expected that you socialise and drink at the hotel even though the entire pool had no sun from 1pm and the surrounding area was beautiful. The owner would bark at you if you asked for food from the menu and would openly slate other guests for making reasonable requests. And the interrogation you got if you went out of the hotel was crazy.

Luckily I met another lovely solo traveller who felt the same as me so we paired up and left the hotel at the same time each day to share the interrogation. I will never stay at another small hotel again because of this.

Anyone else?

Totally agree with Centre Parcs - went once, never to return.
Second place, Orlando. Had huge expectations of a magical holiday. Reality was total consumerism, plastic, artificial place with rubbish overpriced food.

Absolutely Centre Parcs.

Never been to New York but you hear this a lot. I appreciate living in Europe so much. So many different countries and cultures very close. I keep telling 18 yr old DS who seems to think he will make his fortune in engineering in the US, that the grass definitely isn’t greener and it must be hard living in a country where you can be on a plane for 4 hours and still land in the same country. We are so so lucky in the U.K. even if it is a bit of a mess politically and economically at the moment (everywhere else is too)

I have travelled reasonably extensively and I don't think I've ever been anywhere that I've hated or been disappointed in - been to Toronto, Vancouver, Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, Dublin, Scotland, Paris, Florence, Rome, Venice, Kerala, Cyprus, Greece, Zurich - i loved them all! Ok, they all have good parts and not so good parts but isn't that part of the experience of travelling and seeing new places? Surely everywhere has that.

But that's exactly what I'd expect Orlando to be like. I went as a teenager and it was like that. What were you expecting?

@lameasahorse I totally get the appeal of Center Parcs if you have young children but it’s the price. If I want that type of thing I can get it far cheaper at Butlins. It’s Butlins for snobs! 😀

Gosh, I’ve been to most of these places on here and many I disagree with

NY - 4 times love it
San Fran loved it
Boston - -loved it
Rome - loved i
venice - I agree, over rated and claustrophobic, only took me a day to be fed up of Pierrot and gondolas.
Paris - I love, even the grime, it’s just so French.
Sydney - I liked, but not enough to travel 12000 miles to Visit again
LA yuk
vegas - great experience, would go again but wouldn't be upset if I didn't
dubai - fantastic experience, but not sure I would go again for longer than four days
florida been six times when kids were young, best holidays, ever, many happy memories.
london - as a tourist, with money, and knowledge of where to go, there isn’t a city in the world that matches it. I love it, but only when we have plenty of ££££

I guess lots of these places are great the first time you visit or if you know the area so well you see another side to it.

I'm very fond of CP.

It's been a constant in DSs life as he has grown up, from the first holiday we took with him as a baby - because we knew it would be easy-, through gangs of families with adjacent lodges and then young teens enjoying the freedom of the pool ( before covid time restrictions) and feeling safe in the complex.

We've always been to the Whinfell forest one and I really enjoy the forest surroundings. Granted the activities are extortionate and it took us a few too many times to learn the lesson not to have the Indian takeaway, but nowhere is perfect.

I expected it to be nicer away from the parks. We did a week of the commercialised intensity then a couple of weeks travelling. Didn’t really find anywhere I liked. Was quite disappointed as I thought there would be two sides to the state: maybe there is I just couldn’t find the non tacky part

Montreal
Like a weird version of America where they speak French
Very dull

Disney World, Florida.

An overpriced, plastic funfair, moribund staff going through the motions and everything, everywhere set up to sell, sell sell.

Miserable place.

Funny I love Paris, expected not to so didn't go for years but when I finally went because I thought I should I loved everything about it.

Maybe it's all down to expectations as I had high hopes of Capri having read Bill Bryson raving about it. We caught a very expensive hydrofoil over, stayed about an hour with moaning teens and only eye wateringly expensive shops to look at and then left.

Also agree with Las Vegas being awful.

Not me, ever, not even as an English person. Been to Edinburgh several times, Glasgow and done the NC500. Also watched England lose to Scotland at the six nations.

nothing but lovely, lovely people and not a rude person ever. X I love Scotland .

I attend conferences a lot in Canada and the US and get grilled by both countries ‘what are you presenting a paper about?’ ‘How does that fit in with the conference’ etc etc. surely they can see from my passport that I do it at least annually.

In terms of all the other posts I’m surprised by some. But agree I’ll never go to Center Parcs again!

We drove the famous 'Garden Route' of the Western Cape in South Africa which we found trafficy and overrated. Much prefer driving through the Klein Karoo valley in that part of the world, which is much quieter and strikingly desolate, but dotted with rural towns and villages that look like something out of the 1950s.

Love Rome, Paris, New York

Horribly disappointed by Cannes: all the beach-front was carved out by the various hotels and it's got no charm at all.

Dublin is a perfectly nice city, but I can't see why anyone without Irish heritage to rediscover would go there as a tourist unless they want to spend a lot of time drinking. The Book of Kells is good though.

Re: Capri, Didn’t you get the chair lift up to Anacapri? Was really fun and great views from up there.

Punta del Este. Supposedly the Monaco of South America (actually I should have been warned by that, shouldn’t I?)

Visited because the rest of Uruguay was a bit, you know, ramshackle (8 years ago, Montevideo was falling down then and felt like Manchester in 1979) and fancied a bit of luxury for a couple of days before hitting the trail again.

Mistake. It was full of awful, rude, honking Sloanes from all over the world. Genuinely, who knew that there were so many? And that they could all make the same honking noise in Spanish, English, Portuguese and German? And they all dress the same too, it must be genetic. Apart from them, there were loads of ‘spring break’ type people and Brits who thought that it was just the place to buy drugs and take part in awful, contrived beach raves.

I have to disagree about Vegas- we went there for part of our honeymoon and had a fab time. Of course it’s not the most elegant of places but it’s really fun. We stayed at the Bellagio and were upgraded to a penthouse for free- was bigger than our flat at the time! Had a lovely time lazing by the pool after brunch, then taking glorious cakes back to the room to enjoy in our whirlpool bath while watching tv! Had some lovely meals and sat in the front row for the Beatles cirque de sole uk and had a load of fun playing blackjack.

some shit places I’ve visited-

YES re Centreparcs. Hideously overpriced activities, grubby accommodation and leisure centre- style pool.

Went to Crete once and hated it. Everywhere was like a rubbly building site! Hotel which was highly rated on Tripadvisor was hell- ants everywhere, and we were woken up at 9.30am every morning by a ‘good morning’ song in German. Food was fucking awful. Scenery crap. The hotel was Nana Beach.

was underwhelmed by NY- 5th Avenue is like a much crapper Oxford Street. View from the top of the rock was cool, but restaurants very meh.

Santorini was so overcrowded and underwhelming
Barcelona was pick pocket and beggar central
Durham was lovely during the day but a completely different vibe at night
Cardiff was the only place I've ever left early.
It was a complete shit hole

I knew the parks in Orlando were going to be tourist traps but I found the surrounding area to be pretty dire too. The roads were huge and rammed with traffic and crappy neon diners and cheap hotels. I found everything expensive and poor quality. Thought we could escape the parks for some downtime, but was disappointed.

Paris 😬

Ok, yes parts are beautiful but straying outside the main tourist traps and it is an eye opener to say the least 👀 Graffiti everywhere, dirty, gangs (was approached too many times for money and then surrounded at an ATM) felt very unsafe. Waiter service is generally slow and they are often quite rude. One woman barked at me for speaking in French and told me I should only speak in French if I was fluent (that’s me told!)

I went to Berlin not long after and the difference was amazing, friendly, good service, felt safe walking places on my own… Don’t think I’ll go back to Paris.

Petra in Jordan and Pompeii in Italy bored to death.

As for Scotland, I've spent a lot of time there over the years, including university. I think the people are very friendly and welcoming. And Glasgow is the friendliest city in the UK, in my experience.