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?

Yes, I lived in Golders Green. I'm still not convinced the bagels are quite NYC standard, and most people in the UK don't have Jewish bakeries on their doorstep.

I have to say I don't understand your attitude, really. Why go to NYC in the first place? What were you expecting that it didn't deliver? That's the bit I don't get, because for me, it delivered everything I expected and much more.

Coming back in defence of Dublin- a f fabulous city! I lived there for a number of years in the 90s & still visit at least a couple of times a year.

I literally CANNOT understand boring people who say there's nothing to do there but drink. Such limited travellers.
Off the top of my head (& I've been to all of them ):
Trinity college & The Long Library
The Guinness Factory
Kilmainham Gaol
The Little Museum of Dublin
The national gallery
The national museum
The natural history museum
The GPO & 1916 Museum
The national concert hall
The RHA Gallery
The Hugh Lane Gallery
Temple Bar gallery & Studios
Temple Bar
The Gallery of Photography
The Ark children's arts centre
The Irish Film Institute
St Patrick's cathedral
Christchurch
St Michans Church (inspired Brams Stoker to write Dracula) visit the crypt
No 4 Henrieta St tenement museum
Georgian Dublin
Joycian Dublin
Famous literary pubs - Beckett/ Brendan Behan/ joyce / Patrick kavanagh
St Stephen's green
Bewleys cafe
Phoenix Park
Dublin zoo
Viking museum
Handel's Dublin
Many historic pubs
Many wonderful restaurants
Dart to to the coast
Dublin castle
Powerscourt Town House
The Georgian Society
Grafton/ baggott street
Camden st - restaurant & bar hipster central- amazing tapas & cava in The Port House Cava
The winding Stairs bookshop./ restaurant

This is a small sample of things we like to do or visit when we go to Dublin. I could write a list twice as long & still wouldn't have covered it all...

Same goes for most of the other places named in this thread! You just need to research & go places with an open mind

I absolutely disagree with you @lameasahorse you actually cannot do ANY of those things in your nearest UK city because those things are unique to Dublin..And London is most definitely more expensive than Dublin to visit.

Why did you assume the hotel and the eatery would have a connection other than they both sit on the same Loch? 🤦🏼‍♀️

I think so many people are disappointed by places because they treat travel as some kind of weird tick list of things to 'do' rather than simply appreciating being where they are.

I think this is often the key to enjoying traveling, at least for me.. I've been lucky enough in my life to have traveled extensively, both in the US and abroad. I can honestly say that I have never had a really bad experience, and I am almost never bored. I like learning about the culture of other places, and it's important to me to spend enough time to get a sense of what it's like to really be there; I like to imagine what it's like to live there. I like talking to people and learning about them. I like to people-watch. For me, it's a lot more than visiting the usual tourist sites/sights.

I think I was made for travel, I just soak it up. Sure I love galleries and so on but just seeing different places, absorbing different atmospheres, observing different ways feels so fun to me.

I think the truth is that a lot of people find change very difficult and treat any difference to home as being a flaw.

This thread makes me laugh. The OP was talking about one small hotel in Greece and the people come on here and slate entire countries!! Thailand, Jordan, Cuba, Tunisia, Turkey...
'yeah, was bored in Thailand' Umm, did you go off the tourist traps? And actually SEE the country?? The national parks, the culture, the food? How can you just write off an entire country of 60-70 million people??

And as for the people bored in Pompeii and Petra 😂You just wonder - did you realise you were going to ancient sites? Did you think it would be a theme park??

I did not enjoy Petra and, as I say, I adore travel generally. Just thinking about it makes me feel sick, the smell was dreadful. It sounds like we were unlucky.

I prefer the bagels you get in the UK (the real ones from bagel bakeries). They're actually boiled as per the traditional bagel and that's why they come out chewier. NYC bagels are just massive. They're also good in their own way but I never came across the same kind of genuine traditional bagels as I used to get in London.

@SchoolThing
Guess we'll have to agree to disagree on Petra!

I also have to disagree with you about Israelis. They're SO rude, shockingly rude even for people who live there 😂We have Israeli friends and family and they totally agree about how rude they are. But we love Israel anyway - the rudeness is part of the charm and they make up for it with friendliness, generosity and refreshing honesty and openness. You just have to go not expecting niceties like waiting in queues or saying thank you!

Fascinating thread. We live in a world of massive inequality. If poverty offends you, don't visit a less developed country.
I live in Melbourne and think it's a fabulous place to live but maybe not immediately accessible as a tourist destination.
Love Paris, Rome and Edinburgh. And Helsinki. And Hanoi. Felt a bit unsafe in Lisbon and Capetown.

@StartupRepair
As a fellow Melbournian, I agree that to the outsider Melbourne can be dull if you're in the city centre grid: I literally never go there, it's for office workers and day trippers shopping,
But I was down on the river at the Arts Centre a couple of weeks ago after going to the Opera and the place was packed, it was wonderful. The inner city suburbs are the best places.
Of the places I've been which have been named on this thread as being underwhelming - well I've loved almost all of them!
The only place I felt a bit disappointed in was Pompeii - fascinated by the history but just felt a bit flat.

See that’s just you projecting. Try to accept people for who they are rather than who you think they should be. I have Israeli family too, don’t find anyone there remotely offensive, am always warmly welcomed and I find conversations very spirited.

Projecting what? That doesn't even make any sense. People are rude there, fact. My Israeli friends who LIVE THERE think so. Lots of great things too as I said - generosity, openness, friendliness and informality, but if you're offended by lack of niceties like not waiting in line, aggressive driving, terrible customer service etc then probably Israel is not the place for you to visit. You're not offended by it so that's great. Neither am I. But still think they're rude by any standard!

I'm cracking up that this last page is pretty much an argument of where to get the best bagels. Oy Vey!

@TomBradysLeftKneecap
This whole thread is ridiculous!

I love your indignation whenever someone disagrees with you. The irony is strong 😂

Give me an Israeli any day over a snotty nosed Pom

@SchoolThing
Indignation is not rudeness 😂so no irony or projection. Strange use of these terms.

But funnily enough, I agree in terms of preference, definitely prefer a rude Israeli over a snotty pom (pom? does anyone actually use that outside of australia?). Just not when driving. Or queuing for a bus.

at Venice being too old.

As a Melburnian I'm not surprised visitors find it underwhelming. It's a (great) city to live in but I'm not sure what tourists would be hoping to get from it other than using it as a staging point for Great Ocean Rd or Phillip Island trips.

I'm a compulsive planner and researcher so don't think I've been anywhere that wasn't pretty much exactly as expected... because I read a gazillion reviews, poke around on Google Maps and generally obsess about a place for weeks before I go!