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?

I am so glad a few PPs share my love for Paris. I really do not get the common British dislike for the place.

Yes, it is expensive. London, anyone? It is beautifully quirky, I thought Brits would love that. The people are more formal but if you engage them politely by and large they return this. They are slower to smile but when they do it is sincere. I will take that over the false bonhomie of the British and the Americans any day. And there is so much art, there is always a concert or gig in a beautiful historic building, the shops are so different….

And the food! Not uniformly, of course, but by and large. With a little effort you can find expensive good food in most major cities. But you have to do some real research to find wonderful, reasonably priced restaurant meals in London. Maybe we have gotten lucky but we have done better in Paris.

Pre-covid stayed in a boutique hotel in Zurich recommended by family over an easter weekend. Coming from long haul o/s I confirmed via email we would be arriving early, re-assured that was fine and a twin room would be ready.

Driver couldn't find the place initially. When he did drop us off, several steps to lug the luggage up and definitely not a place for a disabled person to ever visit. No porter assistance.

Woman on duty said our room wouldn't be ready until the afternoon and had no access to emails between myself and the family ownership to confirm it was supposed to be ready that morning. Basically wasn't interested but I pushed for a room so we could shower and have breakfast.

No in-room tea or coffee facilities, beds made up as one (travelling with DD), room cold. We went downstairs to breakfast, woman on duty said it would be extra to the booking already pre-paid, and the bill was extra ordinarily expensive but we were hungry. Went for a walk and found very little open as Zurich tends to shut down during easter being quite religious led place.

At the end of the trip as we left via Zurich airport, womens hygiene bins were overflowing due to no one working the easter weekend, business class lounge was pulled apart and the alternative was appalling.

As much as I love Switzerland, I was very pleased to get out of Zurich.

It’s interesting reading people’s take on somewhere but find it pretty surprising that people can dislike a whole city/country after a visit.

This is always bought up on travel threads but people often say how much they love a whole place based on a visit, which no one ever points out is just as daft.

Anyway this one specifically asks about the emperors new clothes places. So anywhere that’s been hyped as marvellous but isn’t all that. It’s about peoples reactions to places not about if it’s technically right or not. Some people don’t travel at all after a series of shit experiences.

Venice for me. It feels like only tourists populate it.

Some of my worst holidays:

Cancun - its just strips of massive hotel complexes and to get anywhere outside of the hotel you need to pay extortionate money to taxi drivers and then pay extortionate prices to see things. And the hassle in Cancun is horrid.

Portugal: we constantly got offered drugs.

North Devon: just fuck all to do outside of the summer season (we went late September) and we couldnt get any restaurant bookings (this was during covid) as everything was booked up circa 1 month in advance. No walk in tables available. We booked for 1 week and drove home after 3 days.

My DP says Paris but i loved it. Yes its smelly and dirty but my favourite memory of the whole thing was walking from Notre Dame along the river and just seeing people watching.

Otoh we loved Luxor. We had read up before about the hassle and was prepared. There was a lot of hassle but the sights were incredible and felt very safe. We had a great tour guide who essentially was available 24/7 to us for the week and that i think made the difference.

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.

You are so right. Reading this thread it seems travel is wasted upon the Brits. I've never heard of so many people who are "bored" by a place - they seem to expect to be entertained wherever they go. Huge cities where there is, apparently, nothing to do, whole countries written off by one bad experience.

Hotel in Majorca recommended by a colleague. Thought we were going to die in the private expensive transfer from airport to hotel due to the erratic during which promised we would arrive relaxed to start our holiday. Complex not very clean, 4 year old came back from childrens club day 1 singing a rhyme containing swear words they had been taught. No chance of a sunbed unless you got up at 5.00 a.m. to join the queue. DH witnessed a cooked chicken falling on the floor in the kitchen and being carried straight to the buffet (luckily we weren’t eating there). Culmination was DH contracting an illness caught from swimming in the sea where he encountered raw sewage! 4 days in bed and a huge Dr’s bill for daily call-outs! Yes we did complain to tour operator and received a snivelling not our responsibility response!

I’m not sure I’ve ever been on holiday anywhere I didn’t like.

Research and immerse yourself.

……. I never do package!

Yy to centre parcs I know so many people who lov e it and go every year. We went 2019 it was absolutely crap. So overpriced especially the activities even though we had lovely weather we felt like we were scratchjng around for something to do. It felt 'souless' to me too almost like a big shop in the middle that housed the climbing walls etc and pub.
Swimming pool was just OK.
I didn't get that holiday at all still don't - can't understand the appeal.

Paris - smelt of piss a lot of it, very rude and went round and round trying to exit the damn metro station

Pisa - not a pleasant visit and we were only staying 2 nights

Dubai - couldn't get out of there quick enough was travelling for work but attitude I received towards being a solo female traveller was horrific. I refused to go back or even transfer through there! For some reason it's a very popular destination for people where I live in Scotland.

The people are more formal but if you engage them politely by and large they return this.

Youre insinuating that I and others weren’t polite. I lived in Paris for 6 months as part of my sandwich year in Uni, I had some good experiences yes but the majority were bad. I left with a bad overall impression. I then went to Berlin for 6 months and the difference in the friendliness of people was huge, so I know it wasn’t me or how I was interacting.

To be fair to the tour operator, not entirely sure how they could be deemed to be in any way responsible for what was being piped into the sea.

Malta. I lived there for 3 years and never got beyond a state of disappointment. A PP summed it up well:

1. Huge building site
2. Oppressively hot yet public transport is shit so you rely on a car to get around.
3. Zero environmental awareness - fly tipping and, er, shooting birds, are popular weekend hobbies.
4. The beaches are dirty. Glass, fag ends, micro plastics, fishing wire.
5. The corruption. Jesus, the corruption. People talk about not wanting to visit Dubai or China because they don't want to support a corrupt regime. While I was living there 95% of the traffic police were sacked for fiddling their hours.
6. Shit service.
7. Road safety is zero. Many locals think nothing of driving the wrong way around a roundabout and parking up for a pastizzi and a coffee. Then will shout at you if you DARE to raise an eyebrow.
8. Pavements are narrow and potholed. Avoid with pushchairs and wheelchairs.
9. Treatment of asylum seekers is inhumane. Pushing back boats, keeping them on a TOUR BOAT mid pandemic for weeks with little food and no medical help.

It's basically hot Blackpool with a couple of decent restaurants and some amazing historical sites that many would have bulldozed for some shit anonymous apartment blocks given half the chance.

We left to bring up our child in a place where you don't need to hop in the car to go to school or the playground, and where the air quality registers above 'crap'.

Never again.

I am going to New York later this year. Cannot wait. I don’t expect or want it to be anything like any other city I have been to.

I did laugh on the NYC Facebook planning page where someone posted asking where they can get a full English for breakfast in Manhattan.

We hired a car and had a great couple of weeks down the coast from Cancun itself. The actual city was pretty grim though. Mahahual was beautiful, though I thought I was going to get savaged by a vulture one night and it was actually an inquisitive seagull.

Paris is awesome! We go every two years our teens love it

Cavtat in Croatia, hated it so much. Beautiful to look at but real Brits abroad vibe. I’ve been all over Croatia and loved it but this was horrible.

Marrakesh - utterly filthy, even the money was filthy, gropey men everywhere, pickpockets, everything to do with tourists is designed to rip you off - shops, restaurants etc.

St Tropez, a hot Llandudno but more boring. Was tacky and ridiculously over priced. We kept thinking we were in the wrong bit but no it was just crap

I really want to love Tokyo, but… no.

Nice. Some bits were OKish, but the area along the seafront is just concrete and cobbles and it's sooo boring. Also Monaco, where we went for the day - massively overbuilt and overpriced, and the sea views spoilt by all those luxury yachts.

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!

@DailySheetWasher

Same. Even if it's just overnight I read hotel reviews and local attractions, might book a place for dinner.

Gutted to hear all this. I've always wanted to go to Malta because of the archeological and historical sites, but everyone on MN always says it's shit, and you're clearly speaking from a position of knowledge. Still slightly tempted to go in February, stay in the best hotel in Valetta, swim in the pool and book guided trips to the sites.

I think you're overstating the corruption angle though. When people complain about the Chinese regime they're talking about arresting and imprisoning millions of people from minority groups in forced labour camps, not cops taking back-handers to remove speeding tickets. I can see that the latter would be a major downside to living there, but it's not on the same scale.

@mumwon I know that. That is why I was so disappointed. Not from UK and I heard how beautiful it was. This was just my experience of it .

Yep.
We’re away soon. I’ve extensively researched and booked as usual.
It will be great.