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 to Melbourne over Sydney. Went to visit DS on placenta there. Decided to stay in Sydney first. Great but Melbourne💋

Worst place has to be Blackpool I’ve been once as a teenager, never again.
Best holiday was Vancouver.

Isn't that exactly its reputation though? What were you expecting?

I hear the pizza is very good.

Venice. Years sgo. Absolutely dreadful. Boiling hot. No loos. Drinks a total ly mad price. Worst place ever.

We had a fabulous 5 weeks in New Zealand - thought it was wonderful !

Maldives.
When you see the other side of life that the locals live and not the 5* atolls it really humbles you.

London. I really don't get the appeal. Not a patch on Edinburgh (home turf).

Love Berlin.

Also, my friend took me to Chelsea. Specifically to a bar that's apparently in the Made In Chelsea series ( don't watch it). It was super s*it and boring.

I never think that anywhere will be wonderful, but do try to wander off the beaten track and it has generally paid dividends. I love Rome and found that using the DK guides when visiting a city is a great way to get more out of it than simply visiting the usual tourist stop offs, many of which I've never been to, as I don't like crowds! I agree that Centre Parks was highly overrated and uninspiring and the only place I disliked totally was the Dominican Republic.

Barbados. Mosquito infested tip. It’s not that safe either. We got lost on our way home one night … how the locals live and the tourists live is worlds apart.
I found The Maldives pretty dull. They’re just resort islands with nothing going on. The last one I visited, the beaches were full of pumps trying to stop the sand erosion. It overlooked a ‘service island’ which was really ugly and it was infested with giant biting ants.

Florence and Tuscany overall was pretty underwhelming…
I’m trying hard now to think of the places that I have liked 😂 I’m picky!

Is it an English hating thing? I’ve heard so many Scots saying they hate London. How can you hate the whole of London? There’s so much to do, there really is something for everyone

London is my home turf and yet I can still appreciate other cities. I love Edinburgh, the history, the sights, the people, the pubs.

Not a patch on London though, best city in the world in my book.

I absolutely adored Rome! Something beautiful around every corner, coffee on my balcony, over looking the pantheon.

Dubai, lived there years and years ago before it was ultra developed. Went back several years ago and hated it, way too bling, flashy and super expensive.

Marrakesh, hated it, felt unsafe and grubby, would never go back.

I agree that London is possibly the best city in the world.
I'd visited other major cities abroad as a language student before managing to visit London at 18 and I just thought (and still do think) it was brilliant compared to them. Paris being one example. Therr are Loads of gorgeous places in France but Paris just wasn't it. I didn't get much of a vibe from it and was quite bored. how could you ever get bored walking around in London? Or Liverpool for that matter.
So yes I thought Paris was 'emperor's new clothes' especially as its so hyped up as city of romance. St Petersburg was far more romantic, Roses for sale at every corner, champagne to buy in kiosks to be drunk overlooking the rivers and canals. Nobody has ever sold russia as a romantic place qnd yet strangely it was.

@HermioneKipper its funny because I thought of this thread today when a colleague had said she'd been down to London at the weekend and how intolerably busy it had been and how she was glad to come back to Edinburgh.

I also hate crowds so when I visited in November I did a load of less hectic activities like taking an Uber to Greenwich for the day and visiting the free museums. I met my friend and her DS at the South Bank and we spent a lot of time skimming stones into the river. I also got to see some shows I particularly wanted to including opening night of Cabaret which was incredible. But no apparently all of London is far too busy to be enjoyable.

Ive heard nationalism is ok in scotland but wrong in england. I wonder why?

I don't have a nationalistic bone in my body but i do notice the contradiction.

most overrated place for me is the lake district. Beautiful of course, left to nature, but it's one huge, hollowed out gift shop, as if one corporate entity swallowed it all up and made it into an inauthentic theme park. Exact same shops in every town, same art prints, jewellery, and no opening for diversity or creativity. I used to live there for a while and do love it, but the corporate thing really ruins it.

Naples - Glorious weather, interesting places to visit - Herculaneum was really fascinating - but the sense of menace that hung over everything was unpleasant and tiring. As were the constant attempts to rob us. In the end I suggested putting out a series of random possessions out on a cafe table accompanied by a sign that said 'Help yourself now and save the effort of picking my pocket/stealing my bag'. DH had lived in Italy and spoke Italian fluently and even he found it all a bit heavy going. After 3 days we caught the first train out of there. I won't be going back.

Granada - having really enjoyed Madrid and Seville beforehand on the same holiday we had high expectations of Granada. Admittedly the Alhambra was fabulous - we arrived at sunrise - but the city itself was dirty, expensive and chaotic in an arrogant sort of way that suggested it need make no effort at all. Not going back there either!

Newquay
Everyone said "oh it's lovely! You must go, visit the zoo!"

I will never take recommendations off of any one of them again.

It was boring. Car parking is so expensive you near on have to sell a kidney. The beach is cold. Fish and chips is stupidly expensive. The zoo was ok but again, really expensive.

Meanwhile, we stayed in Crantock. That was lush! Beautiful, unspoilt, cheap as chips, friendly locals, parking for the beach was a fiver for all day. Beach was hot, clean and the sea was warm and clear. Crabs galore in the rock pools, Life guards who actually watched over folk rather than posing. It was like the 50s.

Lipsandlashes in 1999 Boston WAS a big building site - was the height of the Big Dig when they were putting overpasses underground in tunnels - place was literally a building site for years. It was worth it though - lovely greenways and access to the waterfront now.

I'm another one who doesn't get NY. We have taken the kids down for shows etc and I have a close friend who lives there but I don't get the appeal as a place to visit (and agree with whoever commented on the highline). I imagine if you are a high earner it is a good place to work and live - much like Hong Kong.

Hawaii was the one place that more than met my expectations - I was blown away.

Ireland- as I thought it would be. But as its not really hyped up and with the history of strife plus the laundries, and predictable terrible weather I don't think it could ever be considered a case of 'Emperor's new clothes' . Pluses were seeing the language was thriving and that local delicacies like crab and soda bread were delicious.

Erm, no, London doesn't equate England in my mind!

I love Liverpool. Quite like Cornwall for a family holiday. And the Lake District.

London is just not my cup of tea. Was always quite happy to leave to be honest.

this thread puts me off going anywhere
I think I will be hiring an air b and b at lovely wells next the sea in Norfolk or stay at home in my little village in Essex england !!!

Morocco - didn’t feel safe at all.

not a single destination but a cruise- you get to somewhere you like and have to leave after a few hours, eg Crete & then you go to an absolute shi*hole eg Athens. And then after a long day you have to wear a bloody cocktail dress for dinner- E.V.E.R.Y S.I.N.G.L.E D.A.Y!!
oh and France because they’re rude, the food is awful &’it’s the only place I’ve ever experienced open racism!

We have always said that we have never had a bad holiday, but reading these reviews reminds me of a trip to Tunisia in 1981. I was 4 months pregnant with my first, and my husband won an incentive at his company for 2 weeks in Tunisia. 20 or so couples and children from the company in a luxury hotel in the Baie of Singes near the ruins of Carthage.
The hotel was fab. But totally unsuitable for people with young children. We were in a bungalow in the gardens, which was great except when we went in at night our footsteps crunched. Put the light on to see dozens of cockroaches scurrying for the dark corners. Breakfast was madiera cake with fig jam. We had a trip to Nabuel to see the camel market, buses were late and we arrived after the market had closed. Shopping in the souk in Tunis and every woman had to put up with being groped by the sales people. Visited an old town to be shown a well where the water was pumped up by a camel walking in circles all day in the heat. Beggars everywhere, and many in a very bad way, missing limbs, blind, just grim. Went to Carthage, not much left as the Romans pinched a lot of it, and the locals used the rest to build their own houses. Visited a bedouin camp which was interesting but spent most of the time keeping kids hands out of of pockets and purses. Butchers shops with hanging meat covered in flies. On one trip, we called into a hotel in Sousse (or Hammermet) which would have been much better for families. We were concerned about me picking up a bug and damaging my unborn baby, but we were much better off than those with young children trying to get food they would eat. Oh, Dick Emery wason the plane on the way back, and a few weeks later he died. There was also a shortage of fuel at Tunis, so the plane had to pull in to Nice airport to top up its tanks on the way home. Having said all that, we still enjoyed the experience. It was interesting to see another culture, in fact more than interesting, but I wouldn't rush back.