Page 34 | Have you ever been anywhere on holiday that was like the emperors new clothes?

Cheeseandlobster · 2022-05-29T11:24:08+00:00

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?

AlternativePerspective · 31/05/2022 15:07

Joburg had an awful reputation even 30 years ago when I lived in SA..

you absolutely can have a safe holiday in SA if you go to Kruger, the cape etc, but Joburg was never a place I would have recommended visiting. Apart from the gold mines there’s really nothing worth seeing there anyway.

DameHelena · 31/05/2022 15:12

LetHimHaveIt · 31/05/2022 14:44

Drink snobbery. Ok 😂 That really only applies if you're the sort of person who thinks one attractively-packaged poison has more value than another.

My point was that she was, for reasons beyond my ken, anxious to portray herself as some sort of Alexa in 'Schitt's Creek' - finding herself in a Canadian backwater, breaking nails, picking her way through sawdust on the floor, and sitting gingerly on sticky bar stools while attempting to attract the attention of a slack-jawed yokel with a filthy bar towel, who doesn't know what a cranberry is. Sure. Ok. Undermined somewhat by picking a cocktail which hasn't been fashionable since Natasha Bedingfield was in the charts. I don't give a toss what people drink - although if it's on the Wetherspoon's menu, it's perhaps not as exotic as the poster would like to think.

I've no idea what the Alexa in Schitt's Creek reference is. You've cooked up a really weird little idea around a very peripheral point. But you know, crack on, if it keeps you amused.

Tworoads · 31/05/2022 15:15

I am sitting in rainy Galicia (north Spain) today where there’s nothing to do with a super bored 6 year old in a rental house that feels like a 80 year old nanna lives here 🤨
Can we have a few ideas of where is fantastic to go, hidden gems, memorable holidays? Will cheer me up!
ps also agree about Center Parcs being overpriced and tatty

DameHelena · 31/05/2022 15:16

CurlyhairedAssassin · 31/05/2022 14:19

See, I can take or leave Scotland. It has never been a draw for me. I've visited Edinburgh, Dumfriesshire and St Andrews. Perhaps it was the time of year visititing Edinburgh and St Andrews (it was October) but I found them quite depressing, particularly St Andrews which I found had an awful vibe, made me shudder, which was a shame as I'd gone up to look at the university. Just so grey, cold and dreary. St Andrews felt like it was on the edge of the world and beyond that was nothing. I did like Dumfrieshire but it was the summer so a different feel I guess.

The weather makes a huge difference to how you feel about a place, I think. If you feel warm and relaxed and there are blue skies around you feel happier. If you go and it's grey and drizzly then perhaps it is harder to feel relaxed. Although I don't feel that way about, say, York when it's cold and grey.

It's fascinating how we're each drawn to places, or repelled from them, all with different experiences.

You just haven't been to Glasgow.
I used to live there, so I may be biased , but it is friendly, beautiful architecture, lots of lovely green spaces, interesting small businesses/cafes etc, terrifically friendly, chatty, funny people.
And yes, the weather can be shite, but you can always go and see a film at the glorious Glasgow Film Theatre.

MsTSwift · 31/05/2022 15:18

Northern Spain is so so wet. We camped there when I was a teen my dad is a real sun seeker when he heard there was a heatwave in England and we were sitting in the rain in Spain I thought he was going to cry.

DevonSunsets · 31/05/2022 15:21

AlternativePerspective · 31/05/2022 15:07

Joburg had an awful reputation even 30 years ago when I lived in SA..

you absolutely can have a safe holiday in SA if you go to Kruger, the cape etc, but Joburg was never a place I would have recommended visiting. Apart from the gold mines there’s really nothing worth seeing there anyway.

But that's the point of this thread - we researched, it was hyped as being this wonderful place to visit. But it was compounds and barbed wire.

You might say i was naive but i have lived all over the world and in some seriously dodgy locations but it's rare that a city has absolutely no redeeming features at all? You can't tell me the whole city is a no go area? not a single safe place to go see? no culture? no local cuisine? no night life?

That the whole city in its entirety, in an effort to stay safe, just hunkers down in their guarded compounds every night? being that its 59th place of the world's most popular cities with 4.21 million tourists in 2019 - did they all just go to stay in a compound?

pixie5121 · 31/05/2022 15:29

DevonSunsets · 31/05/2022 15:21

But that's the point of this thread - we researched, it was hyped as being this wonderful place to visit. But it was compounds and barbed wire.

You might say i was naive but i have lived all over the world and in some seriously dodgy locations but it's rare that a city has absolutely no redeeming features at all? You can't tell me the whole city is a no go area? not a single safe place to go see? no culture? no local cuisine? no night life?

That the whole city in its entirety, in an effort to stay safe, just hunkers down in their guarded compounds every night? being that its 59th place of the world's most popular cities with 4.21 million tourists in 2019 - did they all just go to stay in a compound?

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The point is you'd have been putting yourself in danger to do stuff. Genuinely, my SA friends have stories of being robbed at gunpoint when going to a bar. There's a really, really high incidence of rape as well.

I imagine your friends felt responsible for your safety. Not sure why they hyped it up to you...that is a bit odd.

PAFMO · 31/05/2022 15:30

DameHelena · 31/05/2022 15:12

I've no idea what the Alexa in Schitt's Creek reference is. You've cooked up a really weird little idea around a very peripheral point. But you know, crack on, if it keeps you amused.

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I'd say the references to Netflix series, easy listening Muzak and the trendiness or otherwise of booze may be giving more away about the poster's "class" than she'd have us think were the case...
Methinks the lady etc.

lightisnotwhite · 31/05/2022 15:39

LetHimHaveIt · 31/05/2022 13:11

'I didn't say 'it' wouldn't cope Hmm just that there's no need to be so spiteful towards a poster.

And quite apart from anything else, in that whole post the specific drink of choice is what you choose to criticise?

It's a masterclass in missing the point.'

Hardly 'missing the point' when it's a point the poster herself chose to make. At tedious length. Actually, I believe mine was the first comment after her post, suggesting a noisy dive bar with pool tables perhaps wasn't the place to ask for a cocktail with which to 'relax'. I also suggested that a spell in prison would be preferential to a holiday in Dubai, which she proffered as her ideal destination. So, no, it wasn't all I took from the ineffably silly post.

It's bullshit, anyway, because although I don't doubt the bartender wouldn't make her a Cosmopolitan - and who could blame him? - all this "Cranberry juice? What's that?" hokum is absurd. You think a Canadian would have treated cranberry juice as something exotic and outré?

The threads about places that are sold as being amazing but aren’t.

You can see how someone might give the Canadian countryside a go as everyone says how fantastic peace, nature, campfires are. The reality is it’s not for everyone.

Why pick apart how wrong the poster is when she’s given a really good example of what she finds terrible in a holiday everyone else rhapsodises about. And before the next person says “ research” it’s good that people give things they haven’t tried a go.

Blossomtoes · 31/05/2022 15:46

UniBallEye · 31/05/2022 14:24

This thread is still giving me endless amusement!

Me too. Two fights have broken out - the second involving someone who tried to break the first one up. Everywhere on the planet has been decreed “a shithole”. Complaints about rain, the tide going out, lack of cocktails, on and on. You could send some people on a free holiday to the Garden of Eden and they’d complain about the talking snake.

DameHelena · 31/05/2022 15:48

Blossomtoes · 31/05/2022 15:46

Me too. Two fights have broken out - the second involving someone who tried to break the first one up. Everywhere on the planet has been decreed “a shithole”. Complaints about rain, the tide going out, lack of cocktails, on and on. You could send some people on a free holiday to the Garden of Eden and they’d complain about the talking snake.

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Yes, breaking the first fight up was me and I'm fully aware of the irony

LetHimHaveIt · 31/05/2022 15:58

'Why pick apart how wrong the poster is when she’s given a really good example of what she finds terrible in a holiday everyone else rhapsodises about.'

No, she hasn't. She's detailed a holiday to which she's clearly patently unsuited. She's, I dunno, a swim-up bar kinda gal. Good for her. I might be if I were better-off (although I'd always have a moral objection to Dubai). But she's gone to an (apparently) rugged part of Canada and been surprised to find it a bit dull and rube-ish for her tastes. I think that's weird. It's as weird as complaining that world capitals are busy, or that countries with high levels of poverty have desperate people selling shit.

RichardOsmansXraySpecs · 31/05/2022 16:00

God there are some nasty people on this thread.

Just because someone says why they didn't like a place doesn't mean you can pick . apart and sneer at their reasons.
We don't all like the same thing. Shocker.

ToppTotty · 31/05/2022 16:04

I don't give a toss what people drink - although if it's on the Wetherspoon's menu, it's perhaps not as exotic as the poster would like to think.

But that was exactly my point… or part of my point. I deliberately picked a cocktail that wasn't exotic or trendy! He actually laughed when I told him all you need is cranberry juice… etc!

I don't think the trendiness of a drink determines whether it is nice or not, though. I still like Cosmopolitans even if they aren't flavour of the moment.

By the way, I do realise some people would like this type of holiday. Not for me though! Well at least I was willing to try it (once). See you in Dubai!

Blossomtoes · 31/05/2022 16:07

See you in Dubai!

Only when hell freezes over.

pixie5121 · 31/05/2022 16:07

LetHimHaveIt · 31/05/2022 15:58

'Why pick apart how wrong the poster is when she’s given a really good example of what she finds terrible in a holiday everyone else rhapsodises about.'

No, she hasn't. She's detailed a holiday to which she's clearly patently unsuited. She's, I dunno, a swim-up bar kinda gal. Good for her. I might be if I were better-off (although I'd always have a moral objection to Dubai). But she's gone to an (apparently) rugged part of Canada and been surprised to find it a bit dull and rube-ish for her tastes. I think that's weird. It's as weird as complaining that world capitals are busy, or that countries with high levels of poverty have desperate people selling shit.

It's basically what lots of posters have done...presented a 'them' problem as some kind of failing of the destination.

Someone who enjoys cocktails and swim up bars and Dubai and expensive nails is not going to be that well suited to a 'getting back to nature' type break in a secluded cabin in a remote part of Canada, especially if they aren't adaptable or adventurous. But somehow it's the destination's fault. There shouldn't be so much wildlife. There shouldn't be any mosquitoes. The bartender at the dive bar should have cocktail ingredients and know how to make them. There should have been more books to read.

Reading this thread, I feel quite thankful I appear to have been blessed with the ability to enjoy things for what they are. I didn't realise it was so rare.

Chubarubrub · 31/05/2022 16:07

Undermined somewhat by picking a cocktail which hasn't been fashionable since Natasha Bedingfield was in the chart

But it’s exactly this 🙈 fashionable cocktails?! Has anyone looked at a cocktail list and thought, ooh mojito…that’s a bit 2000s. 🤣🤣🤣 I just don’t buy into that, I’ll have a (whatever the trendy cocktail of the month is) or a Long Island iced tea. Whatever I fancy. Sorry if this offends the cocktail police. The way I look at it, if it’s on the menu, it’s perfectly fine to choose.

You’ll be disgusted to hear I enjoy the odd Babycham. Get your head around that. The 80s ugh how dated. 🤣🤣🤣

Chubarubrub · 31/05/2022 16:10

RichardOsmansXraySpecs · 31/05/2022 16:00

God there are some nasty people on this thread.

Just because someone says why they didn't like a place doesn't mean you can pick . apart and sneer at their reasons.
We don't all like the same thing. Shocker.

I knew this thread would go this way. I was going to start a thread about places you thought wouldn’t be good but turned out to be amazing, for a bit of positivity, then realised it’d go the same way. Ugh you like XYZ?/? Yeah so didn’t bother…

ToppTotty · 31/05/2022 16:11

I am going to have a pina colada the next time I am in a swim up bar (whatever that is) in Dubai.

LetHimHaveIt · 31/05/2022 16:11

PAFMO · 31/05/2022 15:30

I'd say the references to Netflix series, easy listening Muzak and the trendiness or otherwise of booze may be giving more away about the poster's "class" than she'd have us think were the case...
Methinks the lady etc.

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While I'd say your use of such a hackneyed phrase as 'Methinks the lady . . . ' suggests you're not nearly as clever as you think.

If you think an awareness of Netflix and noughties pop is indicative of anything in particular, I'm astonished. I've never claimed to be highbrow.

UglyModernWindows · 31/05/2022 16:12

@CurlyhairedAssassin We spent a week in San Diego in 2019 and we all loved it so much! As PP said, make sure to visit the Coronado island and the famous hotel Del Coronado. You can freely wander the grounds there and sit by the beach to watch most amazing sunset.

Chubarubrub · 31/05/2022 16:12

ToppTotty · 31/05/2022 16:11

I am going to have a pina colada the next time I am in a swim up bar (whatever that is) in Dubai.

looks around nervously and whispers Thats one of my faves! 😉

ToppTotty · 31/05/2022 16:14

Chubarubrub😁

TheGetaway · 31/05/2022 16:17

It is absolutely all about where and what suits you and we’re all different. Hence why I keep banging on about research.

I have never been to Centre Parks or Dubai because I just know I wouldn’t like either.

PAFMO · 31/05/2022 16:28

LetHimHaveIt · 31/05/2022 16:11

While I'd say your use of such a hackneyed phrase as 'Methinks the lady . . . ' suggests you're not nearly as clever as you think.

If you think an awareness of Netflix and noughties pop is indicative of anything in particular, I'm astonished. I've never claimed to be highbrow.

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Good job.
Because you're clearly not.
You're making a bit of a fool of yourself really with your snobbery. And inability to understand what the poster talking about cocktails meant.