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?

Florida - the parks are okay bit so busy and expensive. The hotels are really dated and the food is all big unhealthy portions.

you have to drive everywhere and the people are really rude and unfriendly

@stinky

No way. How, why??

WWHHHAAAT! No! It’s one of the best places on Earth

I think the main problem with Florida is that it is, essentially, treated as one big holiday park by all comers and the locals are - understandably - often a bit salty about it which shows in their interactions with holidaymakers. I imagine the same is true of abrupt or rude locals in places like Cornwall and indeed Paris, where locals just trying to go about their lives appear to have to be constantly fighting through wannabe influencers treating every monument or cute cafe-front as their personal photoshoot.

Dublin - It felt nothing like I expected at all, very provincial, small town energy, nothing to do except drink, a weekend was too long.

San Francisco - sooo overhyped, somewhere I was so excited to go to but have zero urge to ever go back. I’ve heard San Diego is great and I’ve regretted not going there instead.

Marrakech - filthy, men openly peeing in the street, people in your face all the time. The Riad we stayed in was beautiful but the city wasn’t good.

Vancouver. Best city in the world my arse. The same deeply unpleasant underground vibe as LA but without the sun-shining gloss.

Florida, I totally bought into the hype of everyone telling me it was the most magical place on earth and once I went I wouldn't want to holiday anywhere else. I hated it, I could still cry now at the amount of money we spent for that 2 week holiday!!!

Where were you? We've had many holidays in Cornwall and found the locals to be friendly. Yes, the transport isn't great, but we drove there so.....beaches we went to are gorgeous. We stopped going because it got too expensive for the prospect of most of the week being rainy (we like walking the coastal paths but it's not particularly pleasant in the pissing down rain) and was sick of the journey time to get there. Once took us over 8 hours from Liverpool.

Mind you, I also thought Center Parcs was ok after putting off going for years because of the rep on here. With kids anyway. Felt safe for them, we didn't see any mess by the pools, our lodge was clean and comfy, or chavvy behaviour (not a Sun newspaper in sight . I quite enjoyed doing a couple of the activities, didn't feel too much like school! We wouldn't have gone to all of the food places, knew they wouldn't be our cup of tea so only used Bella Italia and Cafe Rouge and they were lovely. Don't know why anyone bothered with the takeaway Indian when you can just take Indian ready meals from M&S which would be the same quality and half the price and you can have them when you want. A couple of times was enough for me, though, kids are older teens and have outgrown it and never bothered with the pool the last time we went. Not sure why anyone without kids would go but apparently they do.....it's good for big family celebrations if you get a couple of lodges near each other. Grandparents can do the more sedate activities or go off for a coffee, and the kids can do the sports stuff and meet up in between.

Haven on the other hand........shudders

I've never really understood the attraction to London, but it is growing on me. I think if you avoid central London with the crowds and overpriced expensive attractions it has so much going for it.

There's nowhere I've been that I've thought was overrated - probably because I only go to places I think I'll like. The first time I went to Prague I didn't like it because it was a public holiday and horribly busy but I went back a few weeks later and it was much quieter and I enjoyed it much more. However, that was in the early 90s so I suspect it is far worse now :( Most of the time when I don't like somewhere it's because it was too busy, I don't like crowds.

Not very keen on Florence or Seville but I might like them better on a second acquaintance.

Well, yes, see the post about hen nights and York. It is rough and there are a lot of drunks, but there's also the National Museum and St Fagan's museum of country life, which is the biggest open air museum in Europe. The Bay is quite nice too.

Cardiff. It’s just really rough. Loads of drink women staggering around

Ha ha. Cardiff is a great place! You can't discount it because of a few hen groups!

Agree with what everyone said about Los Angeles, if I could have got an earlier flight out, I would have.

I'm sure there are some lovely but securely gated areas, but the rest is awful.

I can't think of anywhere for this! I'm usually the other way round - things are better than I thought they'd be. Didn't expect to be bothered about Arizona one way or the other for instance but I was absolutely blown away by it. Went to Naples on spec a few years ago and loved it, which I wasn't expecting.

Recent trip to Nice/Liguria/Genoa then Paris was a bit disappointing but I think largely because I was in the throes of horrific first trimester morning sickness and couldn't be fair to it lol. Genoa was more run down than I expected though still an interesting place to visit. Paris was really different from what I expected. I thought people would be rude but almost everyone was lovely. Found lots of little vegan places where people were awesome and the food was fantastic. But to (pregnant) me the whole of Paris smells like ham, cheese and cake and as I was constantly wanting to throw up I found that very hard work! Loved the Musee d'Orsay but I agree with the poster about appreciating the free museums in London. The metro was a bit of a shock after the tube too. But Paris is a super beautiful city - I just didn't fall in love with it like I'd kind of thought I would.

But who wants to do a series of day trips? You spend ages in the car along with all the other day trippers. You can't have a drink because you've got to drive home again. You don't feel the benefit of the day out if you're stuck in a car having to drive home again. It's relaxing walking back to the lodge at night through centerparcs after a meal out, the kids love leading the way. If you know you're paying the extra for the convenience then I don't see the problem with that.

I read your post as a bunch of people getting pissed and their farts getting louder and louder.

Now interpreted the correct meaning, but had a good laugh in the meantime!

New Orleans. We went about 8 months after Katrina so I always tell people I think we had a bad experience because of it, but it was so awful. We were supposed to stay 3 nights but left after one. I imagine it’s returned to its glory days now but I’ve never felt so vulnerable in a city.

Los Angeles. Like Blackpool but with more sun.

"Tried to flex my GCSE level French but found a lot of Parisians just v impatient, barking at you either in v fast French or broken English"

Well, yes, but can you blame them? They don't have half an hour to listen to you get your couple of sentences out.
Parisians can be rude though and the grabbing by salespeople in Montmartre should be illegal.

Going off season is probably the reason we've had great holidays in Rome, Venice and San Francisco. I even liked Las Vegas for the one-off novelty value. Luxor was super friendly and safe but we were some of the first tourists back a year after a tourist massacre.

Agree Centre Parcs and Los Angeles are unpleasant. Ring of Kerry is over vastly rated unless you like narrow lanes and high hedges seen through your wipers.

Los Angeles. Hated, hated, hated every inch of it. It's dirty, run down, hordes of homeless people being totally ignored, drug taking, obviously underage prostitutes, I could go on and on but it's dire and nothing would entice me back.

Las Vegas too, I don't gamble and it was full of people almost foaming at the mouth in their fervour to feed money into slot machines, concrete bland buildings or ridiculous high rise absurdly pastiche architecture near the strip.

I have no desire to visit the US West Coast again although I did enjoy San Francisco.

"Dublin - It felt nothing like I expected at all, very provincial, small town energy, nothing to do except drink, a weekend was too long."

Not my impression at all. There's lots to visit and much more to do than just drinking.
I do have two problems with the place - it's too expensive and never warm. I want to go back to see the things I haven't seen yet though.

Paris, a thousand times over.

To a much lesser extent Sydney, though I’m more than happy to return to double check that one. I don’t think there’s money enough in the world to entice me back to Paris!

Vancouver. Best city in the world my arse. The same deeply unpleasant underground vibe as LA but without the sun-shining gloss.

Aww I like Vancouver! DH is from there and we used to live there together. People can be almost comically unfriendly but it's not personal. Has access to some of the most amazing coast and mountains. It's way, way safer than LA. And there's a lot of sun in the summer :-) though the rest of the year is the definition of grey. Maybe a better place to live than to visit. Not that I'm trying to argue with you, each to their own eh.

Another vote for Lucerne. I actually wasn't that surprised - it was how I expected it to be, but the person I was with was determined to go. Overcrowded, full of tour groups, locals obviously hate tourists and are rude, everything is overpriced, bad food....just very little to recommend it. Not a huge fan of Zurich either...pretty but boring and sterile and no soul. And more bad, expensive food.

Miami- really disliked it, such an off vibe about it.
Absolutely loved Naples and Florida keys though.