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?

Centre Parks - the house was so filthy we spent the first day cleaning it, then we all got cryptosporidium from the pool and spent the rest of the week projectile vomiting.

I feel the French lack the personality and weather , that mske Orlando Disneyworld unique

That's interesting - we're going to the US for the first time next month (road trip). Going to both San Francisco AND San Diego so wonder what we'll make of it. We are deliberately avoiding LA apart from the airport. Not our thing, doesn't appeal. DFIL is horrified that we're not "doing Disney". Kids are 18 and 16 and have never been into any Disney stuff nor asked to go even when they used to see TV adverts. I think it's adults who hype it up more than anything. Mind you, DFIL is horrified that we've never wanted to go to Florida with them in all the years they've gone there. They like different things to us. They stay in a nice but soulless villa in the middle of a golf course type place, and MIL likes a pool with one of those insect net things over it. They used to go to the parks but are not bothered now they're older and just like staying at the villa. They like their shopping malls and trips to Denny's. Just not our thing at all.

I think it does have provincial, small town energy. Experienced horrific racism there as well, in a pub not that far outside the city centre. I thought it had bad vibes and I just really didn't like it at all.

Lapland

Marrakech, horrible, drab, dirty place. Couldn't wait to leave.

Why do you consider it to be one of the best places on earth? I really don't understand the hype at all compared to other countries I've visited/lived in.

"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"

I see that as part of the appeal of Paris. You expect Parisians to be supercilious and superior and, voila, they perform for you. Went a few years after not being for about 20 years and was mindful of all the "hate Paris" comments on here. But, no, still fabulous and better than London.

Woolley Grange - one of those “luxury” family hotels. Terrible terrible room and broken travel cot and zero sound insulation from the rest of the hotel so you get to hear every child in the place as they wake up. Nothing to do at all until your kids are at least 5. A godawful rip off. (Poor restaurant too - we left and went to a nearby hotel which was excellent but I got food poisoning literally on arrival courtesy of Woolley grange)

I actually surprised myself and quite liked Las Vegas. I don’t gamble or drink and I really don’t like shows so I had no interest in the casinos. We were only there a couple of days.
We went on trips to the other hotels, the shops and some of the attractions.

I want to go back to do a lot of the things we didn’t do. But, I would go in summer as it was bloody freezing in the winter.

South Pacific (Fiji and Vanuatu), lovely scenery, but it's basically Magaluf for Australians.

Barcelona - grimy and grungy. I lived in Spain for years, and anywhere else in Spain is better.

I agree about going off season. We went to Capri in April and I just remember it as a nice wee place where we had a pleasant wander. Friend and I drove down the coast between San Francisco and Los Angeles and we were shocked at the homelessness in SF, people literally lying around and there was just such an air of hopelessness, so bleak. We went to really interesting places on the way down though (Hearst mansion a particular highlight, mad and we seemed to be the only people there). Only place I’ve seen blatant pick picketing was Barcelona but the first time I went was to visit a friend and didn’t feel unsafe. We ventured down some less touristy streets in the centre (this was a while ago, felt safe, families chatting in the streets) and chaos broke out when someone spotted a rat - lots of shouting and a man running down the street trying to hit it with a brush. Not boring!

Mykonos. Can’t believe it’s not been mentioned on here yet. Fine for a night before getting a ferry to one of the better islands of the Cyclades, but I always feel awful for people when I hear they’ve booked Mykonos for two weeks.

Another one saying Cyprus. The strip in Limassol was hotels interspersed with rubbish dumps. If you like fly tipping, you'll love Limassol!
Paphos wasn't nice either. Ok, the old bits are nice, but few and far between. Plenty of shite bits though.
I loved Las Vegas! I had to go for a family wedding. I didn't want to go and I was pleasantly surprised. I went with my DH and three year old and we didn't gamble at all. We did hire an open top mustang to drive through the Nevada Desert, to Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam.
People were really nice to us, I suspect, because we had our little boy with us. The receptionist at our hotel gave us a room with a fantastic view because she liked our child.

Another vote for San Francisco. I think I probably had a very romanticised idea about it from reading American novels and essays. But I really disliked it. I hated the contest between the skyscraper tech offices, the expensive cocktail bars and then the utter destitution. Walked along a (main) street where I was literally dodging hypodermic needles under my feet and people sleeping in cardboard shelters. Americans I was with were totally unphased, but the huge, obvious inequalities made me feel so angry.

It probably didn't help that I was there on a work trip and I've of the few people who bothered to hire a car (we were staying about 40 min out of town). So I was very jetlagged and ferrying colleagues around an unfamiliar road system in a giant car. The seals were nice. Everything else I disliked.

@Slinkymalinky03 I agree, New Zealand is very overhyped!

I'm not saying its rubbish, there are some really brilliant bits and we had many fantastic experiences (lived there for a year) BUT it does not live up to the hype.

Its a lot more "Lake district" than "Lord of the Rings" - basically miles and miles of ecologically ruined farmland. Boring little towns and festivals that the locals all seem to think are the worlds best, but are dull as dishwater. Everything's expensive and choice is really limited. Cuisuine is awful (looking at you "cheese rolls"). You meet some WEIRD people, the more rural you get the more conspiracy theories you encounter. The wildlife is incredible but absolutely on the brink and mostly confined to glorified zoo's. And the tourism (both domestic and international) is completely unsustainable.

I think if you've travelled more widely (Americas, Asian etc) then New Zealand just doesnt stand out as particularly fantastic.

I agree about Venice, vastly overrated. It was just so old and tatty.

(love Centerparcs though).

I don't personally like either of those along with PNG but there are lots of other beautiful and relatively unspoilt South Pacific islands.

Legoland. Went on 3 rides, queues were a piss take. It was filthy and absolutely shit.

hollywood. Complete dump.

florence. Again, a busy filthy dump.

That's a long way to go for a shag.

What's so bad about it? I've never been to any of the Greek islands.

Where did you go on the West Coast?

Dublin is the most boring place on earth and hugely expensive. Nothing of interest to do other than drink.

I've always dreamed of going to both NYC and Centreparcs but in reality I'd hate how heaving it would be.

Surprised at the San Francisco comments, I've always assumed it's probably one of the wealthiest places to live in the US. I always think of that amazing house in Mrs Doubtfire!

Las Vegas. We went because we were in LA for a few months so thought we ought to make the drive.

It was awful - naff, gaudy and thoroughly unpleasant. Plus hotter than the sun.

Totally agree with all your points above. You've summed it up perfectly.