Ever visited somewhere for the day and been really disappointed?

[Summerhouse2013]

We travelled to Yeovil in Somerset yesterday for the day, wow, we were so disappointed.

It was like a ghost town. Most of the shops were shut, only a handful were open. And towards the bottom area of the town most of the shops were completely closed down.

I'd always got the impression there was a lot more to Yeovil.

We left after an hour as there was nothing to do.

I guess it depends where you look as there are definitely nicer areas in Oxford

And the castle which was closed, and the rain, and the general dreariness and lack of anything interesting in the town centre, other than that yes you're right 😂

Nottingham is not a great tourist destination. Its fine if you go for something special like a gig and are just going to spend a few hours getting something to eat or in a pub, but it makes zero of Robin Hood and the caves are pretty boring.

Also Yorkshire Sculpture Park is a bit Emperors New Clothes. You're not allowed to slag it off as makes you sound uncultured, but it's fields with with some stuff in it, and an expensive gift shop and cafe
totally agree with this , we went last year and the best bit was the highland cows in the wooded bit , the actual sculptures were way too far apart and a bit shit .

Was it a shih tzu?

London. I've never seen an underground in as bad as a condition in London.

Every other subway that I've been in has elevators/escalators. The part of the London underground that I was on, didn't have elevators/escalators. I saw a woman carry and struggle down six flights of stairs with a pram.

I would have tried the National Justice Museum, Nottingham Contemporary, the Caves of Nottingham, New Art Exchange, Kushi-ya or Alchemilla before the park and ride car park. It does rain sometimes, though.

Warwick Castle I think is good fun if you go into it knowing it's just an attraction (I'd been told it was a bit disappointing if you are used to EH style castles).

It's probably a lot more disappointing for those of us over a certain age who went there before it was Disneyfied and see how much it's been commercialised and spoilt. A standard purpose-built theme park has never promised/claimed to be anything else, so you know what you're getting - or stay away if that's not your kind of thing.

This country isn't building any new Mediaeval castles, so it's a shame to lose one like this; mind, I always think the same about people who buy a beautiful, characterful old house and then rip out all of the period features to homogenise it with any modern house.

In response to some of the comments about Yeovil - I'll be absolutely honest we didn't set out to deliberately go there, we thought we'd jump in the car and visit the area.

In fact our first choice was going to be Chard, but once we arrived we drove straight through 😀

So that's when we thought, let's move on to Yeovil as had never been before....we didn't want to do loads of shopping, I was just making the comment everywhere seemed shut.

What we had intended to do was find a nice little pub that served food, but the only places open were coffee shops, Wetherspoons, Burger King types of places.

Well, we learnt our lesson yesterday 😃

Alot of towns in the UK are pretty samey. Its lovely you get out exploring but I probably would have had fairly low expectations of how exciting it would be. The town I actually really like is Bath so im surprised to see people dont like it as much as I thought.

Oh, and we thought phoenix park would be a proper park with trees and grass and ya know, dog shit and stuff.

@MasterBeth There are some good restaurants. But the Justice Museum is okay, not amazing. The caves are just caves that were used for storage or tanning, mildly interesting but nothing more. I love art and I was majorly disappointed with the Contemporary and Art Exchange. Maybe they get some good travelling exhibitions sometimes? But the art was a pretty poor standard.

And Alchimella is a Michelin star restaurant. You do not just drop into one of those. You have to book months in advance.

@Belltentdreamer I concur. I live 5 minutes from it and have seen it change so much over the years, sad really! But then it is owned by Merlin entertainments. 🥺

Agree with Portmeirion, we had a fab holiday in North Wales but Portmeirion just felt a bit pointless. They also seemed very bad at managing all the visitors and providing food etc.

To those who didn't like Portmeirion, I agree it's a bit strange but we actually like the bonkers-ness of it. To the person saying it was like a facade - well, that's kind of the point - it's not supposed to be a real village. The majority of the buildings are used as holiday accommodation. The man who built it Sir Clough Williams-Ellis did it as a kind of tribute to the places he had visited in Italy and suchlike and been so impressed with. It was a hobby of sorts and long term vision for him.

There is some absolutely stunning scenery and views if you can be bothered to do the walk along the wooded footpath (difficult with young children/prams) If you do the walk you come out onto a sweeping vista across Borth y Gest and beyond - on a clear day it's stunning scenery. Also my dc's absolutely love the ice cream shop there with a huge revolving freezer - when they were little they also loved the "train" ride through the woods. I always find the food in the Caffe Glas very nice - but maybe we've been lucky as it's never been particularly busy when we've visited.

I went to Portmerion when it was just a free village you could wander around. It was interesting. I would not pay to see it though.

Nottingham is not Rome or Lascaux, I'll grant you. But you'd have to be something of a philistine to find none of the above a bit more interesting than the park and ride site.

Lived there before. Didn't even last a year. A dump of a place.

I love bath and cambridge ( we live relevantly near to cambridge so we go quite a lot)
Cadburys world as a kids attraction was amazing and so good for our disabled daughter and younger daughter they couldn't do enough for us and we so accommodating. I'd definitely recommend if u have disabled children going. If ur going as an adult and ur not impressed then that's kinda on u as its clearly a kids attraction. I enjoyed it and the free chocolate was always good!

But can't stand Parisn been twice, it was very dirty expensive and smelt of wee everywhere.

Going against the spirit of the thread, but I live in a very touristy area. People all head up to the main Lakes - Bowness, Ambleside but they are packed and people overlook the Western Lakes. Remote, atmospheric, isolated and surprisingly beautiful.

I have spent many years visiting Muncaster Castle, Ravenglass. Sometimes a bit hit and miss over the years. But last week I went with my dd2 and two granddaughters. It was absolutely beautiful, banks of rhododendrons, magnolia, fairy walk and spectacular views in the sunshine. Plenty of places to picnic. Birds of prey display even enjoyed by two year old - you really do have to duck. Enjoyed the castle and it's ghostly (overplayed somewhat) environment.

I said to my dd that after a horrible week, it was like walking in heaven. My aunt is laid to rest in the church in the grounds, tranquil and beautiful.

Ghent - went on a day trip from Bruges and wish we hadn’t bothered. Dark and depressing feel to it, might have been better if it wasn’t chucking it down with rain.

Was so glad to go on a family holiday and Dad paid extra for the option to go from Sharm in an aeroplane!!

Has anyone said Legoland Windsor yet? Overpriced, tired shithole with grumpily pissed off staff ime. Worth the extra cash to go to Billund if you can.

I love living in Ludlow. It's sweet and cosy and a lovely place to raise kids and has good places to eat and a lot of events. But it is also just a small, rural town with lots of pretty old buildings.

A lot of these seem to just be about unrealistic expectations. Like, it's a nice old market town. What were you hoping for?! I assume the tourists who come when there's nothing on, do the castle, have some lunch, wander round the church, do a little loop of the old buildings, bit of cake, done? It's not billed as the Disneyland of the Marches.

Same for Hay. It's a tiny, tiny town in the hills...

Oxford, absolute shithole of a place. Cambridge is overrated but more bearable. Also Chichester, it's a dump.