Places you've been underwhelmed by

[HannaPintura]

I just love going away and have really loved most places. One place in particular really Underwhelmed me...Gibraltar...just like Britain in the sun! I'm sure it has so much to offer, but I couldn't wait to cross the border back to Spain!

Shocked by lots of these! The Althambra? Rome? Florence a dump? ALL of Australia?

As my lovely MIL says, how much you enjoy a place or a holiday isn't always about the place itself. Your enjoyment is affected by who you went with, the weather, where you stayed and lots of other things.

New York for instance. DH went with MIL and they were not very impressed. But they'd stayed in a very cheap NJ hotel and then just spent a couple of days aimlessly wandering round Manhatten. When he came with me and the DC I'd picked a nice central but non touristy hotel and planned our itinerary including going IN places and reading up about them first. So then he loved it.

Anywhere may be a dump if you stay in a grotty bit. A friend said she hated Manchester and it was scary. Turns out she'd stayed in one of the Salford crime hot spots so not surprising she felt nervous!

Lake Garda at Easter on the other hand was fantastic.

The centre of Cambridge; although beautiful, it seemed like a sleepy large market town on the surface.

Manhattan

Ive lived in both Paris and London (currently in Paris) London is dirty, smelly and grey. I find Paris beautiful and romantic. I think it really says something about a place if you still feel the magic as a local and not a tourist on a weekend away.

Iceland - it was SO expensive. Don't think it helped that our Northern Lights trip was cancelled and we went a couple of weeks after I'd suffered a bereavement so I wasn't in the best place mentally. There were some good bits though but food was just extortionate.

Verona - just full of designer shops and a bit meh. Paid £10 to get into the colosseum which had a huge stage and plastic seating in it as it was being used for a concert

Bangkok - I loved the rest of Thailand but found Bangkok grim; dirty, smelly, unbearably humid and intimidating.

Universal Studios, LA - so expensive and the rides were crap. Would have much preferred Disneyland I think but my colleague insisted on Universal.

I loved:

Paris
San Francisco
LA

Goa! Absolute eye opener for me, I wasn't prepared for the sheer poverty everywhere I looked. And I was hoping for paradise beaches and I didn't get that.

I love Dublin as well. It's got decent public transport and these days the touristy bits feel very safe (although like any city, there are areas that I wouldn't go walking in at night). But it always feels lively and buzzing. And it is a lot better since they made a huge effort to discourage hen and stag parties. It is extortionately expensive though...

Londonrach you may find Dublin different now. I’ve been twice in the past 5 years and there were excellent eating places at reasonable prices. The Trinity College cafetaria is wonderful for breakfast & lunches. Generous portions at low prices and the staff can’t be more helpful. I walk with a crutch and they insisted on helping me serve myself and carried my meals to our table.
We loved the seafood (never saw fish and chips) and Guinness and there are plenty of ethnic eating places. The city is very cosmopolitan now.
We love the art gallery and the museums. The tour of the Guinness brewery is interesting and the restaurant is good. Plenty of tours around the city and to outlying places.
I don’t think I’d repeat the ferry crossing — the flight was much more pleasant.

Like others, New York City. I was expecting it to have more of a sense of place, more excitement, but aside from the yellow cabs it just felt like any generic city.

Ditto Toronto for the "generic" aspect.

Amsterdam. It was so packed and teeming, spent the whole time worried about getting run over by bikes/cars/trams. Long queues for everything, so ended up giving things we'd planned on a miss.

On the other hand, loved Vancouver, Cornwall, Bath, Stonehenge, Norfolk, Oxford...

monkeysocks i just googled to see some info on Whitby on your recommendation and saw this:
www.google.co.uk/amp/www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/england/yorkshire/articles/whitby-what-to-see-and-do/amp/

Auckland, it was just full of noodle and karaoke bars.

Another one here for Dublin. Took my friends for a trip there and was so disappointed at the litter, drug paraphernalia, broken beer bottles, on the walk from Heuston Station to O'Connell Street. Overpriced and too many roadworks.

Boston, USA's was disappointing as well.

Naples. Most unsafe I’ve ever felt. Thought even my sunglasses were going to get ripped off my face.

I have never been, but now that you mention it, a friend who has travelled the world on both business and pleasure, and is generally a fearless and adventurous sort said that Naples was the only place they have ever been and felt afraid. He sat in his hotel room hungry and thirsty because he had tried to go to the corner shop for a bottle of water and a snack and was so intimidated by the local 'characters' at the shop door that he just turned and went back to the hotel.

Agree lots of places are not at their best in the peak tourist season. Much better in the off season.

The only places I haven't liked were Dubai and Las Vegas. Just hotels and sand. But I'm not sure what I expected really!

Seattle. The homeless and poverty everywhere was too much

Jeez what a miserable lot you are! I've been to lots of places mentioned and loved them. Different strokes I guess. I was slightly underwhelmed by Doncaster, to be honest.

Koh Samui, never again! I love Thailand too. I think we were spoilt by Khao Lak and thought we'd try Koh Samui last year - yuck.

When we went to Amalfi, the tour rep told us NOT to visit Naples. She said there is nothing for us there and it would be unsafe, That was 20 yrs ago.

I've always been underwhelmed by the places that are "must do's". I traveled in Australia in my early 20's for a year and hated Sydney, Cairns, Brisbane but loved some of the smaller places I stayed in. Maybe because my expectations were lower . But mainly the people I met and the experiences I had made the place more than the "sights". Also I just find cities are all pretty much like each other and I've still never found one that's a patch on London!

Didn’t hate but definitely underwhelmed by:

Petra, Jordan - doesn’t look anywhere near as impressive as it does in the Indiana Jones film.

Terracotta Warriors - VERY touristy!

Waikiki Beach area - Gran Canaria in the South Pacific

Barbados West Coast - don’t understand the big attraction personally.

Mauritius - very shabby outside of the luxury beachfront hotels which are like gilded prisons.

Borneo - all the cultural buildings have basically been flattened

God I sound an old misery guts don’t I? 😂😂😂

New York.

Another one here for Dublin. Took my friends for a trip there and was so disappointed at the litter, drug paraphernalia, broken beer bottles, on the walk from Heuston Station to O'Connell Street

But that's the Northside. The southside is like a different city.

But I know that without going. What were you expecting?

This - and I don't just mean Margate.

I haven't been to lots of places in the world but have a reasonable idea what they're like. Don't people do any research first?

Oh no, I was contemplating Niagara Falls for our 25 th wedding anniversary......... slightly gutted to read this!!