Tripadvisor

[Alwayslumpyporridge]

I pre booked a holiday for May half term nearly a year ago, the trip advisor reviews were ok. Now after a rainy Easter I looked again and they are horrific. Hotel is summer only, closed end October and reopens in May so no idea why reviews are being posted now, also the hotel is very booked out all season, if it was that bad surely would t be going?

My AIBU is; am I being unreasonable to cancel it based on reviews? I Would have to change the destination entirely as not much left now. DH thinks I am

I was just about to reply to say I'm always panicked by Trip Advisor but you have to take reviews with a pinch of salt. One persons 'awful food, no choice' means they didn't serve enough English junk food and vice versa... Then I saw Caretta Beach we went there last May!

I was also panicked when I read the reviews and worried we'd wasted all our money and it would be the holiday from hell. It was a fantastic holiday, we'd go back in a heartbeat. I've been meaning to write a positive review with more detail. Any specific questions feel free to ask me.

Btw, there is a Caretta Beach in Turkey and I think some of the bad reviews are meant to be for there...

No it’s the one in Greece

www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g659629-d289965-Reviews-Carreta_Beach_Holiday_Village-Kalamaki_Zakynthos_Ionian_Islands.html

The first 5/6 reviews are added in the last few weeks, they are all awful.

The hotel isn’t open in the winter so these reviews are from stays last year but only recently added

The first three or four reviews were written recently about holidays last summer. I wonder if they were all from the same family/ group with some sort of agenda...

Stick with it op. if the hotel was truly that awful people would have left reviews at the time or immediately they got back, not when they are next on trip advisor booking another holiday.

I echo PP's who say you have to take TripAdvisor reviews with a pinch of salt...or a bucket load.

I had a similar experience when I read a load of awful reviews for a hotel I'd booked in Majorca. A comment which stuck in my mind was from a reviewer who said someone had 'slung a palm tree in the swimming pool'...It made it sound practically derelict/vandalised when taken with their other comments. Turns out the palm tree in the swimming pool was a beautifully landscaped mini island which you could swim around, with an attractive palm tree /shrub in the middle! Total misrepresentation for no apparent reason.

Agree with MsJane, it's strange to have a glut of bad reviews close together from holidays the previous summer. I also thought they'd been away together and have planned posting their negative reviews now to put off people booking for the summer.

No offence to Greeks but in my experience Greek hotels have been more dated than those I have stayed at in other Med/Canary resorts. Each country also has a different start system so I find TripAdvisor a bit easier to gage standards than the official/tour operator star.

I wouldn't be hugely concerned about these reviews. Some sound of 'champagne tastes, lemonade budget', plastic cups to drink out of, does that bother you? (there's a hotel I'm looking at at the moment and this is the number one complaint - personally I couldn't care less), food choice/standards are very subjective.

If there was a glut of tummy problems complaints or food running out I'd cancel but otherwise this seems to be a hotel you either love or hate. Can you afford to eat out of the hotel? If not, maybe cancelling may be best for you. If you can, then I'd go.

I make it a point to never listen to reviews from people who misspell "our" and who don't use full stops!

I always take Trip Advisor reviews with a pinch of salt too and if someone's left a really bad review, I click on their profile to read their other reviews. It's often the case that they give lots of bad reviews! I always leave reviews when we've had a lovely time somewhere, to redress the balance but I think some people think Trip Advisor's just a place to have a moan. We're just back from a lovely holiday at an apart-hotel in Tenerife, I really couldn't fault it. However, we overheard one lady by the pool, phoning home, saying "well, it's alright. I've stayed in better but it'll do for a week". 😕 The place was amazing..... I don't know what she felt was lacking? You just can't please everyone.

Yes because you can only judge whether a hotel is nice if you have good grammar.
I make a point not to take anything seriously from a person who judges someone’s writing.

Where I live lots of people have horrendous writing skills but they can still look around them and see if a hotel is nice.

Having spooked several times only for all my fears to come to nothing I now tend to think that those posting negative reviews on TA have some sort of axe to grind. We've had worse experiences in hotels with stellar ratings I'd stick with it, OP. There's every chance you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Always read between the lines with TripAdvisor. Well, sometimes it is even blatant that it's a nonsense review tbh, even without reading between the lines.

We went to a lovely resort but some of the reviews we read before going were damning - two reviews stood out. One - somehow e had blown their nose at the table next to the . Two - the sea was cold. Note, not the pool but the actual sea!

Also remember that people are far more likely to leave a review after bad experiences and less like when everything's been fine.

As a result I now try to leave reviews after every holiday - whether fabulous, ok and not so good. Evens it out a bit.

It's interesting that the recent bad reviews (of a holiday they took about 9 months ago!) all seem to relate to the small cups and pool injuries. I wonder if it is the same group (and whether they've been chasing compensation for the accident, which has been turned down).

Definitely a family group complaining.

Click on the reviewers ( I looked at "Paul" and PlushPeony" as they had a number of reviews). Both been to a number of the same places in their other reviews. All their other trips are UK based.
So I'd say expectations weren't met or something a accident needs highlighting.

There are some good reviews further down, and a couple saying ignore the bad reviews.

You beat me to it JaneAusten... Those recent reviews look suspiciously connected to me, and I would be more inclined to consider the overall rating, which shows the vast majority of people, rated it 4 or 5. As for the last review, I don't understand how someone can post a negative review based on falling over getting into a pool...perhaps they had a few too many of those 'plastic' pints themselves..which they were probably leaving littered around..and probably complained about that too!

a HUGE thank you for your responses, especially taking the time to look at the reviews.

I booked this such a long time and paid it off monthly, a lot has happened in our little family since I booked so really looking forward to the break. I have been really worried and spent the last two nights sat on my phone looking at alternatives I could swap to, my DH thinks we should stick with our plans and that IABU to change to somewhere that we didn't really want to go to (plus will likely be more expensive now).

As someone said up thread hotels in Greece can be more basic and laid back so I wasn't expecting luxury, the room we have booked is part of a newly built block being launched for the new season so it shouldn't be too bad surely? The season starts early May, we go for May half term at the end of May so they have a few weeks of running before we get there.

We went early May, before the half term. Tonnes of choice of food, staff were always polite and helpful and very hard working. Lots of cheap trips to choose from on the strip. Definitely so shipwreck/naviago it's beautiful-pack beach shoes as it's gravelly.

Rooms were basic but clean, and cleaned every day.
Just outside the hotel there are lots of restaurants that were cheap to eat out. We really liked the all inclusive food, but if you are with Thomas Cook you can pay to put the kid in to kids club for an evening party and go offsite to eat, which we did a couple of times.
Inbetween meals there is a snack bar that had salad, fruit salad, chicken, wraps and fries. You won't go hungry.
I've noticed when people mention queues and cups lying around, they are people who went at peak season in July/August. In May it was relatively quiet always available sun beds and tables etc.m and very clean.

Only thing that was naff-was evening entertainment, it was in Russian too, but we hate that kind of holiday entertainment anyway and preferred to sit in the hotel bar after dinner or sit in our hotel room with sleeping kids and taking it in turn to go down for drinks.

Book the pirate ship to shipwreck. We booked the glass bottomed half island trip and when we turned up we were put on a full day whole island pirate ship instead. Some people were outraged at the change, we went with the flow and loved it.

Our kids still talk about that holiday last year all the time. Just yesterday my 4 year old asked if we could go back to Caretta Beach, I was impressed she'd remembered the name.

I booked somewhere recently on the basis of a string of glowing Tripadvisor reviews and found it to be very ordinary.

Tripadvisor isn't infallible, not sure why I continue to consult it, really!

The only review that concerns me is Paul B. He's posted some photos of serious mould and electrical wires hanging out the wall.