To start a thread about ridiculous trip advisor reviews?

[Coralnails]

I'm currently looking for a holiday so of course I'm reading trip adviser reviews.

I can't believe how many people leave poor reviews over the stupidest of things.

Quite a lot will leave bad reviews when they haven't even stayed at the place, but they've taken the hump because it was fully booked or a tour operator mixed up the bookings.

Or complaining about the weather, as if that's the hotels fault.

One that made me cry with laughter was the one who complained that no one spoke English well - in Spain.

Another left a hotel one star because they tv remote was faulty and they could hear someone from the kitchen putting the recycling out throughout the day. Apparently everything else was great, but they felt those two minor complaints warranted a terrible review.

@MorrisZapp who pissed you off today?

Our food is not shite nor it is overpriced. That's confirmd by hundreds of 5* reviews.

It's not intrusive to make 1 stop by the table to make sure all is well. If it isn't there is number of options of what to do. New meal, comp it, give something else.

@MrsAriadneOliver that's really shit service Some places just don't care knowing some bad feedback won't impact income....

Really giggling at the hotel ones here😂

The hotel we stayed in the summer had multiple reviews from the same big groups saying the hotel did nothing about the sea not being warm enough to swim in until lunchtime.

I have seen so many negative reviews because the weather had not been what the traveller was expecting..fuck knows how thats the hotels fault.

Also seem to say a lot that moan about, for example, too many spanish people not speaking English, when they are in Spain

I tend to always look at the bad reviews, just incase, but a hell of a lot of people are just ridiculous with them.

I saw one of a national park-type place that has lakes and ponds. The reviewer was moaning that there weren't any sun loungers. grin]

I work for a small leisure company in a tourist town. We have a campsite just across the road from our working farm, and we had a horrendous barn fire during the summer of 2017. After most of the animals were rescued and the fire was brought under control, someone staying on our campsite at the time left us a 1* trip advisor review complaining that the firemen were noisy and that the glow from the fire kept them awake all night! Sorry to inconvenience you with our business burning down and our animals dying
They also complained that when the farmer (my boss) bought everyone a load of cans/crates of beer to thank the customers on site who had helped, he didn't provide any soft drink options for her recovering-alcoholic husband!
Honestly the mind boggles

I read one that marked a guest house down because the owner was wearing double denim.

Ooooh if you want a laugh check out reviews for nightclubs. No one evere leaves a good review for a nightclub and they are always absolutely scathing

We took dc’s to Lapland in December to see Santa. The hotel had loads of 1 star reviews from early November as the snow arrived late this year. Tbh I can kind of understand that ruining a trip where you’ve paid to go dog sledding, ice fishing, sledging etc. Not really the hotels fault though!

Review of a Bedouin desert camping experience that I read:

The camel ride gave them chafing sores on their thighs and smelt of camel and the camels spat.
The tents were thick canvas and old and had patches. Was expecting modern tents like you have at home in England.
There was no RUNNING WATER in the toilets and you had to flush the toilet using a jug of water.
There was no ELECTRICITY and the tents and outside were lit with lanterns.

All of this is why I don't use TripAdvisor. My exH leaves reviews that he thinks are humorous but really aren't. Sometimes he hasn't even been to the place. If you read one written as if by someone with English as a second language and with a son called Yakult (Yakult!), that's him. He is English and we don't have any children named after yoghurts.

The ones I hate are the ones where they’ve zoomed in on the tiniest crack in the bathroom tiles & say their stay was ruined. Or a little mark on the door frame. Honestly some people are so ridiculous!

I read one that marked a guest house down because the owner was wearing double denim.
Fair play, I say

We're friends with a couple, the husband of said couple loves to pontificate on Trip Advisor about all his visits to restaurants and hotels. However we've noticed that if it's somewhere that we've recommended, they seem to suffer in the ratings compared to the places that they he chose. So I apologise to the owners of all the places we have ever recommended to them!

If there was something specifically wrong with the meal I might say but if it was just shit I probably wouldn't. Also there's not much the staff can do to put it right, to cook an entire new meal would take time I might not have and if the chef just doesn't cook food I like the new meal will be just as bad

I'm with Crisps on this.

There isn't much you can do if the entire meal is a bit shit. A specific issue can be corrected, but a general - 'your chef is mediocre and your pricing is too high' issue can't be easily resolved.

I work for a tour company as the reservations manager and it's a known trick that guests will go online, look at what previous guests have complained about (even if the apartment or villa the stayed in had nothing to do with the company) and then make the same complaint and ask for money back or a discount if they reserve again for the following year.

I didn't mean your establishment, Hangry. If I'm eating a decent meal with one thing wrong of course I ask the waiter to rectify.

But if I find out too late that the food is just poor quality all round, then I'm not going to engage in a difficult conversation, I'm just going to hurry up, and never return.

All these business owners who claim to be delighted with complaints because it gives them a chance to deal with the issue, do you find other places are as happy when you complain yourself?

'nobody else has complained' is a standard response.

There are some equally funny and strange replies.

There's a local chip shop near me it gets mixed reviews. They fairly recently had a refurb and started doing extra food like kebabs, fried chicken and so on.

Some customers didn't like the change and left bad reviews saying the food has gone downhill since the changes.

The owner gets really irate and leaves ranting replies telling people they don't know what they're talking about, how he has a business degree so knows better than them and they need to get with the times.

My DH pointed out to our waiter - apologetically - that his plate wasn’t properly clean (there were bits of a previous meal encrusted on the edge). He was told the chef wouldn’t cook for him if he had the audacity to complain

If I have to complain about a meal (and it used to take a lot to get me to do that but less so now) I won't eat any other courses nor will I accept a do-over. I normally tell the manager that if somebody was content for my plate to leave the pass in that state then I can't have any confidence in their standards.

Trip advisor bad review bingo. It makes an excellent drinking game.

Our favourite from looking recently was the "no bacon at breakfast" complaint at a hotel in a Muslim country.

Some people really can't seem to understand that "abroad" isn't Blackpool in the sun. If that's what you're looking for, stick to Benidorm.

Friends used to let a Chalet in the Alps. They got an email from one couple asking for a refund because there’d been no snow 🙈

I read a great one about the hotel we stayed at in Crete a couple of years ago.

The reviewer ranted on and on about how rude the staff were, how the accommodation was substandard and the whole holiday was basically dreadful. it really stood out as the rest of the reviews were so positive.

Then the hotel responded with something like "Staff had to be rude in order to get you out of the bar at 1am when your children were running riot in the pool. It's not our fault you trashed your room in a drunken rage."

We stayed in a hotel in Gwent that an American on TripAdvisor had described as being old (in a bad way) and had old furniture. It was a 16th century building furnished with antiques.

If someone complains about a resort having too many Italian/Spanish guests and not enough British guests it's usually a good sign. Also if they complain there isn't enough English food for the children (no chicken nuggets) it's a good sign.

I like some of the 1* reviews of Ben Nevis.

Very steep and too high
When we did get to the top there was nothing there
The climb basically went on for far too long and the last part was particularly steep and difficult. It was also cloudy at the top so the view was non-existant.

That should have been *Ghent not Gwent.

This one about a place in the arctic circle:

"however it does not specify that the temperature can easily drop 6-7 degrees out in the sea and when the average temperature on land fluctuates already between -10 and -15 there is really no "warm clothes" that are warm enough!."

They went in October. You'd expect it to be cold in the Arctic circle in October, yes?