France is a nightmare

[Provenceinthesummer]

And you think it is bad in the U.K. come to France and see what a country on it’s knees really looks like.

We arrived hoping for a relaxing road trip and holiday. Every service station is littered with rubbish, most of them they have run out of food, loo paper and filthy tables and chairs so there is nowhere to even sit.

We finally arrive at a five star hotel to find out the restaurant is closed every day for three days - apparently the French F&B crisis is worse than ours! No chef, no waiting staff. They couldn’t even provide a basic room service menu. Every restaurant in the area also closes on the same days which was helpful.

Fawlty towers ensues as we try to meet basic needs of water and resort to the mini bar nuts for dinner. The gardens and pool are a mass of wasps and flies and the baking heat makes it an unbearable experience. I have never been to a hotel with no food anywhere in the world !!

Parched, starving and exhausted we check out the following day and find a hotel with food - all good apart from the fact there is no air conditioning and it’s 36c minimum here. It’s also rated five star apparently. Sleepless, exhausted and dizzy from the heat we drive in the car to ‘cool down’ and after a few miserable sweltering nights we decide to check out to next hotel - which promises great things like air conditioning and actual food only to find out the housekeepers are now non existent, all have covid. The number of people coughing and ill around the pool and in the hotel is alarming. The food is so bad it’s made me sick every night, kids are now refusing to eat anything else apart from crisps!

I haven’t slept for over a week - now facing a 12 hour grumpy drive home, I developed a severe sore throat and shakes overnight and it’s 39c! We have paid a fortune for this ‘ holiday’ and I can not wait to get home!! 🤨

Been to France 3 times this year. Drove back most recently a week ago.

Have experienced nothing that you mentioned at all.

Why isn’t someone allowed to moan about their holiday? A hotel with no food sounds crap. Maybe ok if you are in a town with restaurants and shops. But not great

we haven’t gone abroad since well before covid and I’m not regretting it yet but it’s such a shame everything has deteriorated.

we were in the highlands of Scotland last week and had impeccable service wherever we went but it was very cold!

We're not that long back from Province. Didn't have any of the issues OP describes, litter was conspicuous in its absence compared to the UK.
Weirdly we also had covid which felt a bit odd in the heat.
The covid was not acquired in France so can't blame the country for that.

So sorry you are having a shit holiday. People are giving you a hard time because they think you are entitled and are gleeful that Mrs 5* is having a horrible time.

It sounds like you have Covid which is truly horrible in these temperatures. Get well soon x

Scottish?
Yr 11 and 13 and finish after exams?

We regularly travel to France, and have never once had the experience you are describing! However, we never travel to the very touristy areas in peak times because that is a recipe for disaster. Where on earth are you staying? Literally every time we come back from the UK we comment on how much better the French services are compared to the British ones. I wonder if there is more to the story than you are letting on.

It was Bastille Day on Thursday, so a lot of people are traveling and it is also why some places are closed and shops might be picked-over. Did you know it was a holiday week when you booked?

France can hardly be blamed for the heat wave and insects. 🙄

Last year we went to a hotel in Devon. The rooms hadn't been cleaned before check-in because they were struggling to find cleaners. When we did get in, we discovered mould on the wall.

Clearly this means the UK is a nightmare and on its knees.

Or maybe my one experience doesn't generalise to the whole of a country

It's not really France's fault that you caught covid - or that you didn't realise that the Med gets hot in summer

I go to france a lot and it's why I don't think the uk is suffering any worse than the rest of Europe. No better but no worse.

Their food prices are as bad/worse than ours. Customer service is poorer - lots of surly waiters etc and lots of restaurant owners very set in their ways, offering the same dated set menu for donkeys years etc.

We are all getting poorer, and it's because income distribution has become more distorted. Most of the wealth our society generates flows to a minority, and it leaves everyone else (small business and their customers, most employees) struggling.

We only stop at the service station for petrol. We bring everything to have a picnic in a lovely aire instead, tablecloth, roast chicken, cooler, sun umbrella. It is peak peak this weekend for everyone heading up or down the Autoroute du soleil. Everywhere in Europe is having problems hiring staff. If you do have to stop at a service station aim to avoid the 12-2 crush. Nobody can control the weather which is always going to be exceedingly hot in July ! The 5 star hotel have no excuse for bad service. That you should have argued with for a reduction, I would have left after the first night. Some hotels, don't do food, or just do breakfast, it depends, so this should be checked in advance. Also don't always expect a restaurant to serve food after 2pm. It is normal in France for them to stick to regular hours. Sorry you seem to have had a terrible experience, but you can't dismiss an entire country based on that.

I mean, in one breath you're complaining about the heat but you also chose to go on a driving holiday to southern France in the middle of July 🙈

I am sorry you're having a shit time but a lot of what you're complaining about seems fairly self-inflicted 😬

There is no way I'd take kids abroad with covid as it is. It just isn't safe.

In the area we were in every single restaurant in the area was closed Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. It’s a lot if you are only staying for a week. Why close all on the same day?! We found a pizza van eventually, which was nice actually but it’s not what I had hoped for a holiday that is supposed to be relaxing and enjoyable dinners in the evening sunshine.
American family now kicking off in reception asking why they have been served a glass bottle of Evian with no glasses and have been told the hotel have run out of glasses! Cue a very loud final straw moment.
I really want to pay and leave but I am getting the impression they have only just started with their rant.

I don’t think you can flame people for spreading covid at the pool etc when you will be doing the same now - unless you are going to isolate until you are all negative?

Service stations in the Uk are also mostly grim - there are a few exceptions to be fair, but I avoid them if possible in the UK and in France.

Hospitality is also stuggling to recruit in the Uk. I am trying to book a group of 26 in for an evening event for a group from work and really struggling to get anywhere to take us in a 20 mile radius. We are in a tourist area and places just don't have the staff to cope with large groups, or are keeping tables free for walk in tourist trade. Virtually every cafe, pub and takeaway place has adverts for jobs in the window.

France i no more on it's knees that the UK. Covid is impacting everyone.

I wish I were in France right now. At least the houses are built to cope with this heat. I know that many of the parks, tourist attractions and outside eating areas will have those sprays of water to keep you cool. Parks have the fountains in the floor for the kids to play in. We had one of those locally - until it was broken by vandals and never repaired.

I'm sorry you have had a miserable time, but a combination of a vey long drive with children to one of the hottest place in France and the lottery that is covid are the issue. You cannot write off a whole country because of it.

Covid twice in three weeks, what a nightmare. I thought you had three months minimum protection but with the new variants I think that may be changing.
Crappy holidays can have a sort of bleak humour, but not when you are ill, have sick children, and it is horribly hot. It sounds hellish.
I hope you can get home OP, when are you driving back ? I hope your dc recover quickly and that you have an easy return journey.

People are getting their backs up because one person's shite holidays don't make visited coyntry shite. If op just moaned about bad luck with hotels, responses would be completely different.

Also imho star ratings for hotels have become massively inflated. These days 3 star seems to mean a youth hostel, 4 star is a basic chain hotel or similar, 5 star is everything else and very few of them are actually offering a high quality service. The hospitality sector was brought to its knees by Covid and is struggling to recover.

Our flights were cancelled ! We didn’t choose to drive but moderated our trip so we could still go, and thought it might be ‘fun’ with an optimistic road trip idea. As the hotel was paid for in France and couldn’t be cancelled and we would have lost everything. We didn’t intend to drive! We don’t live anywhere near Folkestone.

This is a great point but it’s one that has completely gone over OP’s head

they wanted the thread pulled on page 1 after 10 responses.

It just reinforces my point that Mumsnet is not called AIBU - there are other parts of the forum where this would be better placed and OP would get the responses they hoped for. But I get accused of being called “thread police” if I suggest it.

In the area we were in every single restaurant in the area was closed Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. It’s a lot if you are only staying for a week. Why close all on the same day?!

I live in a touristy area of the UK and it's the same here too - they do it because it's not worth it to open in those days 🤷🏻‍♀️

They may be Scottish or Northern Irish and finish school in June. Most of the private schools here finished last week. There is more to the UK than English state education

@Provenceinthesummer if you’re currently in Provence, I feel you on the heat. I was there three years ago in July/August when there was a whole country heatwave. Even when I got back to Paris at the end of my trip it was 45C in the city.

Anyway, when I was in Avignon I was a lot kinder to myself than usual. Have tepid or cool showers as much as you need. That will help you and the kids feel so much better. Stay in the shade and eat cool or temperate food like fruit, supermarket taboulé, cheese, and ham, etc. If you can muster the energy, cut up cold vegetables from the supermarket and eat them with cold hummus. This will help regulate your temp along with bottled water. do you have a fridge in your room? If so, this will make it all much easier.

And just honestly rest. Sleep as much as you can. You’re basically battling heat stroke along with Covid right now. Take care of yourselves, it’s really hard right now.

Our DS just back from France booked a hotel in southern part of Normandy.
No food at hotel and all restaurants closed. Drove miles to a MacD on an industrial estate.
Next day it was explained that it had been a Public Holiday.

Our recent holiday in France was in Disneyland so that part didn’t disappoint but the periods of time spent in CDG airport weren’t great. I’m sure no worse than say Heathrow etc. but it was weirdly impossible to find food…in an international airport? So strange!

It doesn’t need to be a competition. I think it’s fair to say that a lot of the world is somewhat on its knees right now to varying degrees and it does come as a shock when you experience what that means especially on holiday. I don’t know if and when things will be going back to how they were.

Sorry you had a shit time and I hope you are all feeling better soon!

Taken down because people disagree with you?

What an odd response.