CF Tourists - is it worse ??

[WeWillLookBack]

We have just got back from a few days in Cornwall - we live in Devon, so spend a lot of time in both counties and are very used to tourists and holiday makers. We stayed in a 'pub with rooms on the beach, which was lovely. However - I am utterly gobsmacked by the level of CF we have witnessed in the 3 days. It feels like peoples entitlement is off the scale. I don't know how those in hospitality are dealing with it.

Wednesday - Woman went mental at the poor young lad serving in the beer garden - insisted she had booked a table outside. Very politely told her that they do not take reservations for the garden, just the restaurant. Screaming ' Are you calling me a liar'. He went in, and didn't come back out.

Friday AM - they serve breakfast for guests 8am-9.30am, then open for breakfast at 9.30am (lots of signs saying open at 9.30am). At 8.30am a group were outside - rattling the door. Member of staff opens the door, and lets them know they open at 9.30am. Lots of moaning - insisting they can have breakfast now etc. She says no - very polite. So he tells her it is disgusting that they allow guests to sit in the window eating when others can't ! ( and to make up for their error, they should serve them breakfast too)

Friday evening - Family of 6 rocked up - no space in the beer garden. Started shouting - so the owner came out. Man very angry - they had driven for 6 hours - and the kids needed feeding. The owner was great - polite but firm. The man actually suggested the owner walk around the beer garden and checked when people were leaving so they could secure a table. He said no. A lot of swearing. Asked to leave.

Drive home Saturday morning. Along a winding road along the coast - car in front just stops. Man gets out and stands looking at the sea. Single lane - so I cant go around him. After a few moments I beep - he stomps over to my car and says 'Can I help you' ... I say you have blocked the road - could you move please. To which he responds 'I am looking at the view - maybe you could just be kind' FFS !!!

I had a minor irritation today. We live on a narrow road which can get a bit congested at times as there are some places where two vehicles cannot pass safely. People often misjudge this and then someone has to reverse back to a wider part. I don't particularly mind this as quite understand that most of the time it is just lack of familiarity. However there are those people who just then sit there and won't reverse even when it would be easy for them. Today I encountered someone who could have easily reversed back a fairly short distance into a field gateway but just sat staring at me, until I ended up having to reverse quite a distance round bends, with him following me, right up my nose. Then when I eventually got away from him I discovered someone else had pulled in across the entrance of my drive to take pictures. Again, obviously they didn't know at the time that I'd be arriving , but they didn't move when I sat there with my indicator on and flashing them. I had to get out of my car and explain that I live here and would like to get in my house! The driver looked at me as if it was me who was the unreasonable one and took ages to move. Doesn't happen that often though

Fucking hell @DavidWales you sound lovely…

Thank you @Daleksatemyshed , I must say though that 99.9% of people are lovely. Sometiime people behave out of character when in a stressful situation.

I don't mind the tourists most of the time (except you can't drive anywhere) but the way people have been treating the beaches this year is disgraceful. So much rubbish, people burying BBQs still hot so they burn people and dogs, and shitting in the sand dunes. Not dogs, people. Just going for a shit in the sand. There are really good loos at our beach too!!

@Brefugee I can only agree with you but the staff were all teenagers. In the circumstances I think they did well.

That's what i mean though - agree from your description that they did well. But if cafés employed at least one experienced member of staff, they'd be an example to the younger ones who could learn how to handle things like this.
It's a conundrum.

@DavidWales 😂

totally agree, I liken it to having a conversation with a colleague who says 'we went to on holiday' and you say, oh, where's that? And them replying Just Google it.

I disagree with this. The key difference is that in a face to face conversation, the person could tell you the answer very quickly vs you getting your phone out and Googling while your colleague stands there.

If you’re asking a question on a forum, you’re already on the internet so just opening another tab and Googling your question is likely to yield a much quicker answer!

@MrsAvocet OH got fed up reversing when they saw you coming so shot past a pull in. One day some visitors did it again. He stopped the car and switched off the engine. Five minutes passed so he phoned home telling our son to bring him a coffee and a newspaper. Son walked up the lane with both, they reversed then 😂😂

Do you explain to them that they missed their stop on the train, and should head back 3 stations!

I agree about the UK not being geared up for motorhomes & campers, but it is getting better.

For approx £30, you can join Britstops. You get a book listing loads of places, all over the UK, where you can overnight for free or for a nominal charge. They're mostly pubs, but also things like farm shops etc and an ice cream factory on the Lizard.

When my late partner and I had our motorhome, we found Britstop places very welcoming. They would would often let us fill up our water tank from an outside tap and occasionally empty the toilet cassette into a drain or toilet. One pub even dried our clothes for us when we got soaked by a sudden shower when out walking.

That would put them in Rhyl 🤣🤣🤣

I agree with this. The poster who asked what the NC500 was got told she was a lazy baby who wobbled into the thread with a big sense of entitlement and was thick. Would someone say this in real life? Maybe they would because they've been saying it and similar on SM.

We are members of a boat club on a lake that is 18 feet deep. All the kids have to pass a serious swim test monitored by life guards before they are allowed to swim from the dock to the slide/jumping thing a few feet out. We witnessed the club manager and life guards being berated loudly by a family because they wouldn't allow their 11 year old who couldn't swim to go out there with her father using a floation noodle thing. Full on humphing and accusations of lying and ruining their day and then they left in a huff. All because the club was more concerned about their child's safety than they were. The previous weekend a man had drowned in the same lake from a different beach.

@LookItsMeAgain no, it wasn’t, but that is pretty much what DH has been doing. Just yesterday he blocked no fewer than 3 cars parked at various points up the farm road by about 10am this morning. Each owner had to trek up to the farm (we have quite a long road), all in high dudgeon about being blocked in unfairly and demanding to be allowed out immediately- they have things to go to/tables booked etc. I pointed out I didn’t have the keys to live it even if I wanted to but pointed them in direction of where DH was working (quite a walk) but explained no guarantee if he’d be there on arrival… they all had to wait until about 2:30 when he finished what he was doing (he had to re-jig yesterday/today’s plans as we couldn’t get some machinery down the road so had to do something else).

Again, the irony of the fact that they had caused huge inconvenience by parking so inappropriately seemed to completely pass them by. When I pointed it out, they seemed bewildered or incredulous- hadn’t occurred to them that they shouldn’t just park wherever they want, whenever they want. I I pointed out that this is a working farm, it’s a place of work and not a play park- as is much of the countryside and was accused of being “stuck up” and “ patronising”. One man in particular was very aggressive as they’d booked their kids into an activity which “cost a bomb” and they wouldn’t get a refund. And the children would be upset. I genuinely couldn’t do anything about it, as even if I had called DH to come immediately they wouldn’t have had time to get to their destination as they’d left it pretty last minute to get back to their car- but equally, this was a problem entirely of their own making.

I also pointed out that if you park on private property, you do so at your own risk. That includes being able to get in/out as there is no right of vehicular access on private land.

@Pallisers

@Pallisers Thank you

Crikey, you’ve got good ones. This one didn’t even bat an eyelid when I asked him to intervene. Mind you, I’m just glad that one actually turned up.

Geese manager cracked me up 😂😂😂

It’s rudeness in general,sense of entitlement and thinking that some people think that others are beneath them.

No discipline (often mistaken for punishment),no morals,no boundaries.No common sense or critical thinking. In all aspects of life,not just in retail/hospitality/NHS.

Adults and kids.

Kudos to these challenging shit behaviour, send the rude buggers away. To hell with “be kind bitch” and “ooh,I don’t like confrontation”. Learn how to do it,start with saying “no” to unreasonable demands and be more assertive. Be rude back if needs be.

As for lack of facilities-that’s not always the case.

Please look up NC500 dirty truth on fb,you will see plenty of CF’s of highest order. Several campsites/places have all facilities, bastards are still parking outside them and want to use them for free because £5 is too much to dispose of chemical waste so they’ll just chuck it anywhere.

Jesus people, for the love of of God, let the wellies go already

It’s utterly disgraceful. I hate what campers are becoming. I don’t see why anyone shouldn’t park and sleep over if they’ve either paid or aren’t bothering anyone, but FFS, take your shit with you! It’s ruining it for all of us, and I’ve won’t wild camp because of it. Wild camping should mean no one knows you were there.

It's always been the same in tourist resorts. We lived in Weymouth in the 70s, and tourists would eat their fish and chips on your doorstep, enjoy the view and leave their rubbish for cleaning up in the morning. I sort of didn't mind but was always cross that the bins were too small. It should have been easy to put your chip papers in a bin that was cleared daily. When we were in France a few years later, the bins were emptied every other day as a matter of course. And it made the place look cared for.

Thinking about it a bit more, whilst I still think there has been a big improvement around here since the total madness that ensued following thr first lockdown, I think this lack of respect for other people's private property is something new - or at least something that has got a lot worse - since covid. There have always been unpleasant people who a rude to servers or push in queues etc but I dont recall anywhere near as many reports of people entering private property as we hear now.
I think a lot of it stems from that period when the first lockdown was lifted but many local authorities didn't open any facilities at all. Clearly they were thinking that if things like carparks and toilets were closed people wouldn't come, even though it was now legal for them to travel. But I think that was a huge misjudgement. People did still travel as they were desperate to get out and the countryside was pretty much all that was available. They were determined to exercise their right to be there and if there was no public parking or toilet facilities they were just going to park and pee wherever they wanted. And once rules have been broken once, its so much easier to carry on breaking them..
As an example, some friends of ours who run a farm had all kinds of issues with wild campers, including people pitching tents in their garden, which they had never experienced pre covid. It has improved now, but not gone completely. Same with people walking on their land. There's a public right of way and pre covid it was used by locals mainly (including us) who stuck to the edges of fields, shut the gates etc, but now you still see people wandering wherever they fancy. Its as if the bizarre circumstances of covid emboldened people to break accepted standards of behaviour and now they've done it, they just don't care any more. Very sad.

100 times this.

We lived in a tiny Hamlet with lots of footpaths. Our house sat on two acres half of it was SSSI next to it was some trust land opposite fields. I kept geese ducks hens. One day spotted a group of walkers going up the driveway and across the garden into the field. Went out to ask what they were doing in my garden was told hadn't I heard of the right to roam. And to mind my own business or words to that effect. I was stunned