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 !!!

We don't get too many CFs in Poole to be fair (although that might be because it's a bigger town so the police are now quite hot on managing the beach parking/ traffic flow after the 2020 post lockdown fiasco). We do get a lot of semi naked people in Tesco on Sandbanks though. I don't want to see someone's butt cheeks/ shaving rash in a super high cut Brazilian thong when I'm popping in for milk. Also topless men- on beach fine- in Tesco, not fine.

Not on par for rudeness, but we had gobsmacking entitlement

We live in a seaside town & close to the front. We were packing the car to go camping, so I was passing stuff to the front of the house for DH to load up the car in the next street.

I put the camping chairs by the door, go out with a few other bits to find man woman & small kid had unfolded our camping chairs & were sat on them opening up a bag of picnic stuff & settling in

I pointed out that the chairs were not for public use & that they had to move, to be told. 'Oh don't worry we weren't planning on taking long to eat"

Required my getting very stroppy for them to finally give me our chairs back. They hadn't given a second thought to blocking the pavement either

I must admit a few years ago I had a yen for a camper van - or motor home, rather. No longer. It seems every other person locally has bought one and off they go, tugging a Smartcar etc behind them. They are menaces in towns/on rural roads and rather than being free and easy, you have to book a proper campsite months in advance or stay in a supermarket car park. I was in the Lake District in October (not half term) - it was rammed . Motorhome convoys. Heaven knows what it would be like in the summer holidays (although I suppose a lot of motorhomers are empty nesters or pre-nesters so any time of year is busy).

On Sunday dh and I did our usual dog walk along the river and someone had managed to squeeze up the public foothpath, blocking it entirely with their huge motorhome. It was 6.30am and the curtains were drawn, so clearly they’d spent the night there.

This thread is eye-opening and depressing at the same time.

A great big 'thank you ' to all retail, hospitality and clean up teams.

I live in a popular tourist town and the one CF action that drives me UP THE WALL is people walking in the middle of the road. My house is in the middle of a quaint town square type area, which is NOT completely pedestrianised. However people seem to think it should be, and stand in the middle of the roads looking at the cute little shops etc, or wander slowly down the road in groups of 6 stretching all the way across the road. Then get really pissed off when their instagram-able meandering is interrupted by a car wanting to use the road for its actual use. There are pavements! It won't kill you to walk single file for a few minutes!

That and the horrific litter on the beach 😡 I don't think that one is purely tourists though...

I do hope you stayed for more drinks 😏

Not tourists, but on the theme of awful behaviour.....my DD works in a well known clothing store in a big shopping centre in the South East. She often looks after the changing rooms. Went in to one recently and picked up an item of clothing from the floor which was wet - someone had used the changing room as a toilet and urinated on the floor. It's not uncommon for it to happen apparently. Disgusting!

@squashyhat is correct though.

Do you also complain when on holiday about minor things @happystory

We similar but worse problems in York. Extremely rude tourists (this week I had to duck to avoid being punched by someone who had stepped backwards into a cycle lane to take a photo). Continual problems with drunk hen and stag do, carrying penis balloons around and vomiting/peeing in the street and using vile language from early in the morning. The centre is pretty much a no go at weekends then we also have the race goers who vandalised the city as well as the above.
Our joke of a council do nothing about it and what used to be a lovely city is deteriorating before our eyes. It’s gutting.

Re the googling thing..if someone starts an AIBU thread with a question they could quickly Google, then fine, maybe not the quickest way to get the info but the poster who asked what the NC500 was was participating in a discussion with people who clearly did know and so asked, as you would in a normal conversation. I think it's a bit twatty to, in those circumstances, point to Google and not actually answer the question.

Christ @user1471462428 I left York 40 years ago after getting fed up of "running the gauntlet" of aggressive wankers every weekend or more. So sad that it's still going on

With the level of arrogance and stupidity of some people, I wouldn't really want them serving me food to be honest. Bet they are the type of baboon that doesn't wash their hands after going to the toilet or just shits on a path. I wouldn't want to eat any food they served me or take anything off them. Some people just haven't evolved. Maybe if we speak to them with grunts and pointing, they'd understand better. 😂

Agree, user we moved out of York three years ago because of it and now live about twenty minutes out. Would love to take the kids into town through the summer for things, but can't face the behaviour! Walked around the city walls a few weeks ago and there was a guy peeing over the side 😡😡😡

TBH anyone who has worked in hospitality can describe customers like this - its not just Cornwall. Plenty of retail staff could describe similar.

Regarding the huge number of motor homes, some of it may be due to Brexit. You can only spend 90 days in Schengen zone countries out of 180 and then you have to wait 90 days before returning.

My cousin and her DH would have spent a lot more time in Europe with their motor home prior to Brexit and I am sure other people are the same, they are going to places in Britain a lot more now. I have seen their friends in the club they belong to commenting on this.

I have had a mixture of both.
I have had to phone the same company several times over a mistake (the companies mistake) and always talk in a friendly way.

I had a mixed response from employees ‘couldn’t care less’ and ‘the computer says no’ types to amazing people who really work hard to understand what has happened and resolve the issue.

This involved several thousand pounds of my money and was a really weird experience. I put it down to lack of training or experience but wondering now if the unhelpful few were just a’holes.

Cornish person here 👋🏻 this sounds awful OP!

But although it’s busy, most tourists are lovely and friendly. And just excited to be here.

And we’re happy to welcome them here. If anyone is coming down for a holiday I hope you have an amazing time

:)

The motorhome infrastructure is missing on the uk
In addition to the brexit restrictions mortorhomes became very popular in lockdown - open air , own space

Europe there is a network of low cost aires ( name changes depending on countries) which cost around £5 per night - yes it might be a big car park but most people do stuff during he day and just want a place to sleep

We looked into the Lake District in April
£50 a night - we skipped that

We were in Brixham last year in a cafe by the harbour side and got chatting to the young girl serving who was about 18. When we arrived we had heard a family giving her a bit of a hard time as they were leaving. We checked she was ok and she told us she was fine and not as bad as the day before when a man threw hot coffee over her. I'm mean who does that! She said the worst thing was no one came to help her. She said she needed the money so couldn't leave but would be looking for a different job next summer - one that wasn't in hospitality!

2 of my DDs have and do work in tourist attractions for this and last summer. My younger was 16 last year and the abuse that she got was horrendous. People are beyond rude. The poor staff are doing their best. It has made them both a lot more aware and they both make sure they strip their beds in hotels etc now!

This is what working with the public is like. I think everyone should have enforced national service where you have to work in hospitality or public facing low paid role.

Absolutely this.

Not only can the customer be very wrong they can often be fucking rude cunts to boot

There have always been people who have been horrendously rude to hospitality staff.
I got my first job at 14 as a waitress in a very popular pub that was always full to the brim. One day it started raining and everyone had come indoors, which meant it was impossible to find where people who had ordered food were. I eventually tracked the group down whilst carrying their order (five dinner plates on a tray plus cutlery and condiments) only for them to proceed to ask me to find them a table and for them to be stunned that I couldn't suddenly magic a table out of thin air for them.
Another time it was close to closing after a very busy Sunday night when a party of 10 walked in. They all wanted ribeye steaks and were furious that we could only do 8. When I told them I couldn't find the French mustard a woman screamed in my face about how terrible it was when they were paying so much money. I was a 14 year old child and she was a grown woman.
When the time comes for my children to get part time jobs I'll be steering them wide of hospitality.

He blocked the road and told you to be kind 😂😂😂

I can imagine the pitch forks rallying if everyone did that.

Its pretty awful at times but lots of tourists are so lovely.

@Eunorition your last line made me nearly spit out my coffee. I laughed so much.

Thank you everyone who works in hospitality, tourism and retail. 😭 I can’t imagine having to deal with so many plebs x