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 work at an historic site, you really do have to have eyes in the back of your head. As soon as you unlock a gate there’s a group of tourists trying to barge their way in and getting grumpy when told it’s not open to the public and if they want to see it then they can join one of our reasonably priced tours.

There’s a public footpath to one side but the rest is private property and there are residents in a row of pretty cottages. People assume (despite the signage saying otherwise) they can stroll wherever they want. I’ve even had to remove a couple with a photographer and videographer from one of the cottage gardens, they were doing their pre-wedding photos!

A similar thing happened to us a few years ago, North Norfolk where entitlement is supplied with mother's milk, a couple were almost leaning on us as we came to the end of our drinks. I was aware of another couple standing patiently by the bar watching for a table, OH drifted over to the bar and said to the couple Come and join us, which they did then we left!

I had this once in Covid years - happily sitting at a large table in pub with garden waiting for a friend. Man with family (including his parents) asks me if I'd mind moving so he can take my table (and the one next to it) to push them together. Was a packed pub garden and he seemed to assume I'd just move. Our table was nice and in the sun.

I said, yes I would mind. He then glared at me and stated I was being unreasonable, so for the sake of peace and quiet I moved but stated why should I move.

My friend gets to our new table, I explain loudly why I moved but we then had a nice meal/drink. I pay inside, go to the toilet and have the man (seemingly middle class) come up to both of us in a lobby/corridor area, speak to my friend and tell her that I'd been rude to him saying I didn't want to move and telling her I'd upset his family by saying I didn't want to move! I then was a bit rude to him, re him coming up in the restaurant (rather than say this outside with his family).

I then was a bit rude to him again before we both left.

Some of my ndn's teens are just old enough to work in hospitality this year and there are places they won't even go for an interview due to customers. Lots of restaurants, pubs etc are short staffed so have reduced the amount of hours they're opened. There's no accommodation for hospitality staff let alone local working people.

My ndn 20 years ago worked for the Bodmin and Wadebridge police and even then there were issues especially with teenagers who came alone on holiday. Polzeath beach, Newquay all have had unruly teenagers. Newquay have blocked off parts of the beach that has been used for illegal camping damaging the dunes. Polzeath beach has been under curfew due to damage to life saving equipment, broken bottles, rowdy behaviour etc. It's accepted that additional camping sites, Airbnb and camper vans have become too much. There's estimated to be 200,000 tourists in Cornwall.

This is my assumption. I hope next year we will see some normality return. I really don’t want to go anywhere touristy in school holiday again with this sort of behaviour, both extreme examples like above being common and the general low key much huge increase in low level ASB - littering and crappy parking and whatnot. I’d hoped it was me and menopause making me less tolerant, but it seems there really is more awful behaviour around!

Slightly off piste, but I watched the Travel show on tv where they were covering the locals cleaning out the canals. Tourists throw bottles etc in. However, the majority of the rubbish appeared to be tyres. Thats obviously not the tourists is it ?

I don't know that its purely people who were ill mannered who previously went abroad on holiday, though i do think its part of it.

I also think during lock down people lost social skills generally. I find it hard to ignore how dreadful kids behaviour has been. Everyone I know who volunteers or works with kids has said the same. The kids are utterly feral. My sons class is particularly bad.

So something has gone on, even amongst people and social classes who previously have been very well mannered as a rule.

I always love the narrow-mindedness as MNers, they seriously think that the rest of the world is perfect, and it's not! Many people, of all nationalities, seem to undergo a personality change away from home, a close German friend was a wonderfully polite man at home but when we were in another country he became a totally different person.

Unfortunately English tourists do have a poor reputation, many times when abroad we get asked 'English?' on replying 'no Scottish' a sigh of relief follows.

@WildFlowerBees I own a cafe/bar in Cornwall and not that long ago a family came in and were so outraged that we had sold out of one of the things they wanted they immediately went on to Tripadvisor and wrote us a 1 star review expressing their outrage.
They also suggested we should nip down to the Tesco down the road and pick some up.
I wish that this was the only time something like that has happened.

It’s not rude to tell people to look things up. It’s witless to waddle onto a thread like a lazy baby and ask people to work for us. It’s thick. And a mn favourite ‘entitled’. Use Google. What do you think it’s there for?

RTFT. 😉

‘You’.

Ditto (except we reply "no Irish" and they just love us too) 😄

When I’m asked this abroad (well, usually europe), its the only time I say “No, Pakistani” rather than answering yes to the English question.

My daughter has been a waitress/bar maid in a popular country pub in tourist Devon since she was 18. She thinks that behaviour has worsened over the last 2 years. On the upside it's been a fantastic training ground to be a primary school teacher -- she doesn't take shit from anyone and all delivered with a gritty smile. Her tutor at Uni said her behavior management skills when she was on placement were excellent! Also great training for dealing with CF parents. I think she'll go far..

Off topic, but I am gobsmacked Sandbanks has a Tescos. I’d presumed the residents would consider Waitrose to be down market 😎

Indeed. I see it a lot on Facebook groups too. It can't take any longer to type into Google than it does here/FB and you get the answer immediately instead of waiting for someone else to either respond or do the work you're too lazy to do yourself.

Mildly ironic that it's occurred on a thread bashing the entltled!

Some people are just so entitled. It's like I'm paying your wages so you will do what I say when I want it.

It’s not rude to tell people to look things up. It’s witless to waddle onto a thread like a lazy baby and ask people to work for us. It’s thick.

How can you type this out and not realise you're being rude and unpleasant? Way worse than asking a question that's actually appropriate to the topic.

The English February school half term break was the same as the Scottish February break this year.
In an Edinburgh hotel we stayed in for a night during the break (we are Scottish), there were large signs everywhere in the hotel saying people must wear masks indoors when walking around due to Scottish government rules. Some English people couldn't believe people were still wearing masks in Scotland and weren't happy being asked to do so. Although they weren't going to argue with the burly Scottish chef who was checking on the breakfast!
To be fair there were some Scottish people not wearing masks either.

I used to go to a hairdresses pre pandemic a lot of students went to that only took cash as they could rarely get a signal. The owner said they had tried everything to resolve it and nothing worked. This was in a city as well. Our UK internet infrastructure is still pretty shit.

I absolutely think this should be the rule. I worked as a waitress when I was studying and a few customers made me cry they were so horrible but on the whole most people were lovely. This was 25 years ago and it does seem that entitlement has gone up and manners have been abandoned.

How can you type this out and not realise you're being rude and unpleasant? Way worse than asking a question that's actually appropriate to the topic.

I disagree, the ‘do it for me’ attitude is rife in these threads - look at the wellie one - couldn’t be bothered to read the activity pages requirement, breakfast sign clearly says 9:30 - can’t be bothered to read and organise - so you change everything for ‘for meeee’ No different to ‘couldn’t be bothered to look it up for my self so just be idle and ask someone else to ‘do it for meeeee’

Google is a wonderful thing of only people used it correctly. And if more people pointed it out as rude not to bother looking things up yourself, then it would stop - much better than ‘here you are hun’

Of course people can travel with their own wellies. But I understand why people think walking boots are fine and I am surprised they are not.
Lots of people do not have wellies.