Where was your most disappointing holiday, and why?

[wholetawn]

I'll start off. Our most disappointing trip was to French Polynesia in the South Pacific. The scenario is stunning, but we found the people unhelpful and quite frankly, lazy, unless you were offering to pay them a lot of money to do something small.

As a destination Paphos in Cyprus was extremely underwhelming. I enjoyed the holiday because we were in a lovely hotel with amazing restaurants/pools etc but Paphos itself was not great. At all.
I loved Paphos. The Tombs of the Kings was one of the most incredible places I've been.

Tuscany in summer they don't heat the pools. Was freezing getting in and out.

I've had some mixed experiences during holidays, none have been all bad. Worst bits : hotel in Kos at end of season..was more isolated than I'd realised so a long bus journey to get off the complex. All inclusive buffet food would have been fine but had black flies all over it. On last day there were party decorations and bottles of fizz which we thought were for guests but it was for an end of season party for staff whilst guests were herded into the end of the same dining room, watching them celebrate our leaving😊
Also eurodisney. I was invited to a family gathering, me and ds 9 and 10, hotel on site b and b. I was on a tight budget and didn't realise all the food on the park was the same overpriced burger and fries. I ended up filling my pockets with bread rolls, nutella and apple puree sachets from the hotel breakfast buffet for the day. If I went again I'd go half board. I found the hyper realness weird and disorientating anyway..when it snowed I thought it was a disney effect😀

@Ginmonkeyagain
What town was it as I live on the Costa Blanca 😊

I live near Whitby, it’s always busy and there are always dogs, since Covid and lockdown summer of 2020 everyone seems to have a dog , I’ve never seen any 💩 though, not saying there isn’t any, I’ve just not seen it. Seagulls are the biggest menace, hence not eating anything outside or else you get dive bombed. its a sea fishing port, famous for its Fish and Chips.
Then there’s Whitby Jet, the jet museum is small but it’s free and has some the biggest and oldest piece of fossilised wood ever found. Whitby Abbey and the 199 steps from the town to the Abbey. Goth Weekend, The Whitby Regatta, Festivals.

No offence but when someone is selling a holiday destination as having the biggest and oldest piece of fossilised wood ever found, I know it's not for me.

holy shit. your mum must've be traumatised.

Camping trip through Europe. Went with "friends" but the Husband of the other couple turned into an absolute arsehole 2 days in to the 3 week trip. He bought the whole trip down with his grumpiness . Both my kids got so poorly - needing Antibiotics, then got the shits ...not great when camping, we were flooded out in Italy in a monumental storm ...after a 10days we parted ways with our "Friend's" and went on our own . Improved 100%

That's terrible. I had a bad experience with group of woman in Gran Canaria. Not as bad as what you describe but they did rip us off for quite alot of money. I would never go back there.

It doesn't sound like you did much research about what there was to do in those places. Why go to the not so nice parts of Majorca when there is the beautiful moutainous part - didn't you go to Deia or Valledemossa? Or Pollensa? (Pollensa itself, not Puerto Pollensa, although I do like the quiet end of the Pine Walk)

I was judgemental about Tenerife before I went. I think the trick is to go for just a week to places like that so that the week fo rest and relaxation is broken up by the interesting bits such as Teide. I could easily go back to Teide to do some star gazing. The view in the daytime is amazing if you like geological stuff. And go when the people you're going with are the right ages.

I disagree that the Dordogne is boring. There is so much to do! We visited a chateau, Castelnaud, and there was plenty to see. Some of the other chateaus have beautiful gardens to wander. Also visited the Maison du forte du Reignac. It couldn't have been more interesting, lots to see inside with the added bonus of a torture exhibition! Kids' eyes were on stalks 😂 We also loved the half day canoeing. The big tourist boat looked fairly sedate and boring though. Loads of prehistory stuff around there. Sarlat is beautiful, a bit like Bergerac, I think. People visit for the history and architecture, and to soak up the atmosphere with a nice lunch - the buildings are gorgeous. I don't understand why you think there is nothing to see in Bergerac. I suppose if you go in poor cooler weather it might be a different experience than sitting at a lovely bar in the sunshine....

I think road trips or interrailing sound more your type of thing if you like doing lots of day trips to other cities and seeing sights all the time. Some places are just nice for short breaks of 2 or 3 days for soaking up the atmosphere, people watching, stopping for a coffee in a square for a while, long lunch of nice local food and wine etc etc.

Kos, although to be fair it was in the days when you could get a £99 holiday off teletext, which we did. Room was right by a busy road, no air con, beach was grim and I was pregnant. We still laugh about it now!

I also can't think of any bad holidays, apart from one due to ex's alcoholism. The beauty of the place saved me from how awful he was being!
Paris is a bit meh. I think the weather changes how I feel about it. I went in glorious June and was stunned by how beautiful Montmartre and Versailles was, went back in rainy March and didn't feel it at all.
Yeah the people are a bit rude, but that's exactly how I would be if my city was overrun with dumb tourists who don't even try to speak the language. I used to live in Bath and to be honest the tourism was a nightmare. Trying to walk to work and people just stand in front of you trying to take photos of a door or archway. And they speak English, can't imagine how more annoying it would be if they barked at me in another language and expected me to understand.
I loved Morocco/ Marrakesh
and went with my mum whilst in my twenties, no negative attention really, no more so than on an average London night out. I am very dark haired and olive skinned so that might make a difference?
Naples had... an edge. Loved it though. Very friendly people if you speak a bit of Italian.
Loved New Orleans. Went for ten days with my friend who is a very pale goth. No issues.
Barcelona is fine. Just keep your bag under your shirt and don't be loudly British, keep expensive jewellery out of sight. Don't rent any of the stuff on the beach (parasol, loungers) as it's just a massive sign that you're a tourist.
I adore Whitby.
Lands end is beautiful and the trashy amusements kept my kids entertained for a day. The farm was cute and interesting.
Cornwall has the right to be rude as they've been ruined by Air Bnb and twats with holiday homes. Imagine having children just to know that they'll probably have to move out of the county if they ever want to earn enough to buy a house? Imagine knowing that you'll probably have to move too or not see your grandchildren grow up?
I don't know why some people on here travel when they want all the home comforts of the UK but somehow expect it in countries without the infrastructure to provide it? 'Gambia is a shit hole' type comments, just plain ignorant.

@CurlyhairedAssassin agree. I love Majorca, go most years and also really like theDordogne- they are more sit and soak up the vibe places and Majorca really only has a handful of concrete jungle resorts - so don't go to those if it's not your bag. I like bits of sight seeing but don't want a holiday of just that either and wandering around NT type places or museums or churches on holiday would bore me rigid if it was more than once or twice, even in city holidays. - - Palma is one of my favourite cities too - guess we are all different.

We liked Dorset but to be fair we stayed away from the beaches apart from the odd bit of rockpooling or fossil hunting. Chesil Beach is good for an early evening wander with a flask of tea. I enjoyed walking the coastal paths, did you not do stuff like that? Athelhampton House, Thomas Hardy's house and surrounding forest? Quick look round Dorchester? Abbottsbury Subtropical Gardens? Corfe Castle? We hated West Bay so if you just stuck to places like that or Bournemouth or Weymouth then yeah, Dorset's shit. 😆

Cornwall! I fail to see the fuss. Jammed roads, overcrowding , truly awful weather and a car that broke down.

I haven't been to Turkey but I'm with you on Tunisia and Morocco. Same experiences as previous posters.

I went to Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt before the Arab spring and the behaviour of the men was fucking awful. If it's got worse since then... I went with a small group of friends (men and women) each time.

Rome! Most likely due to the torrential rain upon landing which meant my shoes and socks were absolutely soaked through. The air bnb was in a really rough area, looks nothing like the photos and was absolutely FREEZING and the owner refused to turn it on for us except an hour each evening.. and I had the most horrendous flu the whole time so couldn't enjoy much. It was also much more run down than I had expected. I know lots of people love it but it's been tainted by my experience!

I was mugged in Rome (almost certainly by a non-native), but it's still a wonderful city & I'd like to go back there.

I could be mugged in my UK nearest big city

After Cornwall being my worst holiday, the next would be Jamaica. We went on honeymoon. The hotel was lovely with a private beach, but if we left the complex we felt unsafe. We went into Montego Bay and spent the next two hours waiting in Burger King for the hotel minibus to come back to collect us!

Lake Garda, God's waiting room. Was glad to get home.

Oh no 🙈 I'm going there and been really excited as wanted to go for years

Oh no! We have planned to go there soon. However a short trip. But it is very pretty? What didn't you like?

@dullandgrey No disrespect to anyone it was full of elderly people crawling along. I'm not exactly a spring chicken myself. Hotel wasn't that great either I, ll look up name of it. Don't let me put you off, plenty people rave about it.

5 nights in Tokyo back in 2003ish (from another Asian country so not too long of a flight).

I started to feel unwell en route to the airport and had a throat full of razor blades by the time we landed.

This was pre smartphones so we just had a guidebook and found most travel really confusing as nothing was labelled in a way that was comprehensible to the casual visitor. Fair enough, but hard work. smartphones would probably have made no difference anyway as our phones didn’t work on the Japanese network anyway despite working everywhere else we travelled.

By the next morning I was so hot my face was fire engine red. After enquiring about a pharmacy/doctor at the hotel desk we got given directions to a hospital down the road. This turned out to be the fanciest looking private hospital I have ever seen. Thick carpets everywhere and a grand piano in the lobby. They were very suspicious that we were medical tourists and made us wait for hours next to the piano until I uncontrollably vomited all over the shag pile. Then, I was very speedily enrolled in the Japanese medical system (had the card for years after) and seen by a doctor who gave me antibiotics for tonsillitis.

Couldn’t eat any of the lovely food due to pain until almost the end of the trip then had a SESSION on the sashimi. A highlight.

After feeling poorly for most of the trip we decided to have a proper night out on our last night and spent most of our cash. Tried to get some out of the cash machine on the way back to the hotel but, alas, it was locked as the cash machines kept business hours. Had an early flight to catch the next morning and luckily scraped enough change together for the subway fare to the terminus where the airport trains depart from. Unfortunately, the ticket machines at the subway station would not take our small change and the desk was unmanned as out of business hours. We ended up leapfrogging the gates and just getting on the train. Because, surely, the cash machine would be working at the main train terminus…

Of course it fucking wasn’t because it was still out of business hours. Ok, never mind we spotted a human being at a desk. Great! Pay for our tickets by card! But no. No accepting non Japanese cards at the station that takes all the tourists to the airport. Wait for the cash machine to get unlocked and miss your flight. To my shame, I may have completely exploded and been ‘that foreigner’ but by this point I was desperate to get the hell out of there. We were allowed on the train on the proviso we paid at the other end and were escorted off at the other end by the police who sat me in an office with them whilst my other half ran madly off to get some money out of a working airport cash machine. But before he could do that he had to run back to get his passport because he wasn’t allowed off the station and into the airport without showing his passport to someone.

Enter airport eventually, endure massive queues, get on plane by the skin of our teeth. Never been back (but not on purpose, I’d go back tomorrow and smash another kilo of sashimi).