Where is the most overrated holiday destination you’ve been?

[phoanymoany]

Where have you been on holiday and thought “wow, that was a waste of my time and money”.

Mine was travelling to a fairly remote tropical island where people were supposed to be so friendly. Unfortunately we found the people we interacted with in the hotels and restaurants to be anything but nice. It piddled down with rain and then we almost got scammed.

Fucking Naussica in Bolougne - an incredibly expensive aquarium crammed to the rafters with heaving crowds and organised gangs of thieves. My mum and I went with my young kids, mum had her rucksack stolen and it disappeared in seconds in the cafeteria area so quite literally, someone must have been watching us like a hawk and craftily snatched it the moment we had stopped.

Cue us trying to engage some help from the rudest manager ever who told me to stop talking as she was talking (I mean, the French are rude and arrogant anyway but this one had read the book) and then the next few hours spent in sheer panic, wondering what the hell we were going to do. Bag had car keys and wallets in it (and rather stupidly mum’s passport as she’d forgotten to unpack it beforehand.)

Never never again - not to mention it’s a rip-off. So many nice places in Northern France but I know for a fact that organised gangs work there as the rude manger told me they did and well what did we expect in a tourist hotspot (I speak fluent French.) She told me she would write down the missing item in her book of lost property items and perhaps, perhaps, it might turn up, but who knows?

Just the memory of that dreadful day haunts me - I purposefully avoid places like that now that attract lots of tourists. Anywhere there’s people there’s trouble. Boulogne is rough as fuck anyway but it does have a good charm to it - the old town and the walk along the harbour are great. Just not that overpriced, thieving excuse for a fish tank

So I guess the takeaway from all that is that your mum has been taught:
-not to leave a rucksack unattended on the back of a chair
-not to leave keys in a rucksack unattended on the back of a chair
-not to leave passports in a rucksack unattended on the back of a chair

And yes, they probably had spotted you from a mile off.

We all live and learn.

@Mikimoto oh do fuck off. You could leave your rucksack in lots of places and not have it stolen.
I've lost passports in Rome which were handed into the police and left my bag in restaurant in Barcelona (admittedly a nice one) which was handed into the staff.

So lets blame the scumbags and not someone trying to show her kids a nice day out.

Belfast was sobering?
How so?

@Puzzledandpissedoff haha I’m from Doncaster and whilst I proudly support it I’m not sure I would say it’s a holiday destination….however they have a hotel at the Yorkshire wildlife park now and supposed to be quite good….but that’s only one night 😂 apart from the activity park at Hatfield waters I’m not sure what else you would do? What did the advert say pray tell!!

What did the advert say pray tell!!

Unsurprisingly it didn't go into detail, @Lollzi86; it was a quite short radio promotional thing and just said what a "wonderful" destination it is for a couple or family break - I still can't believe it!!

And if you mean the Hex Wildlife Hotel, they gave me food poisoning

Goa. Sad, sad place full of wannabe hippies or dull people having a change from Spain.

Although had the nicest chats with workers from Kashmir, showing me photos of their family homes in beautiful Srinagar and the lakes and telling me how much they miss it and that I should visit. I'd wanted to go there prior to this and it's so sad it's unsafe.

@Mikimoto

Let’s hope nothing like this ever happens to you. Thanks for your nice reply to my post anyway. Pleased you took the effort 👏

@Mikimoto

*Melbourne.
"Ooh...look at our lovely coffee!"
"Ooh...look at our lovely coffee!"
"Ooh...look at our lovely coffee!"

And that's it.*

I guess the key takeaway for you is don’t drink coffee in Melbourne. And don’t write off a whole city because you didn’t like their coffee.

We all live and learn.

We drove down the Falls Road & saw lots of evidence of the troubles, such as the soldiers, so yeah sobering.

@Holidayaddict

Loved there hated it

Always wondered what others thought when they visited

My friends from Southern Ireland refused to set foot in it

Def on the up now I think

It was only a flying visit as we were staying near Dublin for said wedding. It was in September 1997, the weekend of Princess Diana's funeral, and I remember seeing all the flowers outside one of the government buildings so a very sobering trip all round. Plus the marriage ended in divorce just a few years later!

I'm quite sure it's changed a lot since then. Would love to return to Ireland one day (North & south) to see it properly.

@TheCadoganArms Your joke was quite funny!

I'm here all week!

Would people stop calling the country Southern Ireland please? I feel like re-christening England as Western England or Scotland as Eastern Scotland. Would English people like it if I said I'd visited my friends in London, Western England?

It's Ireland or the Republic of Ireland. There is no country called Southern Ireland.

People who live on the most southern part of the island never use that term to describe where they live either. Just in case anybody's wondering.

Sorry for being so grumpy but people get it wrong time after time. And we're only just next door!

Everyone moaning about small tropical islands where there is just beaches and sand 😂or developing countries with poor people trying to get as much as they can from tourists 🤣
Catch yourselves on!

Definitely Paris and my husband says New York.

Absolutely

Sydney. What a rubbish city. We went there for Christmas- it tipped it down and nothing was open. I was expecting pubs to be open like here, or at least little shops. No. I just didn't get the city at all, and I love cities. Plus it was really expensive.

Paris for me. I'd not go back if I won a free ticket! Which I think suits the Parisians fine, they clearly don't like tourists! France, in itself, is lovely, just not Paris.

Really! What didn't you like about it?

@lavagal totally agree ! I'm in Malta now and not impressed

@IwantKandixxx where about are you? We were near at Paul's bay and it was just cranes and building work everywhere- really crap food as well either English pubs or fast food. We went to a local bar by the harbour and ordered a Maltese platter that came full of chunks of Red Leicester and cheddar cheese 🤦🏼‍♀️

St Paul's bay

Bloody loved it!