Ridicuous hotel review

[Kubricklayer]

I'm due to visit Tenerife soon so thought I'd check out the recent reviews of our hotel (not sure why since it's all booked and paid for). Anyway here's the latest one:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g672806-d13290846-r1006147219-BahiaPrincipeFantasiaTenerife-GolfdelSurSanMigueldeAbonaTenerifeCan.html

Is it just me or is this a ridiculous review? Traveller unable to go due to medical emergency. Attempts to change hotel stay the day before they're due to occupy the accommodation, but hotel refuse. Then blames hotel.

Isn't this what travel insurance is for? How can you reasonably expect a hotel to find new occupants with less than 24 hours notice ('notified the night before')?

TBF, Ice makers are standard in many fairly basic North American hotels.
But it's a pity they didn't realise they weren't in Kansas any more. 😉

Lots of Canadian tourists in Cuba when we went there. Don't think they complain as much as US citizens but I could be wrong.

I read a great one recently for an upcoming trip where the hotel kicked out the guests family who were not guests of the hotel when they wanted to come and enjoy the all inclusive facilities 😂

I’m a member of a Facebook group for travellers to Japan.

While there are hotels in Japan with large beds, giant rooms and fluffy pillows, many were set up for domestic tourists.

Everyday there is at least one American who’s booked into a Japanese hotel complaining about hard beds ruining their holiday and scandalised that they hardly had room to move after they look three massive suitcases into their room.

Do you want an honest review of this hotel?

Main good points:
very clean
great for kids- big splash park, foam party, light show, bookable shows at night
MASSIVE rooms
mini bar topped up for free each day
(3?) bookable restaurants- all nice except the Thai/ Japanese one

Main bad points
quite windy - visited mid February but I think due to coastal location that’s just the way it is
all inclusive food very average. Not overly warm. But good puddings
cold pools, but again, possibly time of year
very isolated- not much around at all. Nearby square of san blas very average

if you just want to chill out around the pool you’ll have a lovely time. But if you want stuff to do, you’ll probably have to get a lot of taxis to and from places

lots of the reviews mentioned food poisoning which I found quite worrying… but I can’t say any of our group experienced a dodgy tummy!!

Some of the reviews on TA had me panicking the hotel was awful! I was advised on here to join FB groups for the hotel/resort and I'm so glad I did.

I don't mind the " too windy, stoney beach, too Spanish" non hotel comments actually.
I think hotels only show you pictures of empty pools and sunsets so it's impossible to guage what it's like.
Its helpful to know the type of guests they attract and actually is it windy, stoney and authentic.

I've read some right corkers.

Best ones were a one star review because the orange juice had bits in, and another one star review because there wasn't a lift (this was in a quaint Amsterdam riverside hotel, you know the sort - kind of townhouse style?)

Best EVER was a two star review of a theme park where the ride staff had racially abused the family in question. What would it take for somewhere to get a one star rating from those guys?!

@CrystalSingerFan you're so right seafood platters in France are absolutely served with all the shellfish either in, or on the shell. So you can see how fresh and authentic and delicious it is. Winkles, whelks, prawns, crab, oysters, the lot.
But I was bemused by the American man's complaint -- it's quite common in the US to be served oysters or clams 'on the half shell' as they put it, or to see shrimp (prawns) described as 'U-Peel-Em' served whole and in-shell in a seaside cafe or crab shack.
Much better than deep fried, previously frozen tasteless bits of suspicious 'clam strips' or breaded 'shrimp' that could be anything.
And if you order lobster it will be split in half after cooking, but you are definitely expected to extract it from the shell yourself, with the claw crackers and small metal picks provided.

This was me recently for Paris. No didn't leave a bad review - the hotel was great. But I had emailed in advance to check ie no kettle/coffee facilities. I had packed a travel kettle/ tea bags etc but my new luggage wasn't flexible enough. So it came out. Biggest mistake of the trip. Tea, if you could get normal 5 EUR. Coffee not a lot less. I don't drink fizzy sweet drinks, and don't actually like water. Hot tea is so refreshing. And we had hot weather! But my review for the lovely IBIS opera Bastille still stands.

Interesting. I've been to the US (East coast only, and not as far up as Maine) and not had that much fresh shell-on shellfish. Although TBF I visited a great seafood restaurant in Washington that advertised it had its own microbiologist, IIRC. And I once ate a plate of mixed shell-on oysters under NY Grand Central Station: itemised list of where they were from, waiter told me which ones were which, etc.

I suppose I assumed the reviewer was from somewhere in the mid West, with slightly less of a foodie culture.

My go-to drink in France, where if you ask for tea with milk it comes with the UHT stuff, (shudder) is tea with lemon. It's always made fresh and very hot, lemon slices on the side and is usually unadulterated* -- does the job for me.

*but beware of "tea with lemon" /thé citron tea bags, containing odd tasting lemony bits of peel or something. Horrible.

The Grand in Brighton was shit when I stayed there. Served me almost raw fish (not sushi, a fish and chip meal, not what I would have chosen, I was there on a conference) when I was pregnant ☹️

There are 3,055 reviews in your link for that hotel not sure how we’re meant to find the review you’re referring to. But from you’ve said, yes, sounds ridiculous if they haven’t paid a flexible rate. I quoted your post to avoid confusion with other hotel reviews people have mentioned.

Actually that specific hotel has a reputation of bring in extremely windy spot :)

Do many 5 star hotels actually do conferences? The Ritz? Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons? Claridges or The Savoy? Hopefully not. There’s 5 stars and 5 stars!

To be fair, your comment reads a little bit funny too 😂

When reading reviews you have the become like a scientific research sifting through data.

Ignore the outliers (my fridge exploded)

Remove the invalid (my feet were so swollen from the flight)

And look for the trends (the apartment was a bit grimy and needed an update but location and food was wonderful)

Why? Because I didn't go?

Its the way you’ve written it (not saying it’s correct), but it reads as if you certainly don’t want to go to a hotel that had people smoking in the pool (fair enough), and so you wrote off the whole of Mexico… a whole country, due to just one hotel, a country with one of the 7 wonders of the world, a distinct culture, food that’s varied and tasty and unique. It just tickled me with the subject of this thread.

My favourite are restaurant reviews when people complain about the WiFi!
Seriously, can't you go a few hours without the Internet!!

@Cerialkiller That’s the key to it. Sifting. Some things will matter and others less so. Sometimes the reviews are meaningless. We won’t tolerate fag ends by a pool either but wouldn’t discount a whole country! A hotel we stayed at in Austria had smoking in the area (inside) where we got the hot chocolate after skiing. This was 20 years ago but it was very off putting and we had dc with us. It’s just a case of navigating the world. Some bits of it you don’t like.

We’ve been 3 times. It’s great there.

Not writing off the whole country just that type of hotel. I read reviews of several hotels the sum of which gave me a mental image I couldn't shift of belligerent Americans smoking round the pool and throwing their fag ends in for the staff to fish out. My grandsons are going this summer so I'll listen to what they have to say. Maybe the Mexicans will build a wall and keep them out.

I didn't want to be around the sort of people who left the cigarette ends in the pool in the first place and didn't go to Mexico

FWIW, the place we stayed (not my choice, but considered 'naice') had a pool that was very busy and full of insta posers, and one that was quiet. There are a lot of resort style places, but you can find alternatives