Most disappointing destination/holiday

[Forgottenmyphone]

For me, it was the Norwegian fjords. Not because they weren’t beautiful (what we saw of them, they were!) but because it was cold, rainy and foggy when we went. One town known for being very pretty was ridiculously busy and there was a cruise ship blocking the view from the restaurant we booked. We knew the prices were going to be high, but expected good quality… when you pay over £100 for a train ticket, you expect there to be toilet roll and soap in the toilets!

where have you been that was disappointing?

Love the posts where a single person has contributed to the ruin of a holiday. Waitress in Stockholm, taxi driver in Dublin… you do know you get assholes all over the world. It’s just pure bad luck running into one whilst on holiday.

Fiji is high on my list, so good to know! I’m loving this thread.

@Forgottenmyphoneoh no what month did you go in? I’m going in September and weather looks to be expected ok

@IberianBlackout I know what you mean. The thing about it most is it had a Guinness factory, and wherever you went Guinness was THE drink that was everywhere. Nothing remotely enchanting or pretty about Dublin.

I didn’t rate Dublin much either.

Re Santorini we were lucky enough to go just as the Covid restrictions were lifting. Island was deserted and they upgraded our room to something wed never normally pay for. Very lucky. I wouldn’t go now with the normal crowds

Marrakech, I wanted to love it but made the mistake of going as two females. We just got harassed constantly and locked in places, it was very unsafe. Also I really disliked South Africa, beautiful countryside but still felt very segregated and unsafe in parts.

And btw I found Hong Kong bad the first time but then learnt to love it. Used to go a lot some until about 10 years ago so it is not fresh information. It is overcrowded and overwhelming but the history and food are amazing and there is so much to explore.

I thought I'd dislike LA as I hadn't really liked any U.S. city I had been to previously but ended up having a great trip. Its not so much a city as a collection of towns/suburbs and some are not great but parts are just amazing.

Also if you find yourself in Jakarta, just take the first train across Java to Yogyakarta, you will have a much better time!

Lots of nice places in Fiji to go to - Coral Coast, islands... but Denarau is really just if you have to over night on your way to the
Airport

I think Dublin lacks the obvious architectural attraction of many capital cities - but the suburbs, the hills, mountains, the sea (beaches if you travel a bit) are lovely.
Rising homelessness makes the centre (like so many other cities) a bit depressing.

I had a really disappointing trip to Iceland as all the wonderful tours I’d booked had to be cancelled due to extreme weather. I’d love to go back and hopefully experience it properly and see the northern lights but it was an expensive disappointment!

India.

Beautiful and fascinating but for the whole
3 weeks I was there, I either had an upset tummy (despite being careful about what I ate) or was suffering terribly with the air pollution in Calcutta and Delhi.

Oh and we got scammed in the Jama Madjid Mosque in Delhi - random man decided to guide us. We ignored him. He followed us into a small room with only one door and stood between us and the door, demanding money with menaces for his 'guiding'. Was very frightening.

All of this has given me an idea for a new thread…. Where you’d suggest as alternatives to some of the destinations that have come up a lot on this thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/holidays/5371246-alternatives-to-disappointing-destinations?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

That pretty much sums up all Christmas markets for me, utter shite tat

Man this whole thread reads like a BuzzFeed list of a collation from across the internet of the most stereotypical irrationally bad reviews from moaning Brits 😂😂😂😂

The setting for my worst ever holiday was Zakynthos. To be fair it was some years ago & it may have improved....and it may also have been problems with the hotel & locality.

But it was dire. Nothing to do really but sit on a crammed-in sunbed and think what the hell we were going to do to keep then-toddler DS entertained when there was nothing.....no play area, nowhere for him even to sit and explore - despite it being sold as a family resort.

It was lined with shops selling tourist tat in our faces & that was pretty much all there was. I don't know why they went to the effort of trying to sell us stuff, when to save our time & theirs they could have just turned us upside down and shaken us until the money ran out of our pockets.

Every morning we racked our brains to think what we were to feed DS that day, I woke up each morning worrying. The low point was when we asked for some honey for DS with his breakfast - 'no we don't have that'. Despite the fact that every single tourist shop just down the road was selling Greek honey. It was so obvious that nobody gave a single shit about whether we enjoyed our holiday.

I wouldn't go to Cornwall in August. UK weather so often turns mid-August and it's just overrun.

We have been in May and October. October is obviously a gamble, we were lucky but in general I would go for May/June only.

Yep…went on a school trip when I was in 6th form and we were left to go off and do our own thing with no real guidance on where we should or shouldn’t go. A man covered in his own excrement told me ‘I hope you get raped and die’ because I didn’t have a quarter to give him.

Athens. Dirty, the men were vile and predatory (far worse than in Italy!) and it was just so disorganised and chaotic. It was also incredibly hot even in May. It put me off Greece quite a lot.

Exactly. The whole point of traveling is to go somewhere different and experience something new.

It sounds like a lot of people don’t research what they are signing up for.

My DH and I have a ‘rule’. Capital city which you generally fly into (we fly longhaul into most places) and somewhere off the beaten track. Eg when we went to France two days in Paris for the tourist factor and then a 7 day drive down South for the more authentic factor. You kind of know what you’re getting when you visit a large tourist centre but who can go to France and not see the Eiffel Tower no matter how disappointing it is? I never leave and regret seeing a new place.

Berlin, felt miserable there. Everything seemed so bleak, dirty and just not a nice vibe. Luckily only did a 2 night city break.

This. I found people go places because photos look stunning but they just don't really look at what the area offers.

We are currently in the Loire valley. There was recently a thread about France and someone said they didn't like the Loire as it was just too many castles and nothing else to do.
Well, we are there because of the castles, we are here for one week and planned 5 castles. We are interested in history and the Loire is an area I wanted to go for a long time.

Rome. Just the most miserable holiday DP
and I have ever had. Cold, wet and miserable (we went in February admittedly,) but we were just inexplicably bored and felt ripped off.

In many cases I think what pps are disappointed in isn't the location - it's mass tourism.

I'm not well-travelled, but my few travels have been very special and meaningful to me. I research the place and really live in the moment when I'm there. Then I read more and re-live my experiences when back home, and think a lot about my trip in the days, weeks and even years afterwards. I go abroad about once a year and mostly do it by train so I can experience the journey.

I hate mass tourism. It spoils the world and its beautiful places. On a trip to Venice a few years ago I was horrified at the crowds. If I'd fainted in St Mark's Square i wouldn't have fallen down - it was shoulder to shoulder. I'd never been to a tourist hot-spot before and it shocked me. I won't go anywhere again which is as popular as that.

Didn't Oscar Wilde say 'You always kill the thing you love"? He was right, but I don't know what the answer is.

Tunisia and Cape Verde.

Luckily I’ve loved everywhere else