To ask what you dreamed would be fabulous but is actually maybe a bit shit

[hitsvilleuk]

I think this about lots of things to do with celebrity lives, when I was younger I thought it all would amazing now not so sure.

A particular one I have is that I always longed for a villa on the Italian lakes. We went to a hotel there one year for 5 days ( in the same village as George Clooney ) It pissed down for 3 days. Everything was dark and damp and that combined with the endless queuing for flights and the thought of maintaining a property in another country sort of did for the dream. Not achievable without a lottery win anyway but now I don't even want it.

Anyone else got stuff like this or that they actually got and then thought 'meh'. I seem to have it about more and more things as I get on - I just don't want stuff anymore. Is it just to do with age?

New Zealand - everyone raves about the scenery, beaches etc and while they were nice they were no nicer than a hundred other places I’ve been too. The cities were often soulless and felt really ‘temporary’, plus every shop seemed to close on the dot of 5pm.

Barbecues - lovely in theory but always seems a lot of faff and annoyance for food that isn’t any better than food cooked in a kitchen.

As a child , I dreamed of visiting Venice Beach in LA. I would watch American tv shows set in VB and could imagine myself running across the beach in my red one piece swimsuit Baywatch style.
I eventually visited VB when I was twenty five.
To say it was a disappointment is an understatement. The beach was a shithole.
In fact LA is just generally a dull place to visit.

@Lampzade

As a child , I dreamed of visiting Venice Beach in LA. I would watch American tv shows set in VB and could imagine myself running across the beach in my red one piece swimsuit Baywatch style. I eventually visited VB when I was twenty five. To say it was a disappointment is an understatement. The beach was a shithole. In fact LA is just generally a dull place to visit.

Is that the beach right beside Santa Monica beach. Yeah I thought SM beach was awful.

Oh I so agree about Paris (dogshit, rude people, and the tube map makes no sense), and Wicked musical (unbelievably boring and cringeingly lame). Both I had to pretend to love too, because they were presents.

Also Bangkok, depressing poverty and lack of care for human life, disabled people begging in the streets and way way too hot.

One more, I was a huge Neil Young fan, managed to get tickets to a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 2003. So exciting! Biggest load of boring shit ever. Went right off him ever since.

Hamilton.. I found it extremely boring, i really don’t get the hype. I didn’t really understand what was going on and didn’t enjoy the music.

Same here.

The Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel. Even with pre-booked tickets it was so crowded that we had to shuffle along at the same pace as everyone else. After shuffling through endless brightly decorated galleries the Sistine Chapel was very drab in comparison.
Paris. I didn’t feel safe there
New Orleans – didn’t feel safe there either.

I’m not sure what you expected of the Harry Potter studio tour @Shannith. It isn’t a theme park, but the actual studios with the actual props that were used in the films. It is brilliantly done, and the attention to detail is astonishing.

When I said to the young girl ' I thought there might be rides ' ( pre train days) she looked horrified and said ' it's a museum , not a theme park ! ' told me!

I don’t know why people go there thinking it is a theme park. It isn’t marketed as a theme park. @Laiste as long as you realise that it is more like a museum you should enjoy it. There is a lot of detail to look at.

The USA.

The entire USA @poundoflard?
I have been to California, Massachusetts, Florida, Vermont, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas and enjoyed visiting them all. Everyone was helpful and friendly with a few rare exceptions

I would love to walk the Appalachian trail

If you haven’t already read it, I highly Recommend Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods @Sarahtrue11

Parenthood in general

Hollywood and the walk of fame - nothing like I had expected

Niagara Falls - freezing and a bit shit

Plus agree with the others, especially Mr Frosty

Oh Bali? Rats everywhere. Including running over your feet in restaurants.

This thread is ace!!

I loved Harry Potter studios..we had to rebook tickets due to COVID and it was brilliant. No queues at all and we had Diagon Alley to ourselves.

I also love New York and found Legoland surprisingly entertaining.

HOWEVER, LA is a total shithole. Horrible, polluted, filthy - Hollywood Boulevard is covered in litter and every other building is owned by the Scientologists.

I also hated go-karting. The stench of petrol gave me a headache, it was cold and surprisingly hard work. Ached for days afterwards.

@FishyFriday

I'd agree with the marriage posts.

Malta. I felt like I'd gone on holiday to 1986.

I went to Malta as a kid in 1986. Has it not changed then? 😂

Fire pit.

Lets all hunch gather round the garden fire pit and burn our faces while our backs freeze and keep shouting at the kids to stop opening any windows or doors or smoke will make the house stink. Then cheerfully go inside to realise that you can't chill out in the lounge because you stink and have to strip off and shower and wash your hair.

And then you have the ash to clean up in the morning.
Which is usually turned to filthy mush as it rained in the night.

@RampantIvy

Hamilton.. I found it extremely boring, i really don’t get the hype. I didn’t really understand what was going on and didn’t enjoy the music.

Same here.

The Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel. Even with pre-booked tickets it was so crowded that we had to shuffle along at the same pace as everyone else. After shuffling through endless brightly decorated galleries the Sistine Chapel was very drab in comparison.
Paris. I didn’t feel safe there
New Orleans – didn’t feel safe there either.

I’m not sure what you expected of the Harry Potter studio tour @Shannith. It isn’t a theme park, but the actual studios with the actual props that were used in the films. It is brilliantly done, and the attention to detail is astonishing.

When I said to the young girl ' I thought there might be rides ' ( pre train days) she looked horrified and said ' it's a museum , not a theme park ! ' told me!

I don’t know why people go there thinking it is a theme park. It isn’t marketed as a theme park. @Laiste as long as you realise that it is more like a museum you should enjoy it. There is a lot of detail to look at.

The USA.

The entire USA @poundoflard?
I have been to California, Massachusetts, Florida, Vermont, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas and enjoyed visiting them all. Everyone was helpful and friendly with a few rare exceptions

I would love to walk the Appalachian trail

If you haven’t already read it, I highly Recommend Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods @Sarahtrue11

I haven't read it. I will now. I love books like that. Thanks for the tip.

Has anyone on here walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain? What did you think. It is a long walk through Spain.

I walked it once, and I want to do it again.

I remember thinking it was good and bad at the time.

But it is like giving birth, you forget the bad bits after a while, and want to do it again.

This thread is a great place to get ideas.

Cruises. as a child I imagined they would be glamorous. They are utterly dire.. .giant floating Harvester restaurants filled with uncouth people stuffing their faces all day and getting drunker and drunker.

Not quite on the same scale but Captain Corelli ‘s Mandolin. Everyone raved about it, I dutifully read it to the end and found it very underwhelming.

Lapland.

Kids scared shitless of Father Christmas, indifferent about the snow, absolutely knackered and hard work because of how overwhelming it all was.
It was an ABSOLUTE fortune too. Thanks kids - a complete waste of time!

@theluckiest

This thread is ace!!

I loved Harry Potter studios..we had to rebook tickets due to COVID and it was brilliant. No queues at all and we had Diagon Alley to ourselves.

I also love New York and found Legoland surprisingly entertaining.

HOWEVER, LA is a total shithole. Horrible, polluted, filthy - Hollywood Boulevard is covered in litter and every other building is owned by the Scientologists.

I also hated go-karting. The stench of petrol gave me a headache, it was cold and surprisingly hard work. Ached for days afterwards.

I forgot about the massive Scientology building right on the walk of fame! It is so strange.

I had quite a nice chat with the Scientology man standing outside it. I wanted to talk to him because I had never met a Scientologist before. Strange but interesting. I like talking to people from all walks of life.

reading all this I think I must be easily entertained!

Oh, and Eric Clapton was the most boring performer ever.

Bruce Springsteen on the other hand was incredible (perhaps we need an 'things you weren't expecting to be so amazing' thread?)

The film The Big Lebowski is rubbish. Baffles me as to why it's a cult classic.

Definitely mr frosty, bought one for dd-she was so disappointed

Corfu - terrible roads, terrible rubbish problem - we had awful accommodation thanks to jet2 which didn’t help

Las Vegas- so bored and missed out on seeing Elton John as Dh was being arse

And WFh....its getting to me now

@Diesse are you my sister?

anyway I have low expectations generally but I am disappointed in myself! I just thought I'd be "better" = more successful, nicer, more amazing than I am!
every haircut that I've had, I always think they're going to be transformational but they never are.

sex within marriage
my extended family (sister excepted of course)

@KeyboardWorriers

Cruises. as a child I imagined they would be glamorous. They are utterly dire.. .giant floating Harvester restaurants filled with uncouth people stuffing their faces all day and getting drunker and drunker.

It really depends on the cruise, i would imagine a mass market line with lots of people would be awful, but they are not ALL the same honestly.

@theluckiest

Oh, and Eric Clapton was the most boring performer ever.

Bruce Springsteen on the other hand was incredible (perhaps we need an 'things you weren't expecting to be so amazing' thread?)

The film The Big Lebowski is rubbish. Baffles me as to why it's a cult classic.

Yay,to Bruce,he is amazing in concert,every,single,time.

Oh another one, Mombasa in Kenya. Amazing and awful in a totally different way from what I expected.

I thought the beach part would be the highlight of the holiday (amazing sandy beaches, warm sea etc), but it was spent fending off literally dozens of very insistent men trying to sell you crap and looking you up and down in your swimsuit (I was a lot younger then, no-one would be looking at me now!).

The best and most memorable part of the holiday was the fab exotic casino, filled with characters out of a Somerset Maugham story...

Now we need a thread about "what is the best thing you ever did, best place you have ever been to"

@Shopliftersoftheworldunite

Vienna - I thought it would be a lovely city break by myself. Not a single person smiled at me the entire weekend I was there and a woman was incredibly rude to me on the subway. The Freud Museum is incredibly dull too. The only vegetarian options in many restaurants is deep fried cheese.

I have fun where ever I go but I was ready to come home. Milan is also a rubbish city that I thought would be good.

I loved Vienna for the art but agree about the people, I found them really unfriendly and rude. Sorry, any Viennese reading.

Another one who was so disappointed by Mr Frosty. Nothing else has ever disappointed me quite so much!!