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?

Selling everything you own and travelling the world for 1 year with no plan or itinerary, with one backpack. Thought it would be freeing, non stop adventure, fun and amazing sights.

Reality was exhausting, expensive, stressful, lost relationships and feeling quite lost & unsettled. You still need to eat, sleep, cook, wash clothes, made so much harder without a base. 90% stress and 10% amazing memories. Sometimes I'd wake up and genuinely lose track of what country I was in or what currency I needed. Definitely took a toll on my mental health.

Saw some incredible sights, glad I did it, but would never do it again or recommend it and now stick to well-planned holidays. Or weekend breaks!

Very disappointed by little island off Cuba. In pictures it looked like a paradise island. In reality it was more like that scene in Papillon where Steve McQueen is running frantically through a nightmarish mangrove swamp.

Generally, I am pretty chuffed by new places and experiences.

Love this thread!!! Very cathartic and so impressed by other posters’ entertaining ways of describing things!
Had never heard of Mr Frosty /now perversely interested and off to google it!
I always wanted a motor yacht - imagined glamorous afternoons on the river drinking champagne and entertaining friends.
In fact there are very few afternoons when conditions are perfect usually grey/windy etc or conversely too hot and no shade. The few ‘goldilocks’ moments attract every other river user so it is too crowded. People coming on board don’t know how to drive the thing so I am driving, not lounging about drinking and actually can’t drink more than one glass anyway and I have to moor the thing at end of the day and clear up, put cover on etc....
Also the worry of drunk guests falling overboard. And guests turning up generously proffering a bottle of wine then proceeding to drink several. Lots of maintenance costs and worry about engine failure...
I do love my boat, but mainly just to sit on it on my own with a cup of tea early morning, not actually going anywhere And I’m glad I bought it because it killed my envy of yacht owners

Keeping chickens. We live semi-rurally and I had wanted to keep hens for years. I even subscribed to a specialist magazine. Eventually persuaded my husband and we were given 2 chickens that needed a new home. They escaped constantly, hated people, pecked the children in the face, stank, laid about one egg each and then died. I haven’t been able to bring myself to try again

I loved our Skegness Butlins holidays as a kid. Would hate it as an adult but as a kid it was wonderful. Also went on the Orient Express for our 50th and loved it. Thinking about it for our 60th. Got off at Verona which we also loved

Being important at work.

Yes I get paid shit tons, and people seek my advice on stuff.....but IT IS REALLY FUCKING HARD WORK

@towers14

Disney World Florida, so over rated, was surprised how tired it was. Universal much better.

Guinness museum, Dublin. Absolutely no content.

San Francisco was boring

I'll echo a Dyson overpriced and over hyped, mine died after 2 years.

We love Disney World but it is a very ‘marmite’ holiday as we know some people who absolutely love it whilst others have not enjoyed it.

To get the most out of it you need to stay on site and use the dining plan and fast passes to minimise queueing and to enable you to do all the top attractions. The maximum queue time we had was 1 hour and this was at peak season in August because of fast passes. We knew that some rides would had wait times of 3 hours so we pre booked our fast passes before we even flew out to Florida.

It is an exhausting holiday but I just love the food especially character dining, the people, the rides and the whole atmosphere. The only downside for me is the heat but everywhere has air con so it is manageable.

Hershie Bar..As an avid reader these chocolate bars are mentioned a lot so I got my friend to bring me one home after a visit..

Tastes like sick!

The pyramids of Cairo, I thought I'd be galloping across the desert for hours like Lawrence of Arabia but they are opposite pizza hut on a tarmac road
Having a baby , I thought I'd be this earth mother type wafting around with a smiling beast fed baby .

Similiarly when I went on holiday to Albania, someone told me that it was bound to be shit and poor. It was gorgeous. A really beautiful country, Really nice

It has really opened up now from what I was reading. When I went they still had government stooges in the tourist hotels listening in on conversations (wow must have been stimulating) and bored soldiers walking round parks especially if they saw locals go anywhere near the tourists! One elderly Irish tourist likened it to Southern Ireland in places.

@Wymyny
Oooh -thanks! Gonna now cross chickens off the list...

@Grendalsmum

Tripping while watching Hawkwind play at Stonehenge on midsummer night ( that dates me! ) Should have been amazing, right? I was freezing cold, l had stomach ache, l was sitting on the only patch of gravel on Salibury plain, there was a faint but very persistant smell of dog shit and the loud american woman behind me was clearly having the mind-bending experience l should have been having and banging on about it at length and considerable volume. Heading back to the tent in the grey dawn l fell over someone's goat, skinned both my knees, spilt my wine and got shouted at by the goat's owner. Major let down all round - l'm still sour about it hundreds of years later!

I was going to say that sums up the 70s but see it was in 1984, when I had finally achieved respectability of sorts. Nice to know people still brought goats to festivals in the 80s. However wine indicates increased affluence, in the 70s it would probably have been cider.

The pyramids of Cairo, I thought I'd be galloping across the desert for hours like Lawrence of Arabia but they are opposite pizza hut on a tarmac road

I liked the pyramids but the men.....!

Perhaps I was naive to walk around in a t shirt and jeans but talk about help yourself. One bloke put his hands between my legs! No warning. No leering at me. He didn't really look at me. I was speechless!

Paris - I quite liked but laughed when I saw the Eiffel Tower - Is that it??? I kept asking my friend if that was it! Didn't bother to see the Mona Lisa. Not that fussed and my friend had already seen it and told me it was tiny. Was bit disappoint no to get into that bookshop Shakespeare something? But it was raining heavily and I didn't think it would be a good idea to go in there dripping! Went to very boring vegetarian restaurant. Wholesome cardboard! I actually did not find the people rude but we got really pissed off when going to some cafes/drinking chocolate places - they were always closed at the time we wanted a drink!

However, the French on holiday abroad... Went to Tunisia and the French thought they owned the place. Lots of complaints that in the lunge the tv was on French stations only. Not bothered by that as I don't go abroad to watch tv. It was hilarious though, the hotel had to have different seating times in the hotel for the French, English and Germans! I guess now the Russians are holidaying en masse they would have to give them a separate time too. They are even ruder than the French and that takes some doing! I actually found the Germans polite!

@Marylou62

Hershie Bar..As an avid reader these chocolate bars are mentioned a lot so I got my friend to bring me one home after a visit..

Tastes like sick!

Amazingly, Americans are used to vomit-flavoured chocolate, and deliberately make it like that.

Agreed re the lake District. It just rains and rains some more. The accommodation is poor standard for the price you pay ditto the food. Hard to keep kids going in the cold and rain everyday. We have friends who go religiously every year and we used to join them but we've opted out this year, the horizontal rain last year and the highlight of the trip being a trip to the Alhambra cinema in Keswick to watch sonic the hedgehog has put me off.

Agree with Dublin. Lots of pubs. Not much else. Shit weather. Shit food.

Edinburgh. Overpriced and a bit meh. We walked upto the castle in pishing rain and walked back again and then got the train back to Glasgow.

On the other hand, I loved Dubai - the weather, the shopping centres, the hotels, the food, beaches, the opulence of the place. DH and I just ate, swam, sunbathed and shopped in luxury for 3 days. It was fab. I know that makes me a MN pariah but still...

A hot tub. So much faff and it's either boiling hot or absolutely freezing when you get out.

Couldn't be without my cordless dyson though.

When I was a child I always wanted to live in a block of flat with a balcony to oversee the town etc.
Where I’m coming from people living in a villages in houses with gardens were frowned upon as villagers and people living in block of flats in towns were of high standards.
I come from a village from a large bungalow type house and I always envied to kids who lived in a town or city in a flats.
When I was 18 I left home to move into a rented flat in 6th floor in a block of flats.
I hated it so much!
I only rented a room so I had limited access to the other rooms but coming from a house with a huge massive garden I was shock to be confide in a matches size room.
I moved out after two months into a lovely house with a garden- also rented a room but much bigger in a green suburbs of the city.
Another thing- again I only wanted to live in a city like London.
When I moved to U.K. I lived in London for decade only to move out into village where I like it now much better.
I would never go live into busy town now.

Not surprised to see NZ turning up again and again. I have a nice life here, but I wouldn't holiday here if I didn't. There's just not that much to see and do compared with most other places.

Egypt was a major disappointment. I love history and the Egyptians but the entire country was just a massive waste of time and money.

Pyramids: in the middle of nowhere and they're filthy. Felt awful for the animals.
"Guides" who take you to "the best places" which are really friends/family joints. I hated it and had 3 days where I was violently sick.

LA was a big shock to the system and really made me sad to see how many mentally ill people were on the street.

Living rurally: I expected it to be like "The good life" but it was crap internet, poor insulation and general isolation. I hated being alone there

Surfing. I was obsessed with the film Blue Crush and wanted to be Kate Bosworth. I wasn’t.

University. Probably my biggest regret. Lonely, boring waste of time.

My wedding day. Massive anticlimax, spent the day in an out of body state of high anxiety. Was nice to marry DH though.

Scotland. Always fantasised about it since childhood. My 3 visit experiences include food poisoning, breaking a molar on a seafood platter, a dog eating a poop at face level in a garden as we walked past, endless foggy rain and underwhelm at the mountains and lakes after having spent a lot of time in Snowdonia and expecting Scotland to be a supercharged version. Wish I’d just travelled for half the time and gone to Wales again instead.

@Howmercurialislife

Being an adult!

This.

I spent this morning cleaning human poo out of the tiny gaps in our wooden floor. That was never in the brochure advertising adulthood, neither was council tax or becoming injured by sleeping in a slightly wrong position.

never again
Florida theme parks..... never again
Vegas... I didn't get it at all helicopter to Grand Canyon was perfect
San Fransisco...... got mugged, lucky passport was in hotel safe, changed flight following morning and flew back to uk same day.
New York at easter weekend a few years ago, dull and crap service everywhere
Paris... filthy place
Ibiza.... not really my scene
Silverstone GP weekend £1,500 for tickets and camping should have camped in the garden and watched on tv
MotoGP as above less cash
Isreal, went there for work, mostly rude people serving
Any All inclusive hotel, resort. I want to be away from people on holiday
Gibraltar... been for work many times, for holiday no way what a dump

places to go back to
New Zealand...... Loved it
Skiing anywhere
Scotland when Krankie is out of power
Caribbean anywhere except Trinidad
most of Europe

Sex. Boyfriends. A career in academia.

Currently celibate, single, retired....and happy.

Whale watching is awful! I've done it twice (obviously didn't learn the first time!), both were far too long, I felt sick the whole time and all you see (if you're lucky) is a tail or a snout poking out of the water. It's not like watching Planet Earth AT ALL where you see the whales from all angles and it's amazing. IRL you spend hours on a fucking boat, rocking about on the water, people vomiting around you, feeling sick yourself, to see very little.