Didn't choosing and booking a holiday use to be so much easier and straightforward? I mean, the days of just nipping down to Lunn Poly to pick up a few holiday brochures, selecting one that looked reasonably okay, one that wasn't extortionately priced and just booking it.
Ah two weeks in a hotel in Tenerife for £350. Heading towards your hotel and resort not quite knowing what was in store for you. Opening the door to your hotel room and crying solidly for three hours at the realisation you have to stay there. For two weeks. I miss those days.
I spend way too much of my life researching hotels on various websites and forums, looking for "real" reviews and on the basis of those reviews discounting many hotels which in fairness are probably very nice. We're quite pernickity on the whole aren't we? We do like a good moan and we love to tell people just what an awful time we've had of things. Reading various reviews I'd say that the English are not alone in this and I've found that our American cousins appear even harder to please.
I'm trying to book two holidays for next year which should be easy based on the fact that there are like a gazillion possible combinations of locations and hotels. The world is literally my oyster. (Okay, not literally). Why is then that I am finding this one of the hardest things I have ever done?
Tripadvisor, that's why.
Every time I see a hotel I might like, either in a brochure or on a website I must immediately rush to Tripadvisor to see what the masses say about it. And whilst I try to take it all with a pinch of salt, I will admit that the reviews put me off and I will strike hotels of my shortlist because someone said the food was a bit repetitive or that the road was a bit noisy. In reality neither of these two would be a massive deal-breaker for me. I'm even worse with hotels that are meant to be 5*. There's no room for negativity when you're paying £4k for a weeks holiday.
Even if a hotel has more good reviews than bad it still unnerves me but where does this leave me? Nowhere! Every hotel has at least one slightly negative review because lets face it, they can't be perfect all the time. All this review-reading does is send me crazy and leaves me without a holiday!
Knowledge, in this instance anyhow, is certainly not power.
I feel I need to free myself from these chains and STOP looking at Tripadvisor and other forums and just do what I used to - go with my gut instinct and pick a hotel based on the fact I like the look of it and can afford it.
Please tell me I am not alone in my almost OCD-like behaviour of reading every review in existence before making a holiday choice?
love & kisses
I am the same, although not as bad as Jewhurst who must read the reviews for EVERYTHING..... especially computer games. I think you are right in that you need to take them with a pinch of salt. Some people are just really hard to please. I would look for recurring themes throughout - for example, when looking for a nice 5* hotel to stay a night in on the way home for our honeymoon, we read the reviews for one on Tripadvisor and nearly everyone said that they were paying £80 a head for dinner only to be stuck in a gloomy side room. This was because only the regulars and rich people (because only poor people pay £80 a head, clearly) sat in the main dining room. Other people said that it was very difficult to find, even with sat nav and directions. Things that aren't down to preference are the ones to look for. Here endeth the epic.
ReplyDeleteI did exactly the same thing as I was trying to book the hotels for our trip in Tuscany. It was madness! In fact I booked a hotel in Florence and then cancel it due to some reviews I read.
ReplyDeleteI got so tired of reading and searching that finally booked the first hotel I came across!
I am the same, not with holidays as we haven't been on that many let alone to somewhere overseas. But any major purchase, which a holiday is, you will find me dithering and Googling till I go cross-eyed and end up making a duff choice anyway! My last camera is pants and I'm waiting for it to die so I can re-start the price comparing and reviews all over again. Joys!
ReplyDeleteHope you find somewhere nice. Just tick as many boxes as you can and keep your fingers crossed. After all you could find somewhere perfect and get put next door to the noisiest people in the world.
I read them but take them with a pinch of salt. You can spot the "sour grapes" type review as opposed to the "genuine axe to grind" type review a mile off, I think. I like to get the overall feel of a place and we did book a place in Barcelona on the sole strength of a great set of TripAdvisor reviews. They've had one bad review in several years of operating. We weren't disappointed.
ReplyDeleteI guess it's about the mass of information - go with the majority, rather than going through the minute detail of it all. If it's overly positive, go for it.
Oh, and I don't read ALL the reviews either. :)
I only read the odd review as I'd be like you, one bad reveiw and it'd be off the list, be it a new fridge or a yoghurt!!! And you know your always gonna get one bad review, so I try to stay away from them. And for holidays, I always go with my gut instinct,and I've never had a bad holiday touch wood! Nat
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