Tripadvisor et al

[V8S]

I've been looking for holidays somewhere in Europe and, of course, checking out reviews for each hotel.

Two points:

• Who are these people who book a holiday, THEN check out the reviews? Utter madness. Do they really think the holiday operator is going to point out the staff couldn't give a crap and you'll be put out the back in the staff accommodation if you're English?

• Pretty much every review for every hotel starts with "it was with trepidation after reading the bad reviews...". I've never seen so many uses of that word in one place before. I think they must read a review, learn this new word and immediately want to try it out for themselves.

From what I can gather from Tripadvisor, there is not a single hotel in any of the popular destinations that doesn't have grumpy staff, poor and repetitive food, stained beds or building works going on. I put this down to the fact people will willingly complain but rarely want to offer tales of great holidays. I guess 'adequate' doesn't really move you to write an essay.

[walm]

Definitely a negative bias to (unpaid) review writing.

FWIW The place I was in this weekend had terrible reviews and it was with great trepidation that I stayed there. In the end, the staff were lovely and the room didn't STINK OF URINE contradicting the only Tripadvisor review.

Did I write a review?
No.

[V8mate]

I think Tripadvisor is one of the best resources on the Net. You're planning to go hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from home to a place you haven't been before and it's good to know some people who have.

I disagree that no-one leaves good reviews - I think that there are a lot of very balanced ones. When checking out a location, you can quickly sort the 'typical moaner' type reviewer from the way they write. But when well written, bad reviews start stacking up, something has to be wrong.

Funnily enough, I find that American tourists write very honest reviews and will always try and say something nice even if they had a terrible time.

For me, Tripadvisor gets 5-stars

[Deva Link]

V8S said:

From what I can gather from Tripadvisor, there is not a single hotel in any of the popular destinations that doesn't have grumpy staff, poor and repetitive food, stained beds or building works going on.

That's probably true. Best stay at home.

[filski666]

English people only write reviews when they want to complain/vent spleen etc.

It is like those signs onthe back of commercial vehicles "how's my driving?" - do you think anyone ever phones up and says "I just phoned to say the driver of vehicle BP06XXX was doing a sterling job, very considerate"

so I guess take them all with a pinch of salt - read what they say, but try and filter out the vitriol

Edited by filski666 on Thursday 28th August 17:21

[V8S]

I wasn't really complaining about tripadvisor itself. It really is a very good resource, and yes you can weed out the moaners. I haven't yet found a hotel that they don't have a review for, which is blinking marvellous.

The annoying this is when you get lots of badly written, "hated it" reviews and then one well-worded "what the hell are people on?" review. Difficult to know who to believe.

One thing is for certain though - the Playamar in Mallorca has the very worst reviews that I've come across yet.

[Muzzer]

Trip advisor is a balance.

Some of the people on there could stay at the Dorchester and find things to complain about

At the end of the day, most people just want a nice, clean hotel with good food available and friendly staff. Some people on holiday expect to be treated like royalty and for their £300pp package holiday to provide 5 star accomodation.

I check out the potential places I'm staying. If the reviews are all good, it's a cracking place. If the reviews are ALL bad then it's probably a bit st. If there's a mix then it's probably a perfectly acceptable place to stay.

Oh, and I find Americans to give the worst reviews! They expect everywhere to serve hamburgers and have cable tv.....

[2something]

I use tripadvisor and benchmark the comments vs. comments of hotels that I have been to. I tend to only look at negative feedback anyway and consider whether it's relevant, likely to be an isolated incident or whatever. You have to apply a good amount of discretion, but there are often a lot of useful bits of advice you can pick up.

Just generally I discard all Christmas and New Year reviews and apply a couple more rules of thumb.

[V8mate]

V8S said:

The annoying this is when you get lots of badly written, "hated it" reviews and then one well-worded "what the hell are people on?" review. Difficult to know who to believe.

That's when you have to apply some snob factor to the reviewers and their reviews. And I'm not going to say anything else on here for fear of being torn to shreds

[Isoproturon1]

I left a bad review on there and it got pulled. Apparently you're not allow to refer to your fellow guests as "saggy-faced old bags".

[V8S]

Isoproturon1 said:

I left a bad review on there and it got pulled. Apparently you're not allow to refer to your fellow guests as "saggy-faced old bags".

What if they were overbooked and you had to sleep in the luggage room?

[Zod]

every hotel I've stayed at and loved has reviews on tripadvisor (usually from Americans) complaining about the most extraordinary things. One place, Carlisle Bay in Antigua, has some American woman complaining about the colour of the sand!

[Miss Pitstop]

Muzzer said:

Trip advisor is a balance.

Oh, and I find Americans to give the worst reviews! They expect everywhere to serve hamburgers and have cable tv.....

Couldn't agree more. I went to the Dominican and the Americans all seemed to moan about the fact that it was a 5* hotel but they didn't get waited on hand, foot and finger. It was pointed out by a Brit that the Dominican is a very poor country and perhaps they need to take that into account.

I always try to take a balanced view depending on what I read.

[cottonfoo]

Isoproturon1 said:

I left a bad review on there and it got pulled. Apparently you're not allow to refer to your fellow guests as "saggy-faced old bags".

Really? I left a not particularly bad, but not very good review on there and (now this might upset some petty, childish people with no lives of their own, and I risk another thread dedicated to me) have a standing offer of a free upgrade to a junior suite, which wasn't bad.

[Isoproturon1]

cottonfoo said:

Isoproturon1 said:

I left a bad review on there and it got pulled. Apparently you're not allow to refer to your fellow guests as "saggy-faced old bags".

Really? I left a not particularly bad, but not very good review on there and (now this might upset some petty, childish people with no lives of their own, and I risk another thread dedicated to me) have a standing offer of a free upgrade to a junior suite, which wasn't bad.

Really. I think in the T&C it states that you can't say anything derogatory about the people or something. Welcome to freedom of speech.

[V8mate]

Miss Pitstop said:

Muzzer said:

Trip advisor is a balance.

Oh, and I find Americans to give the worst reviews! They expect everywhere to serve hamburgers and have cable tv.....

Couldn't agree more. I went to the Dominican and the Americans all seemed to moan about the fact that it was a 5* hotel but they didn't get waited on hand, foot and finger. It was pointed out by a Brit that the Dominican is a very poor country and perhaps they need to take that into account.

I always try to take a balanced view depending on what I read.

From a general perspective I can't agree; 5-star should be a consistent standard irrelevant of where you are in the world

[muppetdave]

I've always found it to be useful. I think usually you can suss out and discount most of the comments made by idiots, and make your own decision from there.

I've never based a decision wholly on comments made there, but it has swung the balance when deciding between a couple of place.

It always makes me laugh the eejots on there. Where we stayed for our honeymoon this year was fantastic, all bar one reviews stated the same. The one odd was was clearly from an illiterate pikey who thought they'd go to this hotel with their life savings rather than their annual trip to the costa del sh*te - they complained about the (fantastic) food and actually said "all there was was Indian food" - funny than in India - I appreciate you have to have some alternatives and there were - I think they were missing the crappy fry-ups!!

[Deva Link]

There's a good one which was pointed to a while ago on one of the Disney forums from someone who sgged off a DisneyWorld hotel as they were there for a week and it was boring. They went to *one* of the theme parks for *one* day and then hung around the hotel for the rest of the time!

[Not Ideal]

V8mate said:

I think Tripadvisor is one of the best resources on the Net. You're planning to go hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from home to a place you haven't been before and it's good to know some people who have.

I disagree that no-one leaves good reviews - I think that there are a lot of very balanced ones. When checking out a location, you can quickly sort the 'typical moaner' type reviewer from the way they write. But when well written, bad reviews start stacking up, something has to be wrong.

Funnily enough, I find that American tourists write very honest reviews and will always try and say something nice even if they had a terrible time.

For me, Tripadvisor gets 5-stars

+ 1 mate im with you. Think it is one of the most reliable sources of travel info on the web. I use it religiously before I book anywhere.

[Gylen]

Muzzer said:

Oh, and I find Americans to give the worst reviews! They expect everywhere to serve hamburgers and have cable tv.....

Was just about to say this - also, they have no comprehension that Europe is historically 'smaller' than the US, thus can't understand why boutique hotels in city centres don't have rooms the size of cricket pitches. tts.