During our trip both booking.com and Trip Advisor have become a somewhat shining light in our quest for smooth running travel arrangements. We have relied on them both to provide a concise and honest appraisal of hotels, operators, bus companies etc. If we've ridden on it or stayed there, it's not been before a rigorous set of checks have been undertaken beforehand.
Quite early on in our trip, we started to notice that even hotels which had racked up a seemingly endless number of glowing reviews, always seemed to have at least three absolutely terrible reviews with only one star rating. We used to ignore these and go with the majority vote, but a few times curiosity has got the better of us and we have delved into the reviews from what can only be described as the inner workings of Trip Advisor Fools.
Our first we learned of was in Vietnam. We looked at a review of the floating puppet show in Hanoi. Billed as one of the top cultural attractions in the city, we were interested to see what people had to say.
Of course most reviews were filled with the amount of enthusiasm that only Eric can usually offer but there was one reviewer who was appalled and "disappointed to find out the show was not in English."
Oh well sooooorrryyy, you England loving, crumpet munching, Union Jack wearing weirdo. We are in Vietnam, so sorry that you found it hard to follow. Would you like Holly Wiloubooby and Philip Schofield to storm the floating stage to provide some English translation for you? Perhaps we could also ask them to prepare some English breakfast tea and a scone for the interval and get some elderly people to moan about the weather so you can feel really at home?
Not in English??! Phil and Holly can't quite believe what they are hearing.
Apologies for that, it just annoyed me. Onto the next one. Whilst on our Inca Trail adventure, our lovely guide Mauricio told us many tales different people he had lead on the trail, he has met people from all walks of life. Among one of his least liked groups of people are what he referred to as the 'Spoilt'. (I thought it best not to tell him about my pre-university life of living off the bank of Mum and Dad to fund a designer clothing habit). Further investigation signalled that Mauricio was talking more about those rude kind of tourists who expect too much and blame you when this don't really go their way. He actually had someone who complained to him that the Inca Trail "had too many uphill steps".
"I mean, it IS nice, but why did they go and put all those steps on it?"
Grrrrr, I can feel it boiling up inside me again........ Oh well sorrrryyyyy Mrs. 'I can't be expected to walk up steps on a hike to an ancient ruin in the middle of the Andes'. Was it not enough for you that the Incas embarked on this epic journey wearing only simple sandals, carved a route into the mountainside, created villages at 3000 metres above sea level, complete with farming systems, irrigation and spiritual sites for worshipping their gods - all with absolutely no modern technology? Would you have preferred them to wait until the 21st century and carve a complete replica of Scunthorpe into the mountainside, with a series of interconnecting Stannah Stair Lifts to take miserable, old, boring tourists like you to see what the wonders of modern science can do?
"Yey, only one more stair lift to the summit!"
Again, sorry for the outburst, but these people really grind my gears. I found the next one myself after looking for a hotel in Quito. I noticed a really poor score against a great sounding hotel so delved deeper. It turns out that this particular imbecile had limited travel arranging skills and gave a one star rating to the hotel as "it said the location was close to the airport, but this wasn't the airport I was flying into."
I mean, come on!!! There are certain things you can blame a hotel for - painful checking in and out procedures, a dirty room, broken appliances - but blaming them for the fact that you didn't check where you were actually flying in to??!! What's next, why not tell them it's their fault the plane didn't have your favourite film on and the man in front reclined his seat too far the whole way, whilst a kid in the seat behind you repeatedly kicked your back?
When researching The Wynn hotel in Vegas we were surprised to learn of one user's overly dramatic title of "TERRIBLE" and low scoring was simply because "one individual let it down." For goodness sake, I thought there was mud pouring out of the shower head and cockroaches darting out of pillowcases with a review title like that when in fact, they possibly just caught one member of staff on an off day. Have a heart, o Tripadvisor Fool, he might have just found out his girlfriend was cheating on him or something. Don't plunge the future fortunes of Steve Wynn's epic hotel empire and run him into ruin through smiting The Wynn on Trip Advisor because someone didn't wish you "good day' and fold over the corners of your toilet paper roll.
Other gems have included:
- "there was no ice cream in the hotel"
(shock!! Horror!! Did they have to have a grown up dessert after dinner?!? Sorry to leave you on that cliff hanger but I don't even know what they did or how they coped! It seems a Trip Advisor Fool is in town.)
- "the sinks did not have stoppers"
(it's true, this world can be cruel, but not having stoppers in the sink?! I can't imagine the sheer plight that ensued. Now don't tell me there wasn't even a mixer tap??! Did they wash their faces in hot or cold water? What an agonising choice to have to make on holiday! Trip Advisor Fool strikes again.)
- "there was no pool."
(Is this some kind of conspiracy against water based hotel activities? Did a dangerous water terrorist come to the hotel in the dead of night on a successful mission to drain all the water from all the pools in the hotel? Did swimming suddenly become illegal in the state you were visiting? Oh, did you forget to check if there was actually a pool at the hotel? Ah yes, this has all the characteristics of classic Trip Advisor Fool behaviour.
I'll leave you with a little story told to me by Amy who we met up with in Copacabana. They were looking for a tour operator for some kind of hike/excursion and found that someone had scored them appallingly for the whole tour. As it turns out, the tour was great but it's just that on the way there someone else in a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT VEHICLE had run over a dog and the tour operator in question didn't get out to check the dog was ok.
Ladies and Gentleman I give you, the one, the only, the most utterly cranially challenged being on this earth, the Trip Advisor Fool.
My Spratty!! Laughed out loud, cried, and then laughed out loud in repetitive loops whilst savouring your latest Special Report! Pure and utter genius!! After being embraced into your 'inner sanctum' for the last 10 days, I have been absolutely riveted to witness your daily 30 mins of admin over breakfast....and there is soooo much admin associated with your travelling!! Your daily session is short, but intensive, and then forgotten about for the rest of the day, excepting Aaron's famous 'to do' list, which hovers in the background until a suitably long wifi journey opens up in front of him to offer a window of 'ticking off' enabling the few 'breakfast resistant' blighters to, finally be dumped from the list!! Awesome to see how you both divide the work....it isn't necessary to even have a formal delegation discussion.....the travelling admin machine just whirrs on, enthusiastically!! Enjoy the winery, travelling Beanies.....lovely that the 'sunglasses winery incident' wasn't the last remaining winery visit in your memories......its shadow can be eradicated now! Love you immeasureably, thank you for the laughs generated by the Trip Advisor Fool Special Report, my darling girl! Keep safe xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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