trip advisor and sister in law

raq

Prothet_of_Doom wrote: »

What did we all do before the internet ?

funny enough one comment on there was about "great wi-fi"

me and my sister in law just looked at one another.. lol

raq

Pollycat wrote: »

Do you mean Royal Dragon in Side?

oh sorry, yes it is

raq

Any wrote: »

Yep, this was the hotel with prostitutes. But this is Goa - you spend most of the time outside the hotel and staff were just amazing. Also it was 3* their standards, so we couldn't really expect much.. we didn't pay much for the holidays in comparison what long haul can cost!
It was clean and food was good, that was the most important thing.

And the country itself - amazing and I felt very safe.

How the hell did we all manage before trip advisor, it was purely word of mouth or the advise from the travel agents.

9 years ago we booked our wedding in mexico for 24 people , back then we went with the travel agents reviews. It was absolutely amazing. No fault one little bit. All our family was in heaven and my husbands sister even went back there 3 times and go married herself. That feeling was amazing.

When my sister in law was here and we where looking at the comments from this 5* hotel again all about 98% fantastic but only a couple of negatives from people. Again these where stupid comments in my eyes.

I haven,t been back there since our wedding but personally I would highly recommend it.

Pollycat

It's ranked #5 out of 220 hotels in Side which is (imho) no mean feat.

Maybe your sister in law should look at the hotels that are ranked #1, 2, 3 & 4 to see if they may suit her more.

But - and it's a big but - I said this earlier today:

Pollycat wrote: »

Re cancelling the holiday - if she doesn't have a valid reason to cancel and unless the travel agent/tour operator are very accommodating, she will probably lose her deposit.

Does she know for certain that she can cancel and get a full refund or at least transfer her booking to a different hotel with no monetary loss?

If she can't do either of those things, all the poring over the 5% negative reviews won't make a blind bit of difference unless she is happy to lose money on this holiday.

Any

raq wrote: »

How the hell did we all manage before trip advisor, it was purely word of mouth or the advise from the travel agents.

9 years ago we booked our wedding in mexico for 24 people , back then we went with the travel agents reviews. It was absolutely amazing. No fault one little bit. All our family was in heaven and my husbands sister even went back there 3 times and go married herself. That feeling was amazing.

When my sister in law was here and we where looking at the comments from this 5* hotel again all about 98% fantastic but only a couple of negatives from people. Again these where stupid comments in my eyes.

I haven,t been back there since our wedding but personally I would highly recommend it.

I know exactly how we managed without TA and internet in general.
10 years ago I didn't speak English (and didn't live in England) and we only had travel agents word for anything. Most things on internet really are in English mainly.
We had holiday in Turkey and Tunisia before I moved to UK, where we spent all our time in the hotel or with reps as we didn't know what, where and how we could do etc. What the safety precautions are and what is considered rude, what is considered polite, what are the local tricks.

And I certainly wouldn't have gone to India or Africa without a man (I go on this kind of holidays with a friend), and quite possible even with a man because if you just watch the news and see what happens in some nations and countries you wouldn't ever gone anywhere.

paulineb_2

I went to the hotel peymar in s'illot. Just about every site with reviews on this said avoid. I read the reviews after I booked.

When I got there, I found a spotless hotel, friendly staff, staff who had made dinner up for people like me who had got a late plane and didnt get to the hotel till after ten.

Food was fine, resort was full of Germans as the reviews said, hotel was owned by Germans but there was no pushing and shoving like some of the people said. And no hogging of sun loungers either as some people said in the reviews. No big deal to me what nationality people are.

Some people will pick holes in anything Im afraid and yes we all have different standards, but when people online are saying something is really terrible and avoid at all costs and when you get there you find a clean hotel, nice staff, good food, air con and you are literally ten seconds from the beach for 50 quid a night all inclusive with no single supplement, I had nothing to complain about.

Im only sorry its booked solid next year and I cant go back. Of course trip advisor is subjective.

I think a lot of people on TA want to pay a 3 star price and get a 5 star hotel.

If a 5 star hotel has 95 per cent positive reviews, theres no way Id be staying away.

DKLS

I take review sites comments with a large pinch of salt.

One of my all time fave hotels in Barcelona has a load of negative reviews, due to the hotel being entirely at fault when they has a purse/wallet lifted on the ramblas.

Another hotel we love has petty negative reviews, the main reason being they serve beef bacon at breakfast and chicken sausage, its a muslim country you !!!!!!!

lady1964

I use TA before I book a holiday and I will browse on other sites, for example a travel agents website and read reviews on there.

I also contribute reviews of restaurants & hotels on TA and always aim to have a balanced opinion and where possible, I don't comment on things which don't affect me, such as 'poor wi-fi'.

We were on holiday in Barbados 9 years ago and I spoke to another English woman who commented that her curtains didn't match the bedspread and that she couldn't get a cheese-burger - really?

I've read reviews where the reviewer has complained about poor service on a flight or that there were too many people off cruise ships when they went shopping - nothing to do with the hotel at all. I even read one where they complained about the number of people in the pool who had tattoos!!!

When I'm booking a hotel, I'll go back many pages to read reviews and if the same complaints keep popping up from different people, I probably won't book if they are things that would bother me, equally if the reviews consistently state the hotel/resort is well kept, the food is very good and staff are friendly and helpful, then there's every chance I'll book. It's really just a case of sorting the wheat from the chaff.

GwylimT

People have different expectations, some people expect to be treated like royalty when on holiday, others expect decent food, manners and cleanliness.

I only judge a hotel on certain things on tripadvisor, cleanliness, complaints about noise if they are frequent, comments about food and whether the staff seemed helpful when things did go wrong. There are always a lot of stupid comments, you'll see people complaining about the airport, the resort, the transfer even the weather, not sure how they expect the hotel to do anything about those! My favourite are people who go abroad and expect the hotel staff to speak fluent English, to serve english food in the hotel and to provide english tv channels, if you want that, don't go abroad!

sharnad

One of the reviews was that there weren't smoggy teenagers who spoke English for her ksa to play with and the kids had to wear s different coloured wristband from over 18. Heavens forbid they should try and stop your kid having alchohol in an all inclusive e place