Has the panel any views/info on whether these sites and their reviews can be relied upon warts and all.
Also have any of you sterling folk done any river cruises? NO Zeddo, not around Teddington lock!! (0:-:0)
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I take the view that most average customers who are happy will probably not take the time to write a review, so those that do are either really p!$$ed off or really happy.
If there are lots of poor reviews all with similar concerns then there may be some truth in it, but if only one or two bad reviews and a majority of positive then I tend to discount them.
Its also difficult to gauge someones expectations and how realistic they are for example, my kids like going to Butlins. The accommodation is basic, but they don't care. They care about having a good time, but there are rafts of reviews knocking it for things that are fairly irrelevant for a cheap and cheerful break
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i use TA a lot, and if there are lots of comments you can usually rely on the majority, if there a few? whatchout they may be lies by the owners.
River cruises? yeah done loads - even worked oon the thames as a lock keeper - what do you want to know
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Where are the best Boozers on the Grand Union. I know the Uxbridge haunts.
Last edited by: Martin Devon on Sat 17 Mar 12 at 19:09
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never done the grand union beyond slough - sorry
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If you take the trouble to read as many reviews as you can on TA you should be OK - I've never been let down by it and always leave what I feel is a balanced and accurate review.
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I decide on the place based on my criteria for the trip (location, price, facilites etc etc) and then read trip advisor. If its a hell hole I choose again, if not my choice sticks.
If you try to choose your place based on trip advisor first, nothing gets chosen this side of the end of the world, and it is guaranteed to be a disapointment.
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>> GWS Zeddo.
>>
I once looked at a GXL Granada, but not a GWS?
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Sorry goes without saying ! :-)
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Well I had to google it and it came up as "Get Well Soon" !
Anyway...MTFBWY
:-)
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You have to judge the review on balance, e.g if they moan about the lack of aircon on a £50 a night hotel in Central London you know the person is not the full shilling.
I recently stayed in a hotel called the Big Sleep in Cardiff at £29 a night, some of the reviews on Trip Advisor were awful but my room was perfectly clean and very spacious.
For £30 it is exactly what I expected and no more or less.
Then you get those moaning about noise, if you stay in a travel lodge in the middle of Manchester on a Saturday night there is going to be noise.
People that stay in a budget hotel in city centres at weekends are there just to get drunk.
On the hole though it is very useful and I have become very good at knowing which reviews are balanced and which ones are biased.
I do take the time to write a lot of positive reviews and rarely had to write negative ones. The worst hotel was perhaps a Wetherspoons one in Minehead and perhaps the best cheap one was the The Glen Eagles (as in faulty towers fame).
You will also find that places like London will get lots of negative reviews on the cheap hotels because of expectations. London is a very expensive and a £50 a night hotel would be £25 in most other UK cities.
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I stayed in the Big Sleep once for a conference (in fact I reviewed it on TA then) - reminded me of an Ikea store but it was good enough....a colleague in the same trip enjoyed himself a little too much and there was much sheepishness at Reception the next morning as we checked out, he was ahead of me in the queue and had to ask for "extra cleaning" oh dear.....happy days them.
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I've used TA for many trips, both UK & abroad. And have left fair appraisals both good and bad. I have found comments to be both true & valid.
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Zero hits the nail on the head as he sometimes does. Where there are lots of reviews, an accurate picture soon emerges. Where there are half a dozen, less certainty.
Incidentally Rattle, I used the Salford Quays Travelodge a couple of weeks ago - brand new and spotless as it turned out. Interesting concept - no expense spent! The bathroom pods craned in, no drawers, or doors, on the furniture.
I could only fault it on the breakfast in that it was necessary to pay in advance and be issued with a plate, knife and fork! The cooked breakfast was actually OK for £7, but I'll use the Morrisons 20 yards from the front door next time!
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£7.00. Clearly NOT North Devon.
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Like zero, I use my own instincts and average out the reviews to get an overall picture. I have certainly been saved from one or two unpleasant hotels, one in Central Birmingham and one in Sharm el Sheikh. In the latter a week all inclusive with flights in an alleged 5* hotel was £299! I found that it was a two storey hotel with a 3rd floor being added while it was occupied! This explained the bargain price!
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>>Trip advisor or ?
Active Hotels?
We don't venture far without using both of these, and, as others have said, we go for hotels that have reams of positive reviews over longish periods.
However, we prefer Active Hotels as reviewers have to have stayed at the places before they are allowed comment.
We haven't been disappointed with either, though.
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I use and contribute to Tripadviser a good deal.
I don't think the right way to interpret reviews is to average them out; if you do that, you're in effect giving equal weight to every review. What is a better approach, in my view, is actually to read the reviews - the recent ones, anyway - and try to weed out the ones that are driven by prejudice. For example, the one that complains that the facilities were poor (no safe in the room, no lift etc etc.) when it was a cheap hotel with few stars. What did they expect? Often such reviews will also criticise the cleanliness and other issues, and if this goes against other reviewers, you know you're dealing with a rogue opinion which can be ignored.
Equally, a blandly enthusiastic review can be written off, if it's out of line with the rest, as having been placed by the hotel itself.
What upsets some people can be trivial and what pleases some people upsets others. My latest holiday was in Tenerife at the Pez Azul apartments in Puerto de la Cruz. I researched this meticulously, which included trawling through some mixed reviews on Tripadviser, and decided it was a good bet - cheapish, no frills, well-located. I also carefully checked the location on Google maps and used Google street view, for details like free on-street parking for the hire car. And so it turned out to be.
I notice the latest review of the apartments, placed since mine, complains that the location is poor because you have to climb lots of steps to get back from the town centre. Frankly, you could say that about most of the hotels in Puerto. And you'd need to pay a premium for the sea-front ones. It's called geography (or topography, or something).
(In fact, for a fit person it takes around 12 minutes and slightly raises your breathing and pulse rates. In other words, useful exercise.)
Last edited by: FocalPoint on Sun 18 Mar 12 at 13:52
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One complaint I had with the Big Sleep was there was only one lift working and it was very rattly and old (probably 1980's vintage like the building itself) and I was on the 9th floor. I got a lot of exercise walking up and down those stays in those two days :).
I tend to avoid the travel lodges now unless I can get one of the stupidly cheap deals. When you pay nearly full price there is just far better alternatives. I nearly booked into a travel lodge in Cardiff I am glad I didn't, as it was right next to a night club.
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Trip advisor or ? - mikeyb
