Trip advisor reviews, how much attention should we pay to them?

sx_turbo

sx_turbo

sx_turbo

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Looking at a holiday in salou/Costa dorada, every time we see a hotel that fits our credentials, reasonable distance to beach, cafes, shops etc reasonable distance, things for 7 year old to do, all inclusive just to make things as easy as possible, we won't be beholden to the hotel for food and drink. The missus is really nervous about the whole flying and staying abroad stuff, shes done it loads in the past but past couple years her anxiety has got the better of her, she does however want to push herself abroad despite me suggesting we should just stick to the UK if she's worrying so much.

Anyway back on topic, each time we settle in hotel, look at reviews on trip advisor and there is complaint after complaint, all complaining about bad service, bad food, rude staff, poor upkeep of building etc, and these are all supposedly 4 star hotels.

For me, if we are paying all inclusive and although we won't be beholden to meals there we will most likely be there for breakfast and dinner every day, I would be really disappointed if the food was bad. I've been lucky enough that everywhere I've stayed in the past has always been really nice. But now reading trip advisor it's literally feels like they're all terrible and not worth bothering with, the reviews we're looking at are the past 2 months.

I'm at the point we might aswell just not bother.

Should we pay much attention to trip advisor? I feel I've been sucked into a loop I can't get out of
 
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I don't know much about Trip Advisor reviews in particular, but I would say in general that for online reviews there is a bias towards bad reviews, because it's only the people that feel aggrieved about something that actually bother writing a review.

However, I would imagine that Spanish all-inclusive hotels can be of variable quality, and can be the type where a poor offering can really affect your holiday. If you always have to eat at the hotel, if the food's bad, you're in trouble.

Also, being 4 star does not mean so much nowadays, the star ratings are easier to achieve.
 
Anything genuinely good has rocketed up in price in the last few years. That said, there'll always be complainers. If the reviews are generally good I wouldn't worry too much about it.
 
The problem with reviews is often the reviewers first impression. A delayed flight, 2hrs queue to get through security, screaming kids and then a queue at the reception desk, they’re already on a war path and nothing will be good enough. They go in peak season, the broadband isn’t as fast as at home and the three kids all want Netflix on, it’s often that kind of thing when it’s negative.

Be grumpy to staff and treat them with disrespect and of course they’re not going to seem welcoming.

Food is subjective too, many Brits want bacon, sausage and fried egg like it is in the UK, they arrive for the all you can eat breakfast and it’s not good enough, the sausages are different and what’s this crispy bacon rasher thing.

For me, I want a clean room and aircon, I’m not worried after that as I don’t spend much time in it apart from sleeping. I want nice food and facilities, not too many kid friendly pools and attractions as I don’t want the noisy families.

Bad service - Hard to define as we’d pick buffet style places not sit down and be served.

Rude staff - I’d ignore, I’m polite and I’ve never found anyone being rude to me if I’m polite.

If it’s genuinely bad upkeep, the reviewer will post pictures, have a look and see if you agree.

Much of the time it can be someone’s first holiday abroad and they think a Tui or Jet 2 five star means the equivalent to a 5 star London hotel
 
Thanks all,

This is kind of my thoughts aswell, but just got proper sucked in last night.

It doesn't help trying to look at holidays late in the evening after full day work and family stuff and football coaching.

I'll tell the missus to put her big girl pants on and just go with it
 
I went to the point of making a spreadsheet with review scores for this years family holiday :cry: After 2 weeks of hours and hours wasted everyday because of 1 bad review, I just bit the bullet and booked one we like the location of. We can't afford 5* places anyway so will just not expect that level!
 
Smokes said:
I went to the point of making a spreadsheet with review scores for this years family holiday :cry: After 2 weeks of hours and hours wasted everyday because of 1 bad review, I just bit the bullet and booked one we like the location of. We can't afford 5* places anyway so will just not expect that level!
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Glad we aren't the only ones :cry:
 
This is the case with any reviews though.

You really have to read them, also I tend (if out of 5 stars) to mainly ignore the 1 or 5 star reviews, often the 2-4 star reviews can be more objective.

A lot of 1 star reviews end up being because something went wrong, you have to consider this won't always be the case, so a lot of these can be ignored.

I'm also very sceptical about 5 star reviews these days, I think a lot of those can be fake.
 
For restaurants I prefer using the Michelin Guide to find a nice spot. These days it includes a lot of reasonably priced options as well. I'll then cross check the restaurant with Google reviews or Tripadvisor, the latter having the Michelin Guide integrated into the website which is handy.

For hotels I prefer Booking.com over Tripadvisor, for one because the reviews are very unlikely to be fake (a fake review would require booking a room and therefore paying 20%+ commission to Booking.com), but also there is a specific score given for things like location and quality of the wifi.

I dont know how you are supposed to find a good all-inclusive though. The only time we stayed in one I did an incredible amount of research and almost every review gave it 5*, yet the quality of food wasn't even up to a Spoons standard. We probably won't stay in one again.
 
Star ratings are pretty arbitrary - I've stayed in some really bad places, one of the worst stays I've had was at a 4-star in the UK. It had every facility going, so scores high on the star system. In reality though, it was trying to be a jack of all trades, and despite advertising as the right place for what we wanted, it really wasn't. They were just trying to encourage all sorts of people to book.

I tend to use Tripadvisor to rank places (and eliminate options that are far too expensive) and then take a look at the 2 / 3 star reviews people have left.

I had to go to Brighton once and found a place that looked good, but every single one of those reviews said that the weekend noise was awful due to a nightclub nextdoor, and I was staying on a Saturday so eliminated it. I've also seen places brought down by bad food, when I've got no intention of eating in the hotel.

A few one-star reviews saying that somewhere sucked because they didn't like the breakfast, the bed was too soft, or there wasn't enough to do... yeah, I'm going to ignore those.

In short - it's a good starting point for me. But trying to find a place that doesn't have people disappointed just won't happen.
 
Good to see some sensible advice in this thread. Reviews can be very useful, however you do need to read them and not just look at the score. Obviously you might want to skip places with an overwhelming low average rating, but if it's just the odd negative review then try to understand what this is telling you. For example people moaning that they were told off for having a late night party in their room, or playing their own music by the pool, could be a sign of a well run hotel.

Reviews can be useful to search for specific information, such as whether a place is up a steep hill, has a lot of steps or is more remote than the official description suggests.
 
What hotel in Salou you been looking at?
We booked dorada palace for September. It had good reviews last year but this year it turned it AI and it seems like it has had teething problems since it re-opened. Reviews seem to be getting better. A lot of things to do in Salou so we wont be in the Hotel all the time.
 
I do read the reviews but try to feel the direction of them rather than take each at face value, I also make a point of making honest reviews of where I go too. I don't think one or two bad reviews are a deal breaker but if there are more bad than good in recent times it does put me off.
 
I've just finished booking my hotels for an October holiday to India.

Although I used Trip Advisor to read recent reviews. I tend to skip the 5 star/1 star ones and read the others.
 
Use them to look for recent things such a noisy building works etc rather than opinions.

Think about what in the bad reviews you can work around.

As you're finding, pretty much every place will have a bad review. As long as there aren't loads you'll probably be fine.
 
Deffy said:
What hotel in Salou you been looking at?
We booked dorada palace for September. It had good reviews last year but this year it turned it AI and it seems like it has had teething problems since it re-opened. Reviews seem to be getting better. A lot of things to do in Salou so we wont be in the Hotel all the time.
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Yeah looked at that one, really liked it, but don't seem to be able to get their for the dates we require.
 
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