That’s so true.. I try not to watch too many vids and I try not to view too many pictures when I have to go to a place I have never been before..

It’s like watching an episode of season 4 of Prison Break althought I barely finished watching season 2!! Sorry for this comparison..

Cheers.

Report comment

There’s also The Sacked Hotel worker, or disgruntled neighbour, Jealous Hotellier, Devious Tour Operator and of course the odd genuine Poster to consider.
By The way Darren this has to be the Worst Travel Blog I’ve ever come across in the entire Blogosphere!:-)
Only Kidding.

Report comment

Depends what sort of things you look into. I will always without fail read up on accommodation (primarily using Trip Advisor). If there was only one review, I’d look for more.

I think Trip Advsior have done it very well to be honest. You will get disgruntled customers etc. but that’s not a bad thing, and when the volume of reviews is such that it is on TA, then those on’t make a difference overall anyway.

Report comment

The problem with TA is that the reviews can be left by anyone with an axe to grind, including a recent report from one of our hotels that their neighbourly rival had left a scathing (and defamatory) review about them on TA which of course will impact detrimentally. TA also seem as elusive as Ryanair or Ebay when it comes to trying to get a contact to redress any user content issue.

Where the reviews are genuine and left by genuine travellers with no particular agenda then they carry merit, as then they represent a true matrix of experience. It’s fair to say in our experience of hotel reviews, they are an extremely influential and useful booking tool.

Report comment

My advice is to stop reading once you’ve booked unless you’re prepared to cancel your holiday!
Always look for sites that offer videos and reviews – thomson is one of my favourites for the volume of info available to UK travellers.

Report comment

We use Trip Advisor all the time now. Like someone mentioned, once I have booked the holiday, that’s it, I don’t re-visit the site.

Report comment

I don’t read any reviews, I’d rather wait until I get there. If the hotel is a dive, then the tour opertor will know about it.

Report comment

Hi Darren

If the functionality contains keywords and geocoding then theoretically search results can be plotted by place of interest and postcode quite accurately. It depends how the database is structured as to what can be offered. It gets harder as the overseas postcoding can be quite hit or miss (e.g. Ireland for example…). LateRooms for the UK offers postcode searches in the UK for hotels within a 3 mile radius and users can sort by distance. There’s also a tube map available and searches by Tube station for London. As you can appreciate widening this functionality across the world is a work in progress!

Report comment

On going to Alnwick in Northumberland, I was pleased to find that the reviews I had read about both the Castle and Garden there were overly severe.

The family had a great time. However, sometimes the net can be correct —- the Bailiffgate Museum there was good value for money, but al of their old photographs had been taken by one of the Trustees, meaning that we could no longer see the history of Alnwick Town.
Otherwise, a great place to go, and I suppose we all really should try and find those “incorrect” reviews and as a matter of extended netiquette we should put our own correct ones there to provide some balance.

Report comment