Five things that annoy me about holidays in the UK
By Darren Cronian on Sunday, July 6th, 2008

I know I should be promoting the UK to tourists abroad, and I feel quite guilty of not doing this, but I find other than camping trips, and weekend breaks, I prefer to travel abroad, and they’re a number of reasons why I don’t holiday more in the UK.

Five things that annoy me about holidays in the UK

The weather

I realise that this is unfair because there’s nothing anyone can do about the climate, but it’s so unpredictable that I would not fancy spending £300 on a holiday for it to be ruined by it raining all week, I just do not want to take the risk.

Unreliable public transport

Our public transport system is poor, okay, the underground in London is quite reliable, but forget the train or the bus network. Our train network has been neglected and we are a joke compared to other European countries. Buses are delayed and that’s due to the shear amount of traffic on our roads.

Seaside towns

I can’t say this for all UK seaside towns, but the towns on the East coast, are neglected, look run down, and are in need of some serious cash. I’m glad to see one of my favourite seaside towns in Scarborough has had some injection of money recently, but this needs to happen to more towns.

Rip-off

Last year we wanted to hire a bicycle for the day, just to get around whilst in the Lake District. We couldn’t find many places to hire a bike, but the companies that did were taking advantage of tourists and the lack of competition - £17 to hire a bicycle for three hours.

Welcoming tourists

When going on holiday I always think back to the Greeks, Australians and Malaysians who are so hospitalable and welcoming. You enter a restaurant here and your served by a mopey looking teenager, walk into your hotel and you feel about as welcome as President Mugabe.

Other than that I love holidays in the UK…


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9 responses to “Five things that annoy me about holidays in the UK”

Nomadic Matt | 6 July, 2008 at 1:08 pm

…and I’ll be in the UK next week….hhhhmmmm i wonder if it is too late to switch my flight….

I’m going to Brighton…would you consider that run down?

Darren Cronian | 6 July, 2008 at 1:14 pm

@ Matt

I’m not a very good advert for the UK am I.
I’ve never been to Brighton so I am not the person to comment, but I’ve not heard of anything bad said about it.

Karen Bryan | 6 July, 2008 at 10:10 pm

Darren I certainly agree with you on point 5 about lack of friendly service in the UK. There’s still the old chip on the shoulder in the UK about working in the hospitality trade, that many staff appear to resent “serving” customers. It’s a legacy of a low pay, low status, little or no training, high turnover, temporary employment industry.

I don’t know why it’s different in other countries, I certainly noticed when we were in Italy recently that most of the hotel and restaurant staff we encountered appeared to take a pride in their job and appeared to be genuinely interested in providing good service to customers.

The new citizenM hotel chain launched recently in Amsterdam has a policy of recruiting staff from outside the hospitality sector to be their “ambassadors” and staff receive bonuses of up to 1000 euros to spend on personal development if they are highly rated by customers.

Nick | 7 July, 2008 at 12:23 pm

Darren

It a bit unfair to tar our National bus network with the same brush as your local number 7 to work. National Express Coaches has a great on time record and is value for money.

In saying that I live in the country and my local bus runs on time. I use both to get to work and to go to the city. In the last few weeks it has never been more than 5 minutes late. However when I lived in London I know what you mean about late buses.

I agree with you about service levels in restaurants, but then how often are the people serving you British? When I eat out I always interested where the person comes from, be it Poland, France or New Zealand.

Darren Cronian | 7 July, 2008 at 12:36 pm

@ Karen

You’ve made a good point about low status, rates they’re paid etc, I guess this could be the reason why you see so many miserable looking hotel and restaurant staff.

@ Nick

National network you are spot on, but if your in a city like London, or Liverpool how reliable are those services, when you want to get from tourist spot a to b. It’s the more local services I was ranting about.

Rohan | 8 July, 2008 at 10:07 pm

I agree with you on all 5 points but the main factor for me is the weather. Like you I do not want to waste my years savings on our holiday to find we spend two weeks dodging rain showers.

Susan | 8 July, 2008 at 11:26 pm

You are so right about service. My friends and I went into a pub in Wales one day about noonish and the wait staff looked shocked that we wanted to order food, although they had a big sign out front advertising food. It took forever for them to make some sandwiches and chips. Too funny.

RE Brighton… I enjoyed it. There was an interesting mix of the very posh Brighton palace, a good museum and then the seaside pier. I enjoyed a nice lunch in one of the little cafes near the palace… so much so that I went back later for a fancy coffee drink.

BTW I’m an American who frequently comes over to the UK in the summer. :)

Darren Cronian | 12 July, 2008 at 1:45 pm

@ Rohan

Yes, the weather is important to me - don’t get me wrong I don’t like it red hot, but when I am getting around I don’t want to be soaking wet through which would happen if I took a trip to somewhere in the UK right now.

The strong Euro isn’t going to stop me because there’s more advantages to me for travelling abroad.

@ Susan

That’s not very good, but you find it happens alot in pubs across the country, they say that they offer food to attract people in but when you get sat down and ask for a menu, your limited to a plate of chips.

Paul Hunt | 16 July, 2008 at 9:38 am

Oh dear what a poor picture most of you paint. I am trying to build a holiday business here in the UK and see that there is a lot of work to do to change things. There is a big challenge for the UK tourism industry to change especially when other countries score better on weather and value for money. The tourism bodies have recognised this and doing all they can to promote better quality and services.
@Rohan … The only thing we cannot change is the weather but you can have fun experiences in the rain if you get the right gear…i.e. the same principles apply anywhere even if you travel to the tropical rain forest in Cost Rica !
@Susan .. interested to know what it is about the UK that you find appealing enough to come frequently ?

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