Disappointing Vacation Experiences

Since Covid, housekeeping in hotels has become a quick and breezy neglectful experience

In my childhood I dreamed of staying at a Holiday Inn. Times were hard.

I love those classic Holiday Inn signs.

Rome. Hot (yes, I went in July), dirty graffiti, endless African touts, gypsy pickpockets and the high-pitched buzz of Vespas. An African peeing next to Trevi Fountain killed it for me. I took the bus to Siena. Much more civilized.

Every hotel you can imagine has reviews on yelp and tripadvisor that describe it as a filthy, noisy, bedbug infested shithole

Amsterdam is a typically disappointing destination

I’ve got the last rental in town and they’re charging almost 20 percent of the price in tax. I KNOW the tax rate isn’t that high. But I’ll pay it because it’s the last rental in town.

Hotel living gets tiresome after the fourth night

My worst vacation was a week long trip to spend time with a friend, his partner, and 7 other gay men i didn't know in a rental house in P-Town for Bear Week one summer. I love my friend, but I barely got to see him. The stranger I was paired with to sleep with was an obnoxious self-involved twat. A couple of the other guys were friendly to me. My friend's partner is an asshole and was ESPECIALLY so to me the entire trip. Just really snide and condescending and mean... but always behind my friend's back so my friend didn't realize it. Also, I'm not a bear, and I'm not into bears at all.

Literally the most miserable time I've had for an entire week. After about day three all I wanted to do was leave but I was stuck there for the full week. HATED IT. Never want to go back there. Was probably the only person there who never got laid (my "roommate" really rubbed in how often he'd get laid by bringing home tricks while I was trying to sleep and showering and having sex with them in our bathroom).

I was somewhere between suicidal and homicidal by the end of that "vacation", and far more stressed than I was when I began. I was SO unhappy at the end of that.

Miami.

I'm sure there are some great places in town, but South Beach was awful (a block away from the Art Deco hotels it's all Walgreens and cheap souvenir shops), I don't like to eat dinner at 9:30 or 10 pm, the humidity is staggering, and I'm more an Irish pub guy than a club guy.

If I'd had a native friend taking me to the hidden gems, it might have been different.

Las Vegas has a lot of disappointment potential

New Orleans. Now that I no longer party much,I was bored to tears after 2 days. Ive got fantastic memories of the place though,so it'll always hold a spot in my heart,but I wont see it again .

The common denominator in your sob story is you, R9. I don't think you're telling us about your cause in the matter here.

R12, same. I used to love New Orleans. Now I don't drink much, and am too old for clubbing, and ... it's kinda boring without that stuff. The food is still pretty good if you know where to go. I've been there enough times, I don't need to ever go back.

Kolkata (Calcutta) during the monsoon. I win

Tallinn, Estonia. Pleasant to live in, surely, but not a place to visit for more than a shore excursion.

I want two of my three days back, damnit!

Sydney Mardi Gras. The overconcentration of cuntdom made it unbearable. Flew home before the parade. Never again.

Alaskan cruise. I loved seeing the glaciers, whales, etc. But being on a cruise ship (a Princess one in this case) was like being trapped in a floating shopping mall for a week. There's a wine tasting, but they are just pushing you to buy the wine to send home. Lecture? Just trying to sell the speaker's book. And on and on and on.

I visited my parents, who had a house in Tuscany for the summer. Had a wonderful time but made the mistake of spending a few days in Zurich on the way back (because that is where I was changing planes).

I hated Zurich. It felt like the Nazis had won the war.

R13 is a jackass.

Yeah, the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off and all that. Kisses.

Landing at LAX in a full plane of people returning from Christmas vacation and waiting over an hour to get off since the airport was so busy

Being a jackass/asshole does not make you the bearer of truth and freedom, dude, it just makes you a jackass/asshole who makes a lot of assumptions and then gets overly smug for having made them.

Traveling with my partners sisters. Whenever they are together, they talk endlessly about when they were kids, same stories over and over and over and never shut up and smell the roses. Did Costa Rica with them one time and while taking a sky tram through the forest canopy they talked non-stop over the narration to the point people in another gondola told them to shut up. Of course they were the victims of roundness.

Rarely does traveling for sex live up to expectations

What are endless African touts, R4?

Probably a friendly guy trying to sell you a bracelet, but it starts out with a simple question like what time is it, or where are you from. That’s my experience anyway.

Amsterdam was not the advanced society I imagined it to be

I am well traveled but the worst was taking my niece and nephew to Harry Potter World.

Can people describe what made certain vacations hellish? R28 I want to know why Amsterdam was so disappointing...

To my fellow escorts, make sure a trick pays you handsomely for accompanying him on vacation. I did Aruba with one and every night he got drunk and snored loudly. A fat old man. I did New York with another. He tipped horribly, was incredibly cheap and I ended up booking my own flight home. Only travel with partners, family or the closest of friends. Don't share rooms unless it's with your lover. Always take some space to yourself each morning.

Sex tourism has to be done in a certain way. One has to choose a place where sex is an expectation and requires a significant enough investment of time and travel.

Going to a big gay city is not enough; gay men there have a plethora of options so some tourist swinging through has to fight against that and busy schedules.

However, going to a big gay city where sexual adventures are available and not dependent on apps/bars/clubs will guarantee sex (i.e., Barcelona, Berlin, Chicago during IML, SF during Folsom).

Then there are destinations where gay sex is just a matter of deciding on who you want to fuck (Ptownn, Fire Island, PVR, Maspalomas).

Also outside of the US bathhouses are alive and well with delectable men for all tastes. You could easily connect with 10+ worthy guys in a night and then do it again tomorrow.

Further proof that DLers are largely a bunch of miserable motherfuckers no matter where you place them

Amsterdam is a place I've wanted to see. Can the posters who mentioned Amsterdam elaborate on why it was disappointing?

R13 is 100% right. R9 sounds like a miserable pill and there are definitely some details missing from that story.

Sicily this past week. Daytime highs of 65°F, and rain and wind every single day.

Our host said she can't remember such a cold and rainy May in all her years there.

Our tour guide said "May is usually the time when we go to the beach here in Sicily. We don't often have weather this bad even at the St. Agatha Festival (which takes place Feb. 3-5 every year)".

And then Aetna erupted and closed the airport.

I got monkeypox just reading R32's post.

My disappointing vacation experiences relate to moody companions. I'm not saying I'm never grouchy, but when I'm traveling, I try to be cognizant of my mood & the effect it might have on my companions.

^You're a good travel companion. Family is the worst to travel with, as mood swings and peculiarities are fair game when it comes to travel with them. Friends can be better, but as we get older and busier it gets harder to coordinate travel.

R26 A tout is a hustler, a barker, a salesperson. They stand in public places and try to sell you something, usually aggressively.

Post COVID mass tourism has ruined just about every vacation experience. Bring back the plague.

Old Maxim: Easier to find a spouse than a good traveling companion.

I hate traveling with a friend who is as single and flexible as I am, but who has also grown cheap and whiny in middle age. He effectively takes over the trip I have carefully organized, and makes it into something that pleases him but no one else.

We can't stay where I already booked hotels. Too expensive, they're corporate chains and he won't have that. Gotta stay at the Y or a sweaty hostel with no aircon. We can't take the cooking class I found - too structured and formulaic. And we can't spend five days in The Cotswolds - not enough coffee shops or good wifi for him. He won't wait in line for anything, or do an activity that involves an itinerary or a guide. He'll wander the bad neighborhood after dark and get a feel for the real and gritty local scene. Idiot.

^Sometimes friendships go that way. I have a friend who is stuck in his 20s (he's nearing 50).

Still, all he wants to do is 1) drink until 2am; 2) sleep in until noon; 3) start drinking by 2pm at sad gay bars. He'll break up this routine for *shopping* and the occasional *hookup* where he abandons you without regret. A tragic, basic gay.

I was in a *trio* friendship with him and another friend in my 20s and 30s.

The other friend has been partnered (now married) longer than both of us (we're all partnered now). However, his husband is very close to his sister who is a nurse married to a doctor. He's obsessed with keeping up with them, so his ideal vacation is going to some overrated luxury chain in some boring straight destination and doing boring straight things (like Maui and Tahoe, which are great destinations, but no gay scene at all).

Love them both to death, but haven't traveled with them since 2019. We blame Covid.

Copenhagen: The city was exactly as expected based on what I read online (including DL). Nice city, if I had to move there for work, it'd be alright. Parks are very pretty and peaceful. But, the men were not as hot as many claimed they would be. Sure a few stunners, but all and all, average looking skinny guys with wide hips. Their conversations were polite enough but just low energy, teetering on dull. Glad I visited but adding it to my list of places that sounds alright to live in but not really great for a vacation.

Salzburg, Austria: Another bore, but to be expected. I didn't actually stay to be there but to use it as. a home base for activities around it. But Salzburg was just meh. I couldn't wait to get back to Vienna. Now, Vienna is a city I loved. Yes, it too can be considered boring by some but it just has an extra bit of everything I love to make it so wonderful.

The Bellagio bathroom.

R43, do you have to travel with this person?

R45 Oh, Salzburg is a bust. Too much Mozart shit, but the salt tour up in Berchtesgaden is definitely worth the side trip.

Vienna appears to have been rocked hard by the collective stress of COVID and their little neo-Nazi former chancellor. Tons of places went out of business, and people have a deeper bitterness than usual.

And R47 No, I don't have to travel with him. So I don't anymore. But we had many good years before he became such a bore and a boor.

^^ Sorry, the salt MINE tour. It's inside a mountain. You ride a little saddle train inside, then roam the tunnels, ride wooden slides til your ass goes numb, and ride across an underground lake in near-total darkness. And it's a mine for table salt, so you can lick the walls and taste the salt.

Oh, I went there r48/r49 but didn't do that tour. The only thing I liked in Austria was ice cream and the hole of one scorching hot Austrian I met on Tinder. I think the boyfriend like vacation experience really placed Vienna high on my list, plus all the palaces!

By contrast, Copenhagen palaces were a joke though their royal family survives so must be something to having modest dwellings (by royal standards). Copenhagen hardly felt like a royal kingdom at all. Same for Amsterdam. No grandeur or pomp. Snooze fest for royal palace folks, but good places to live.

R9, If I were that miserable, I would have just left. What kind of holiday is that?

A benefit of being an adult is the ability to make one’s own decisions.

Amsterdam: mainly, I was bored. The museums were mostly closed, the landscape is completely flat, the food is bland. The canal boat tour was pleasant.

R43 I’d say your friend is a shitty traveling companion. I have one of those too.

My friend, Luba, turns into a roaring, mean, hateful bitch if something doesn’t suit her. The thing is I can never predict what will set her off when we travel even after knowing her over 20 yrs. I decided to no longer travel with her because I’m not a glutton for punishment. She asks me about going on trips at lest twice a year and I either tell her I’m busy or not interested.

R43's friend sounds like a nightmare.

Thanks, R40.

One YouTuber I like went on a trip to Egypt. This was when the economy was in recession because of decreased tourism. He said that the constant harassment by people trying to sell something made the trip a lot less enjoyable.

I went to Amsterdam in the early 2000s. I don't know what it's like now. But what I hated were all the British stag parties. Just drunken, loud chavs acting like total twats everywhere. And constantly having to avoid getting run over by the aggressive locals on bicycles. I was still in my backpacking years and didn't plan much of anything...yes, I was naive. Got my credit card de magnetized and had to have my mother wire me money. Didn't have cash to pay for another night in a hostel, so I hung out in the Easy Internet Cafe and some bum came in trying to kick me out of "his seat." Nobody did anything. It all left a rather unpleasant taste in my mouth.

With my lousy eyesight I first read this as "Disappointing Vatican Experiences".

Insurance companies erupting always ruin vacations for me, r36.

Lol same, r57. And in truth, the day I spent touring Vatican City was wonderful, capped off by the delicious fried artichokes we had for dinner in the nearby Jewish Quarter.

I was disappointed at the Vatican, by the claustrophobic crowds in the Sistine Chapel.

R60 And how was the gloryhole scene out back?

R60, we were disappointed that the Sistine Chapel was closed for restoration when we were there.

Scabies.

I went to the Dominican Republic back when it was just getting started as a tourist destination. It was horrific. The people were so impoverished and begging for food from our resort which had signs all over that warned guests will be asked to leave if caught feeding the locals. This was 20 years ago though.

[quote]Sorry, the salt MINE tour. It's inside a mountain. You ride a little saddle train inside, then roam the tunnels, ride wooden slides til your ass goes numb, and ride across an underground lake in near-total darkness. And it's a mine for table salt, so you can lick the walls and taste the salt.

I have never heard someone say so many wrong things, one after the other, consecutively, in a row.

R65 now you have. Simper fi

The last trip I took with (formerly) one of my best friends of years. We have common backgrounds in art and museums and historic architecture and good connections that can make a dull city an interesting destination. But this friend was also the richest of my close friends, very guarded a out outward appearances, and took great delight in being ridiculously cheap with the most inconsequential things.

Our last trip I planned the specifics of the itinerary and he made recommendations on places to see. "Fine, fine, looks great" but the closer we came to the start of the trip he started nitpicking the accommodations. Knowing him as a cheapskate on lodgings when he can't stay at the houses if rich friends, I had picked historic inns and hotels that were in the higher 1/3 of cost, but never the highest price nor anything that didn't have some hunt of old threadbare but still respectable if not posh. I like to stay in nice hotels or at least interesting and we'll looked after. He likes to find the dodgiest, dirtiest, most dangerous dive and laugh about how awful it is. He would drag his 100+ year old mother, rich and snobby and we'll connected to bare bulb rooming houses crawling with whores and disreputables just to enjoy her disgust.

It was only a long weekend, 3 or 4 nights. He had a shit fit at every hotel saying it was much too expensive and fancy. By the last night he was begging me to cancel a reservation and stay at the worst motel we could find. All the while he had grown fanatical when I would just stop at a gas station without worry about the price per gallon, "you just passed three stations all with cheaper gas. For god's sake, turn around, man!" I said no, instead I wouldn't ask him to pay for any of the gas on the trip and that I was happy to do. This didn't begin to satisfy him and after that trip he was always different with me, guarded, judgmental, and found excuses for odd little cuts. It was the start of losing a once good friend (and travel companion so long as we stayed in the guest houses of his rich friends.)

God. Super-cheap people are depressing to be around.

I have an insufferable acquaintance who ranted on FaceBook the other day about their mediocre weekend in Montreal. So disappointing... world-class restaurants "were good, but not outstanding"... the Ritz Carleton was meh.

He wrote: "and somehow, despite our best efforts, we came home having bought absolutely nothing!"

Fuck Off!

That is the second time I've heard of old money type men who loved staying at fleabag motels for the thrill of it R67.

Rich people are weird and obnoxious.

R4 This would have killed it for me.

People who are bored in their travels are simply dumb.

Why do these climate activists have to go after the most famous and / or greatest works of art? Sooner or later, they will permanently damage a great painting or piece of sculpture. These types of protests are counterproductive.

Terrible to be so jaded and spoiled, R69.

The ABC tour experience. Another Bloody Church (or Castle, Cathedral or Cave). Unless it’s world heritage calibre, give it a skip. This concept goes for Buddhist temples too. I never need to see another one.

"Why do these climate activists have to go after the most famous and / or greatest works of art?"

Publicity value, mainly, plus they can't stand that people are paying attention to the art and not to them.

Personally, I think it's massively foolish, a great way to alienate people from their cause.

You will be disappointed ANYWHERE you go now. Covid decimated anything remotely resembling good service. From the filthy planes to hotels with subpar service, it’s just a big waste of money. I miss going on trips before 2020. It also doesn’t matter if you “upgrade” to business class and only pick 5 star hotels. It’s all disappointing when you remember how it was. I can see why billionaires buy jets and yachts.

Anywhere, R77?

My experience in Europe isn't so dramatic. Trains and train stations, airlines and airports, hotels, housekeeping and guest services, restaurants...things are back to where they were pre-Covid. There were well publicized troubles with luggage in airports last summer, but that seems not an issue this year. Things are more expensive, but not less pleasant, and without an attitude of "just be thankful for what crumbs we through to you..Next!" I've not seen filthy trains and planes and hotel rooms, long lines, or irritability on the rise. I just don't see evidence of a big degradation of service quality .

Went on a skiing trip for the first time (with a late friend who went skiing all the time - they thought I'd love it as I'm into rollerblading) and it was a disaster. I wasn't able to pick up skiing and was clearly too uncoordinated to be allowed to stay in even one class of snowboarding.

But I read while the others were out skiing all day and we did do a little sightseeing when my friend wasn't out on the slopes. Having never seen much snow before, it was wonderful watching snowflakes fall from inside the chalet, but I was very wary of slipping on sleet when going outside.

If there'd been a frozen lake, ice skating may have saved the trip. Still have good memories of when we were all together at mealtimes, etc. But never again.

Went to Sydney/Melbourne with my ex. He decided prior to the trip that he wanted out of the relationship. Spent the entire week treating me like absolute rancid dogshit. Like traveling with a 3-year-old - you know he's going to have 2-3 meltdowns a day, but you have no idea what's going to trigger the meltdown.

Australia was gorgeous, cheap and the people were lovely. Hoping I can get back again at some point at shake that miserable fucking week out of my memory.

[quote]I went to Amsterdam in the early 2000s. I don't know what it's like now. But what I hated were all the British stag parties. Just drunken, loud chavs acting like total twats everywhere. And constantly having to avoid getting run over by the aggressive locals on bicycles.

My first trip to Amsterdam was in October 2019. It sounds like things hadn't changed. Drunk Brits all over the place in the Red Light District and the most maniacal bike riders I've ever seen. Nearly got run over a couple times before I realized that they don't follow any of the road rules that cars or pedestrians do.

They're putting restrictions of some sort on the drunk Brit chav weekends, aren't they?