Top Ten Tips for Checking Hotel Review Sites

 

Online holiday reviews, should you read them?

When you plan a fabulous getaway either with your family, lover, friend or even alone it's tempting, many would say sensible, to read the reviews of people that have gone before. But how to make sense of reviews of the same hotel that range from "it was appalling I would rather sleep under a railway arch, 1 star" to "amazing stay it was incredible in every respect, totally recommend, 5 stars!" ?

Here are my top ten tips on breaking down reviews, and making sense of them.

• Check where the reviewer is from. With a global reach the internet has reviewers from all over the world. Pay more attention to reviewers from your own country as they will usually have similar expectations to you. Americans for example may mark down a hotel with no free ice machine, while the average Brit doesn't expect free ice as standard so may not mention it.

• See if the reviewer has left lots of reviews or just this one. This is particularly relevant if the review is terrible as people are fast to complain but not so quick to praise. On TripAdvisor for example you can look back over other reviews from the same person. If they review a lot and the reviews vary, then it's safe to assume they are probably fairly honest and balanced.

• Check who was in the reviewers party. Reviews for families will vary a lot from reviews for romantic getaways or adventure type holidays. Complaints of noise can be  relative and might be due to guests at the time of the visit and thus not an ongoing issue. Moans about a busy kids club on a romantic weekend might translate into the perfect child minding plan for a family with 3 young children.

• Pay more attention if all of the reviews are similar. If everyone mention food poisoning and under cooked chicken over several months then it would raise alarm bells. Constant mentions of dirty rooms etc likewise. While one bad review among a lot of good ones probably just shows the hotel has a bad cleaner or a busy week.

• Read the review not just the stars! Amazingly some people post a glowing review but only give 1 or 2 stars for the experience. I'm never sure if they are just holding back for the really fantastic hotels  (for example they may feel a 3 star hotel never deserves more than a 3 star review) , if they clicked the wrong button, or just have no clue how star ratings work! Likewise I've seen 5 star reviews that made the hotel sound awful!

• Think about what you expect in a hotel. I like a clean room, a TV,wifi,  a fridge and a balcony. If reviews moaned about a tatty reception area I wouldn't be that fussed. If they said their TV was broken, the wifi didn't work in any of the rooms and the balcony had been unsafe I would be more interested!

• Check the date on reviews. It is really easy to read reviews that are years old and be fooled into thinking the hotel is excellent or terrible based on very out of date information. Sort the reviews by date if you can and read the most recent ones. I have been caught out this way - turning up to discover the 'free' wifi was no longer free and the hot tub was no longer working - sad times.

• Try and check more than one review site. TripAdvisor is a large site but there are others such as Oyster, Holiday Watchdog, and Travel Republic. Also google the hotel name to see if any bloggers have visited and written bigger reviews with extra pictures. Ask on social media too. 

• Read plenty of reviews before you book, and avoid reading any more afterwards! Once you have booked, unless you are prepared to change or cancel your booking, don't torture yourself by reading more reviews.

• When you get home be sure to add your own review. good, bad or in between all reviews are useful to the traveller. Be honest, try to be balanced, include facts and examples not just personal opinions, although a summing up of how you did or did not like the holiday can be useful. I always review the places I visit as I know how helpful reviews can be. On TripAdvisor it's not just the hotels you can review but the local attractions and restaurants too - you could even review those that are local to you at home.

Do you write reviews online? Do you read them? I'd love to hear your experiences (good and bad) of using online review sites.

This post is (bizarrely) not sponsored ;-)

Easter Plans

It's nearly Easter holiday time! If you are a stay at home parent for any reason you might not feel the same frisson of excitement that I do, but this year I've booked a week off work and so I'm free to stay in bed until noon, drink cava for breakfast and have sex in the garden all afternoon  spend more time with the teen and the husband.

Said teen is a studious soul and currently studying for her GCSEs so I fear she'll be revising a fair bit but I'm hoping I can lure her out for some fun at least once or twice.

I have a few things that I have been wanting to do for a while, and while I know I won't be able to do them all I thought I'd list them so I don't forget and also so that if you had input on whether they were good or bad ideas you could tell me! Ditto if you have reviewed any of them in a blog post - please share! (You can't share here, I switched comments off, but let me know via Twitter or my Facebook page - that would be great - thanks)

First choice for me is Marwell Zoo. We have visited several times now as a family and always love it - even in the cold and rain, though I admit it's better on a dry day so the weather may play a part on this decision. We always learn something new, the cages and environments for the animals are really nice, I especially love watching the giraffes. It's about a 2 hour drive, so takes a bit of planning, but now that we no longer have the dogs at least we don't have to rush home to them.

I am sort of tempted to make the even longer drive to Longleat to drive the safari park, but I'm not sure that DH would stay sane all day in car with DD and me. I do love to watch the large carnivores in the park, particularly the wolves, but DH tends to get twitching and want to be getting on with things, I imagine we would be ill-matched on a safari park visit. I think that might need to be a trip we do when we visit family (who live closer to the park) or when we can camp or stay nearby so we are in the car less of the day.

Next is the Winchester Science Centre. DD and I were there for a blogging conference and so had no time to explore but enough time to whet our appetites. It's easy to get to, has lots of parking and is spacious inside. It didn't look too busy when we were there, but I'm not sure that would be true during a school holiday. Still DD really wants to go, she loves experimenting with stuff, I do wonder though if there is enough there for a day with a teenager? Maybe I could combine it with a trip into Winchester? Have you been? What did you think?

I would also love to make a trip to London. That's a 2 hour train ride away and therefore expensive, I may have to buy a railcard to make some sort of saving, especially since now that DD has turned 16 she counts as a grown up and has to pay not only on the train, but on London transport too - gone are the days of cheap days out to London. If we all go, and if we want to be in London before lunchtime it will cost us over £100 on tickets alone, so anything we do there will have to be free! I have thought about Tate Modern, DD and I have visited and really enjoyed it, DH has yet to experience it so that would be nice. If the weather was good a walk in the parks or by the river would be nice too. I am also looking at driving a large chunk of the way and parking just outside the centre, have you done that? I need to investigate parking and where is cheap, easy and safe! What other free London activities can you think of?

It's been a while since I've been to Brighton as a tourist and so I might think about doing the 'seaside day visitor' thing, with fish and chips on the pier, a walk along the promenade, a trip to the Marina and maybe the Pavilion. I could even squeeze in some shopping in the Laines or Churchill Square - particularly if I don't spend all my money on a trip to London! I know that lovely DD aka the teen, needs some new clothes for college in September and we did promise her a new 'college capsule wardrobe' (ooh there's a blog post just waiting to be written) so that would take up a day by itself.

During the entire week of course I will be drinking more alcohol than usual, staying up later, sleeping in longer and eating more chocolate than usual. It is a holiday after all. What will you be up to?

Come and chat over on Twitter or my Facebook page I'd love to hear from you

Mother of Dragons - My Birthday Tattoo

Back in the dark ages, when message boards and forums roamed the internet in wild herds, before twitter, before Facebook, when FriendsReunited was still a happening and trendy hangout(ie about 10 years ago) I started blogging. And one of the first things I talked about was  my tattoo.

Portsmouth Tattoo Parlour - Photo used with kind permission SilverTiger

I first thought about tattoos when I was about 8 and my granddad took me to Portsmouth, and the docks, we saw tattooed sailors and a tattoo parlour that stated "Over18s only" and "We do not tattoo Ladies" the first made it sound impossible grown up, but the second annoyed me, if I wanted a tattoo, I reasoned, I should have one, even if I was a girl, my grandfather would chuckle and agree and we would stand for what felt like hours staring at the posters of flash art in the blacked out windows.

In my teens I thought about getting a tattoo again, I wasn't sure what of, and in those long distant days (the 1980s) hardly anyone had a tattoo, hard to believe for the youth of today, where the bare skinned are the minority, the cool kids that are displaying their personality by NOT being inked, but that's how it was, and among the tattooed it was 'rough' men and 'trampy' girls only, that sported colours on their bodies. I was a 'good girl' not the sort that got a tattoo, and the sort of girl that thought long and hard about permanent, no going back, style choices. For years I thought about ink, at 16 when I hung around with bikers I thought about lots of traditional styles, hearts, tigers scratching bloody lines into flesh, phrases like 'Live fast, die young', or dragons...I'd always loved dragons.

At 19 I was still thinking, my then boyfriend suggested I think carefully as there was no going back. and so I merely thought about it ... for another 20 years.

When I thought about what I would do for my 40th birthday it suddenly seemed a good idea to get that tattoo,I wasn't getting any younger and I still wanted it! I allowed a message board to choose from three designs that I had picked and loved, all dragons, one traditional coloured Chinese style, one fine black  and realistic like an ink drawing in a book, one a stylised three coloured wyvern. The votes were in, I carried a print of the tattoo in my pocket for a week, to check I didn't start to hate it, I booked a tattoo appointment and finally at the grand age of 40 I took my then 5 year old, and got my tattoo. It felt like the moment of a lifetime. (Loved taking my 5 year old DD along too...though it did mean I couldn't swear at the pain, she thought it was all great!)

Copyright: yod67 / 123RF Stock Photo

This month I will be 50 and I'm thinking of getting a second tattoo (Mr TM will be displeased as he doesn't like tattoos) but what to get? I have thought of a pale brown scorpion on my wrist, so pale as to resemble a birthmark, or another dragon, or a tiny coloured koi leaping ...this time though, I think I'll make the decision myself.

Edited 2023 to add an image of the dragon (wyvern) tattoo 

Looking forward to 2015

Having looked back over 2014 and looking forward to 2015 I can’t help but think I’m a tiny bit predictable!

So far my plans (subject to change) are looking like this

Starting January with no alcohol, for a month! Yes ladies and gentlemen of the internet, I’m signed up for Dry January to give my waistline a chance to shrink, my purse a chance to refill and maybe my liver to take a holiday! Following on from that my year is shaping up like this:

Spring. In the February half term I’m hoping to visit China Town in London for the Chinese new year and also, at another date, meet up with Motherscuffer for the infamous Pizza Express meal (which I won before she was up the duff and so now I have to drink all the prosecco myself! Which I think you will agree is pretty tragic)
In May I am all booked up for the Elderflower Fields Festival (keep checking my blog for news on tickets for this, I’m hoping to have a competition and some discount codes soon)

Summer will continue the festival theme with a repeat of some of the great festivals of last year, kicking off with Camp Bestival (this year with UNDERWORLD / CLEAN BANDIT / KAISER CHIEFS, and THE CAT IN THE HAT and even DICK & DOM! ),Then Wilderness again, and once more the mad glory of Wadfest – if you have a wacky sense of humour and a Nerf gun (and a tent) you really should join me – so cheap, silly, and kids go for 1p!!

Autumn is looking empty at the moment….plans to be made, DD and I have been toying with some more travel and Iceland is looking like a popular choice, we need to browse some travel sites and books.

Winter will spell my 50th birthday – I probably should have a party – I may also get a new tattoo.

Have you any 2015 plans yet? Or are you just hoping to survive! Let me know what you are up to!

Choosing a name for a baby is choosing a name for an adult too

When we decided to have a child it was a huge decision, I was already 33 and my hubby is 20 years my senior, so you can imagine all the things we considered and worried about and of course the biggest decision was

What shall we call the baby!

We have an Italian surname and so Hubby wanted to give our child an Italian name. I am a huge fan of ‘real’ names, no Apples, Chardonnays, or Nevaehs here,, I also have a bit of a thing about giving someone a name that is a shortened form of a real name, so no Jacks, Jennies, Charlies, Sams, etc etc

I think that a name should be for an adult too, you are not naming a baby or a toddler, you are naming a person. So while Princess is cute at 3 it’s going to be embarrassing at 39 (IMO). And of course there was the Dr test and the stripper test.

You try the name in the following sentences

“Paging Dr ………….. to A&E immediately”

“ and now introducing, with her/his own snake, all the way from Vegas …………”

So for me, no Sugars, no Cherrys, no Juniors, no Tarzans. (yes I'm a snob, shhh)

Finally we knew what we didn’t want. We also wanted a middle name to honour a grandparent, we decided on my parent’s name for a boy and his for a girl. (Both would be ‘Italianised’)

But a first name? Boys names we disagreed on, I wanted Luciano, he wanted Alberto..”like the shampoo?!” I asked incredulously, he had never heard of it and rejected my complaints. “Luciano would be shortened to Lucky” he said “like the gangster, I won’t give a son of mine a gangster name” “ah” says I “because there was never a gangster called Al?” Stalemate… luckily we didn’t have a boy.

Soon into the pregnancy we knew we were having a girl and searched for names. We liked Isabella but it was so popular I feared she would be one of several in her class – did I mention I also dislike popular! Ha!

The suddenly one day hubby read an article in the Sunday times supplement…and there was the name right there, as soon as he said it we fell in love with it and that is why we chose it, as soon as we saw it we loved it and it suits her to a tee, it is beautiful but can be shortened to something quirky and cute and tomboyish yet the full name is glamorous and unusual (in the UK at least) and so she became Rafaela, Raffy or Raff for short. And I still love it.