How disappointed have you been?

Blackpool and the Illuminations! Sure it's seedy and a bit tacky but what great fun. Not really worth a second visit, IMHO, but you should do it once before you drop off the twig. Biggest travel disappointment? Rome. Beautiful city, ugly male persons! Italians away from home (and outside Rome) are a great people, but I have never met so many arrogant, missoginistic, self-absorbed men in my life as in a few days in Roma.

The only time I went to Blackpool was when we drove through it one time on a cold winter's day. We saw the tower from a distance, but there wasn't anyone in site! I've always fancied seeing the tower, but someone I know who used to live there said that the town wasn't up to much. I was disappointed when we first arrived in New York as few years ago. Our hotel wasn't anything like its photo or description on the internet; the photo had been taken to make it look as if the shops below it were also part of the hotel, lol! And it was in quite a run-down, bad part of town, which seemed a bit scary at first. As time went on though we found out that there was much much more to NY, and we had a great holiday.

I have a friend that lives near half and hours drive away from Blackpool. He has taken me there to see the illuminations and they were bright. We had a ride on the old tram and that was enjoyable. We walked on the piers and looked in a few of the shops. It is often full of hen and stag parties, had loud people and it quite a tacky destination. My friend and I prefer Fairhaven Lake, Lytham and St Anne's. There is a windmill there and a bird center offering interesting information. I am an experienced traveler and I have had some disappointing times in Asia. I went to Sumatra in Indonesia. I checked into a hotel and my room had a stable type door. I sat down on the bed and saw a note. "These beds have bed bugs and flees so check out now" it said. I jumped up and rushed to see the manager. I changed to a triple room. I was asleep in the double bed but I woke up because something was walking over my plastic bags on the floor. It might have been mice or rats. On the ferry from Medan to Penang I was really sick and for the next week I stayed like that and had a high fever. I got better and went to Mersing where one dark evening I fell down an open drain and injured my leg. In the Maldives I got attacked along a lonely beach.

I have been to Blackpool with the children and hubby in oct a couple of times to see the lights. Apart from the cold it was really good holidays. Holiday from Hell was when we tried to have a cheap holiday so we rented the caraven from the lady down the road. She had a caraven down at the coast. The sea and beach was miles away and we spend laods of our spending money on car parking. The fridge was full of her food, the wardrobes ful of her clothes and her husband had left pills in pots on the side!! Three of our children were very young! I wanted to come home on the monday!! We lasted until Thursday and then when we got home she came and knocked on the door ot see why we had come home early!! We told her we had spend all our money etc!!!! Good thing about the holiday was that the children must have sensed it and were 100% good all week. Will never rent a caraven/ holiday place off someone we know again

I now live in the US but aS a child growing up in england Blackpool was the place to go in winter they had lights and i loved it maybee just like myself its growing old im sory you had a bad experience but i do have good memories of the place

Mu disappointment is that Blackpool is the way you state it to be. I am so saddened as I have such wonderful memories of our family vacations there as a child. I hold such great memories of Blackpool, traveling from Glasgow and trying to be the first one to see the towe as we passed the windmill en route, the lights, the amusement park, the tower, the cool hotels we used to stay in with their wonderful traditional breakfasts followed by long days spent treading the boardwalk, commuting on the trams and riding "Alice in Wonderland" at the Pleasure Beach!!! Wow, bear in mind that it has been some 20 years since I was last there, having moved to the States in 1991 but I always held Blackpool dear to my heart and have seen it on tv here once or twice wishing I could take my son... I am rather relieved that I haven't had the opportunity, some things I guess, are best left to memory. I am sorry for your bad experience and hope that future vacations will lend themselves to great memories.

You should have talked to your tour operator Wolfie! He would have told you that Blackpool is a shitehole, not excusing my French here, it's an abysmal place for the young and old, I may be slightly biased as the place brings back nothing but bad memories for me, the only good thing about Blackpool is the trams, other than that you can keep it! Did you count the trees in Blackpool or lack of them! It's like a mini Las Vegas with all those amusement arcades, it's expensive and it's mutton dressed as lamb! You will never see a wolf stepping paw in that godforsaken hole again! Disappointing Holiday destinations? Well let me see, only a weekend in that place that shouldn't be named! Yuk! Did they still charge you an extortionate price to get into the tower? What a rip off that is! Sorry you had a bad time my friend! Try the Isle of Wight next time if you haven't already been! Far superior, far more children friendly and far more relaxed and beautiful beaches too!

Dear Humbug I do agree with you on Blackpool. I still hear Blackpool radio and they say that it needs a revamp. I was there in summer 2007. I enjoyed the circus show inside the tower. Even the tower itself needs some upgrading. The floor was sticky with dirt but the theater and the performances was fantastic. I liked the piers. WE don't have them here. I enjoyed our outings to the zoo and did some shopping there too. I did not complain on the whole as we have visited also Lancaster and the lakes so it was a bit of a collage, putting history (Lancaster) relaxing (the lakes) and entertainment (blackpool) © ronaldinu 2008

Blackpool does have a bit of a reputation as being quite rough at night, it's not the sort of place I would fancy walking around on my own in the dark. I've never been to a destination that proved disappointing; I've seen some beautiful places. We did have a terrible apartment once though, in Menorca. The apartment itself never got cleaned, it had cockroaches in it when we arrived! The pool was so filthy that we all got ear infections, and the shutter door over the patio fell off it's hinges onto my little sister. It looked so nice in the brochures!

Hi! I'm sorry to hear about your vacation gone wrong. I went on a tour to the White House (Washington D.C.) and I was so disappointed. I guess I had high expectations of the tour, that's why. It took a longer time for us to line up outside the building (and it was even raining) than the tour itself (which only lasted a few minutes). We were only allowed to see the East Wing, and allowed to see four rooms (red, blue, green, and the dining room) only. Honestly speaking, the rooms were not so spectacular. What I liked, though, were the old furnitures used by past presidents. But that's all. Happy myLotting!

I was a kid growing up in WW2 England and we went to Blackpool every year for a holiday and it was great. After moving to the USA it was a lot of years before I returned to Blackpool and I was disgusted by what it had been allowed to become during the years of my abscense. It was dirty - the once famous tower building has become very expensive to go in. I tell people here in the UK who seem to think Orlando is the only place to holiday at in the USA that it would be like me telling people in America to come to the UK and only go to Blackpool. As for Chicago - it has some great places to visit especially on the lakeshore but like most towns its size it has its downsides too.

Hello, Humbug25. I am sorry about your weekend plan. It really sucks when things don't get as we expect them to go. I have never had a weekend from hell. But yes, I have already messed up some holiday trips. Not me. In fact, when we went to the beach and it was raining... We were expecting the sun high in the sky, and we all in the sea. But no, it was raining. Still, it wasn't bad. I don't think that there has been a trip that has been really wasted. We have fun, no matter where we go. No matter what happens, we are having fun all the time. Respectfully, Munhozmib.

Me too had a similar experience. I had a visit to pondichery,India this year. I was expecting a buetiful place with great sceneries as is in the films. Although i could find a few places upto my expectations , the place was totally unhygenic. Public hygenity is upto its lower limit out there. I was totally disappointed by it.

Halifax Nova Scotia.Was a discusting spot the bay looked like a swamp.You couldn't see the bottom of it in the shallow end.The pollution was so bad it was unbelievable.