DXBtoDOH

We know Mission's is Bali (and it's one of mine, too).

What about you? Where in the world didn't live up to your expectations and why?

I also didn't care greatly for Vietnam. Food was brilliant but otherwise was easily tired by the place.

scrubbedexpat141

Loved Vietnam, apart from Hanoi which was meh.

Thailand - in particular Bangkok the second time round and in particular Chaweng on Koh Samui. May as well have been in Magaluf.

Miss Ann Thrope

Damascus. The noise and smoke from the bombing was just so intrusive... No, we were there well before all that kicked off. Though it had been someplace I always wanted to visit, I found it dreary, lacking in atmosphere - even the old city and the gaudified great Umayyad mosque - and utterly paranoid. Everybody seemed to be watching everybody else. Of course being picked up and detained by (presumably) the military police for no apparent reason didn't help.

On the contrary I found Vietnam to be an endless source of delights.

hnd

Bermuda without a doubt. Way, way over priced. Grubby. Full of fat Americans off the cruise ships waddling around in their psychedelic coloured ‘tartan’ shorts. Terrible food everywhere we ate. Rubbish strewn and ill-cared for roads and open spaces. Dirty beaches. Thank God it was only a short break.

DXBtoDOH

I did like Hoi An and trekking through the tribal villages around Sapa in North Vietnam, although the latter is a different experience altogether. I mainly remember the endless chase of the touts.

Oddly enough there's fabulous Vietnamese food in Berlin, of all places.

Miss Ann Thrope

I sent my mother on a few days' trip to Bermuda once. She had a similar experience. It didn't help that she knew I was trying to get her out of the way for a while when she came to stay with me when I was living in the US. But in mitigation, she was in danger of severely cramping my style during what was a particularly sultry and - well there's no other way to put it - slutty summer that I was enjoying....

DXBtoDOH

You should have sent her on a coach trip to the Pennsylvania Dutch country.

co durham boy

Jamaica , extreme violence just a nanosecond away outside of the hotel , kind of keeps you on your toes , on the upside though decent drugs

Bahtatboy

Really had to wrack my brains to come up with a disappointing holiday. The worst I can do is Sharm El Sheik (or might've been Hurghada, I can't remember -- it was when we lived in Cairo): Unfinished resort (the casino was "under soft opening"); average food; cancelled flight on the way back and absolutely no information or help from Insh'Allah Airways (EgyptAir), which wasn't fun with 3 toddlers.

Other than that they've all been pretty good

TheShed

I was disappointed with Vietnam. Didn’t go for long and loved the history, but hated the food. Me and Mrs Shed love Thai food but found Vietnamese tasteless in comparison.

Scamp, agree with you. Been to Samui more than 10 times and love it but avoid Chaweng like the plague. Dreadful place. It’s a young version of Pattaya.

One place we expected to be disappointed was Phnom Penh (on our way to Ankor Wat) but we were really surprised how vibrant and friendly it was. Wished we’d stayed there longer.

We’re currently trying to get North Korean visas so we can go there before it either opens up or gets blown up.

IKnowNothing

Venice, December 1995, cold, snow, infuriating (wanting to get across a canal to a place you can see is 20m away and it takes you an hour), first ex wife, more snow, being shot at in Brescia, being herded into a local bus by the local police and escorted to the station.

Stayed in Verona though and liked that though, so not all bad news. And WBA beat Brescia 1.0 in the snow and we couldn't even see the goal, first ex-wifes birthday that day (13 Dec), massive argument on train back to Verona.

Drove back to Lichfield.

Would like to go again though, love Canaletto.

carcajou

I had a Syrian colleague once (pre-war) tell me that Damascus was the safest place I could ever visit - because as a foreigner I would have so many state security people following me that no lowlife would dare bother me.

Gavtek

Boracay in Philippines. Absolute shithole teeming with people trying to sell you things every step you take. Pain in the arse to get to (at least it was back then when you had to fly into Kalibo, 2 hours away in a shit minibus). The most ill I have been in my life was after eating seafood there, took me about 2 weeks to properly recover.

Rest of the country was alright though, didn't even hate Manila that much (although I didn't really go much further than Makati).

Millhouse

All holiday places are what you make of it and your frame of mind. I’ve been to some shite places and had a blast and some ‘good’ places that I thought was rubbish.

For me, Budapest was in the terrible camp. Oh and butlins at bogna - but I knew it would be.

littlejimmy

Listen to you ****ers. Until you've spent a week in a caravan in Morecambe with your in-laws, you have **** all to complain about.