Too true, it is extremely upsetting although I don't think we've ever had a bad review anywhere!boatman wrote:There is no doubt that some folk are a complete PITA ,and you can quite often pick them out by reading what they review and how they say it .
TripAdvisor has to be used by very much looking at the averages .
It must be quite distressing right enough for owners to read crap from obnoxious twats
At least in Spain I always recommend booking.com on my Spanish Biker blog as the reviews tend to be honest and are about the actual accommodation, whereas Tripadvisor reviews seem more interested in talking about themselves, i.e. making out you're an 'expert' traveller by slagging off just about everywhere you go to. What's the point in that I ask?
Meanwhile, anyone going to Barcelona should check that the property they are booking is legally registered - this has to appear on the advertising, there's a number like ' HUTL-000734'* somewhere on the web page or whatever. AirBnB has been fined tens of thousands of Euros over and over again by the City Council for advertising unregistered properties but obviously they can just cough up and carry on. But the problem of noisy - and often drunk - tourists in normal residential accommodation has provoked near riots in recent years (it's a credit to the residents that they never express any direct hostility to the tourists themselves, although I wouldn't blame them if they did, I've been among a crowd in a busy city centre street where a bunch of drunken Brits thought it a good idea to hurl buckets of water from a fourth floor balcony ...)
Regs
Simon
* that's my registration number, a barcelona one would have the letter 'B' instead of the 'L' (for Lleida province in the Pyrenees) just Google it and you should find the listing in the Catalonian government's web page - well that's a few down the list but it is there!. If not it ain't legal and you might just find yourself a) having no recourse inn case of a complaint and b) locked out by the local police!
