h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, how do you decide what to make of a hotel which has extremely bad criticism as well as extremely good ones on these hotel assessment sites? When I've read the comments _after_ visiting a hotel, I often agree with both opinions, but the minuses usually don't cancel out the pluses. Now I'm looking up a hotel and have found really really extreme opinions in both directions.

Sometimes I wish they hadn't thought of setting up sites where guests can publish their comments after visiting. It just confuses the issue. In the end you decide on the basis of the price or the location anyway, which is what you would have done before the internet.

if the hotel has both good and bad comments its probably average and might be worth a try,

if it has consistantly bad comments, avoid it

How high were the expectations of the negative comment guests? What was everybody else expecting?

I use a well known retail website regularly. If I've not come across the seller before, I'll check on the feedback (as we all would do). I cannot comprehend some of the 'negatives' that are *still* registered as negative. It's all relative and subjective. You've bought a second-hand DVD/game etc (some of them are ~really~ rather old - I've just ordered The Buddy Holly Story). Yes, you expect them to describe it properly but, if it doesn't work the majority will refund/send another *shrugs*

I remember looking for a hotel in Montery, California and finding one that looked very nice. One of the customer reviews said "This is the worst hotel I ever stayed in. I was kept awake all night by the sound of sealions roaring outside on the beach".

I'd suggest ignoring any rate-this-hotel site. How do you know the reviews are posted by genuine travellers?

I've stayed in comfortable hotels that I've later found being shredded on review sites. These days I just pay attention to the location of the hotel and how easy it is to get to.

(Incidentally, I once spent a strange night in a hotel on Kangaroo Island, being kept awake by what sounded like a donkey in bondage being slaughtered slowly by an asthmatic duck. It turned out that the noise was actually coming from amorous fairy penguins nesting in the hotel cellar. The penguins were a selling point for the hotel, but not a very good one.)

"Damn those sealions!! Have they no thought for us humans?"

Thing is, it's human nature to complain. You are far more likely to register your comments if you've had a bad experience than if you've had a good one. I think you have to look at the comments subjectively- if they are complaining that breakfast stopped being served at 9 am then that says a lot more about the individual than the hotel.

Well, that depends on where the hotel is. In Ireland, any hotel that stopped serving breakfast before 12 wouldn't last long.

My wife & I took a roadtrip in the US a few years ago. Part of the fun was not planning ahead - just driving and finding a motel at the end of the day. We stayed in some nice ones and some .... not so nice ones.

My favourite was in Pennsylvania. The room was freezing and on the wall was a big reddish-brown stain in the shape of a handprint which had run down the wall and soaked into the carpet. Mrs swl was convinced it was blood. Only one bed was useable because the other had ripped sheets. Watching tv was a shared experience with the cockroaches - the biggest one I've ever seen sat on the remote control.

In the middle of the night, a huge argument began in the room next door between a man & woman. Thanks to the paper-thin walls we had a ringside seat. He was bellowing incoherently and she was begging and beseeching. Finally she said "Ok John, I'll do it, I'll do it just put the gun down for chrissakes"

It was so bad it was good - if you know what I mean. It was probably one of the highlights of our trip - living amongst real live merkins

So- all it takes is a gun, and the wife will co-operate? That's where I've been going wrong all these years.

ha ha that sounds like a night you'll never forget swl!

As to the reviews, anyone can write a good one - including the sales staff for the hotel itself. Bad ones can be damning, but any hotel worth staying in will read these reviews and address the issues. I usually go for the star rating - these are independently assessed. There's often hardly any difference between 3 and 4 stars apart from 24 hour room service and so on.

Check the photos of the room you're going to book. If it turns out that they put you in a less good room, go back to reception and point it out. This happened to me once and I was immediately transferred into the one as advertised.



Can you really write 'merkin' and not the word that starts with m and rhymes with tough?

I think the filthers don't know about the other meaning of 'merkin'.

Gosh. I'm disappointed. I just tried to post a single word, which rhymes with "belch" and starts with an f. The Mary Whitehouse Experience liked using it. They said they could get away with it because presumably it was SO filthy in its meaning that it was effectively swearing on such a high frequency that Mary Whitehouse couldn't hear it.

The continuity announcer on 'The Day Today' once characterised the programme as "Newsfelch".

Presumably 'merkin' is the equivalent for this site.

Merkin as in Pubic wig? all the rage in medieval times amongst the well off who had to shave their m??f's to eradicate infestations

Ignore the American comments on UK hotels esp. in Nodnol. They just don't get the fact that London is older than 'their' country hence not much space which is why hotel rooms are 'cosy' near the centre of Nodnol. Depends what you want the hotel for: somewhere to sleep between days of site seeing or to spend more time in.

As long as it's clean, not much noise outside etc then that normally does OK for me.

I've never shaved a milf's to eradicate infestations.

I remember staying in a hotel in London once where there was so little space that when you sat on the toilet, your knees touched the door. It was very difficult to stand up without opening the door!

Is there any other meaning to 'merkin'?

Hmmm, people are a bit fuzzy over that question.

I think it came up a few times in Blackadder along with the Black Russian Codpiece.

review sites can be somewhat - um - useless in my experience and not just for hotels.

For example I once looked up car insurance reviews as I wanted to see how good the 'cheap quote' insurance company I'd had a quote from were.

The review website I found gave them 1.8 out of ten. No! I thought, avoid them. For comparison and morbid curiosity I checked out some of the more famous companies on the same website. There was a certain consistency. *Every* insurance company was rated between 1.5 and 1.9 out of 10.

Basically nobody without a grudge was reviewing. What a waste of webspace.