My wife commented: “People will maybe post a review if they have a great experience, they probably will if they have a horrible experience, and the 95% in the middle, who have an adequate night’s stay, probably won’t bother to say anything.”
Her shopping ninja powers translate to cheap hotel shopping, luckily.
And I’d be fine with you leaving the one star review, explaining the problems with the shuttle. They’ve burned me in the past, so I’ll never rely on them.
I had a situation, before TripAdvisor, where I specifically called a hotel and asked if they had a guest laundry facility. Naturally they didn’t have one when I checked in, and they scratched their head wondering who could have possibly told me that they do. Even though I called DIRECT and not the 800 number. So, I got to find a laundromat, in a not so nice neighborhood, and use that in the middle of Texas in August. Normally, it wouldn’t matter, but I was doing a road trip across the USA and really needed to wash clothes.
This sounds like a reasonable assumption, but is there actual evidence that people are significantly less likely to post a positive review than a negative one? Business owners have griped about this, but in my experience (especially with mail-order nurseries and restaurants) customers love to post rave reviews and they typically outnumber markedly negative reviews by a considerable margin.
As for TripAdvisor in particular, I’m surprised by how often second-rate joints have four stars or better.
True; it could be that management has changed (for the worse), or that the hotel is, at this point in time, at or near the end of its renovation cycle – rooms look shabby, carpet is worn out, etc.
And, the converse is true, as well – a hotel that got poor reviews a few years ago may have gone through a complete remodel since then, gotten better management, etc.
When I was staying at the place I mentioned earlier in the thread, with the dated decor, worn out carpet, etc. in my room, I got a glimpse into one of the other rooms when I walked by while the maid was in there cleaning. That room looked like it had been remodeled recently; it had new, modern looking furniture and the hard flooring that’s becoming common in budget level motels. So I’m guessing the motel was updating their rooms in sort of a piecemeal fashion as budget/time/occupancy allowed, and I just unluckily ended up in one of the rooms that hadn’t been updated yet. But that obviously created a situation where reviews could be more positive or more negative simply based on which room the guest ended up in.
Which also may explain why two guests stayed at the same place on the same dates can have wildly different reviews. I try to disregard any outliers, the very good and very bad.
Still, Mrs. L and I have had mixed experiences. One thing we like to do: go see the room sans luggage. Is there noise coming from a street? A rowdy neighbor? A funky smell? You may be able to get reassigned if you ask at the desk.
I always wanted to stay at Jeffries Fantastic Guest House in St Martin, but Irma destroyed it, so I’ll never get the chance. It was dirt cheap (€30 a night) accommodations on the French side in Marigot (the capital).
It was situated atop Jeffries Fantastic AutoParts. More or less clean rooms a block from the Caribbean. Free coffee and donuts each morning in the auto parts store accessed via internal stairs. Reviewers described going downstairs in their pajamas for coffee and chatting with some dude looking for a fuel filter for his car.
Right next door was Skankys Bar. I’ve stopped at Skankys and it’s a very generic bar owned by the Skanky family, like the auto parts/guest house is owned by the Jeffries family. Apostrophes aren’t used for some reason on the French side.
I do this for every purchase I research, the quality of stuff can go down once the seller has a good reputation
I just finished a two-month road trip, staying mostly in Best Western, IGH (Holiday Inn), Hilton, and Choice-branded properties. They were all generally well-reviewed on tripadvisor and yelp. Of course they all had at least a few bad reviews, but you can’t please everyone.
My experiences were good to very good but each brand had at least one location that was kind of mediocre. I chalk it up to issues with the local owner/management and employees rather than the hotel brand itself.
Yeah. Sometimes a hotel changes owners or management or does a complete re-vamp.
Bugs and dirty are things to watch out for.
In general the reviews are a good source.
I do the same.
I also look for ‘themes’. If only one review (or a small few compared to the total) say something I tend to ignore. If a place has issues it should be apparent through the number of people mentioning it.
Personally I don’t trust on line reviews at all as those seeking reviews can commonly control who gets to submit a review or give the reviewee some kind of bribe.