TripadvisorReviews 607

Made what i thought was a reservation thre tripadvisor.com. They said they would send me an e nail with confer. # along with other details. Did not receive e mail. I called the hotel which tripadvisor made reservations for me. The hotel did not receive this info. I made 2 different phone calls and was told the room was booked. Meanwhile, i had already gave them my credit card number to pay i so called booking fee. Here i am without a place to stay and giving access to my credit card. I called the bank and cancelled my card. What a scam.

TripAdvisor is comprehensive and an excellent resource for hotel information, which has two major shortcomings:
1. As some have noted before, it is mostly helpful regarding hotels, and less so when it comes to tips or travel guides. For those I would recommend googling specific locations, or consulting forums. A general tip: get on local sites, and use Google Translate; you won't believe the amounts of unbiased information you can get there.
2. The site is more informative and doesn't allow enough space or volume for complaint. Granted, it is not an anti-fraud site like this one, but the reason most people get on it in the first place is to make sure their hotel won't be terrible or they won't get ripped off by it, etc. So when someone has a dreadful experience with a hotel, their review gets lost in the sea of other reviews (many of which are completely useless and "vanilla" - if you have nothing to say, don't say anything!). That's why the size of the site is a pro and a con.

I have used this site for about 7 years. It is a vast resource of information and is a "must read" before booking hotels unknown to you. But I feel it has deteriorated in the last couple of years as it has become a place where many reviewers just indulge their gripes - many of them are petty. Too many reviewers have unrealistic expectations or absurd expectations of service. Tripadvisor also won't let you review the same place twice which is OK in theory but means you can't easily correct an earlier review for a later experience. You also have to watch their description of where the accommodation is - for example in NZ I have seen them list places up to 200 miles away from where they really are. Lastly, there are some great places to visit which are not on Tripadvisor at all and unless you use other sources you can miss them.

An absolute must to consult when organising any trip. Look up an area you plan to visit, and check out some of the reviews posted on the main hotel/guesthouses, or just type in the name of the guesthouse you have already selected to read what previous visitors said. But you need to use some judgement: some reviews can be posted by "friends" (you will notice that the reviewer has never posted a review elsewhere) or "enemies" (some competitors use the site to malign a place they feel is taking away business from them). Also, some negatives for one person (ie "no night life" or "not child friendly") can be a plus for another person ("calm and peaceful"). Note also that this website belongs to Expedia.com (as does venere), so places working with these discount sites will be listed prominently.
With these caveats in mind, an absolutely indispensible tool for any traveller.

Best travel resource I've found - We do a good bit of traveling and we have found trip advisor to be one of the greatest resources for finding everything from destinations, to hotels, to things to do in a given location. It's a site where the traveler gives their honest opinion about a given destination, complete with photos. Rather than looking at an ad agencies photography of a hotel, you see the real thing. It's honest, and we have found it to be VERY accurate.

Give it at try before you go on your next trip. You won't regret it!