Trip Advisor.......

[maxaroni]

We will be in WDW in Aug 2005. We stayed at POFQ & CBR in the recent past and looked at the rates again for this trip and it was more than we wanted to spend. I will add that I went right to WDW Travel.

OK, we had some ideas of where we wanted to stay (off-site) after doing alot of research. We will be driving, therefore, we will have a car. Every place we thought we wanted to stay, after reading Trip Advisor, made us not want to stay there. So many horrible comments on many places.

We were so and didn't know what to do . We finally had decided on the Residence Inn LBV. We hadn't booked it yet but had it all set in our minds. I then read mousesavers.com and found out that Hotel Royal Plaza was being renovated and opening in July. Therefore, alot of the neg. comments would hopefully be taken care of. We booked our hotel for HRP. Too make a long story, short , we then checked out AAA and changed, yet again, to stay at POFQ as the price wasn't that much more than the HRP (Tower) and in the end we decided to stay on-site. I am still not sure that is what we should do as I know we won't be in the room much.

Anyway, my question is, does anyone know if Trip Advisor is truly an accurate gauge to what hotels are like?

 

[yogibigdog]

I have posted several of my experiences on Trip advisor and so have some of my friends. Basically I write about my experience with the hotel. I have seen some people give a hotel a bad rating because they didn’t have wireless Internet or a good health club. Since these items aren’t important to be I ignore those reviews. If more than one person says the hotel is dirty then I think it is a good clue that something is wrong. After reading other reviews I have eliminated some hotels from my selection. If the majority of reviews were bad than I would look elsewhere. If just a few are poor and some have positive experience than your probably safe. Remember it is had to please everyone. Many people have written poor reviews on their experiences even with Disney hotels.

 

[Sandyincanada]

Personally, I keep miles away from Trip Advisor. Some of the reports are accurate and some are just out to lunch. I've also heard of many reports that the hotels themselves will post a good review if there are a few bad ones. Toss out the worst and the best and see whats left to get a real accurate picture. I find you get better advise from message boards. I belong to many of them for different destinations and they seem to be the mos accurate, imo.

 

[CarolA]

Yes and no....

Most people only post if they had a bad experience. Also, I have heard (and have pretty good proof) that some folks post over and over again.... (i.e., they had one bad experience and they post 10 times acting as if it is 10 stays.) Its just like these boards.. you hear a lot more bad then good, but you only hear from a small percentage of readers and visitors.

I have also heard, but have no proof that hotel employees post good reviews of thier hotels and/or bad reviews of other hotels.

I tend to take it with a grain of salt unless I reason to believe it. (For example, I find a $20 a night hotel and trip advisor says it was dirty... I can see that)

I stayed at HRP and really liked it, but I think the key there is getting a tower room. I know a DISer who stayed at both tower and non-tower and she said the difference was remarkable. (Tower was much better!)

 

[OntFamily]

I take trip advisor with a large grain of salt. Directional info at best.

I travel somewhat frequently, and I've compared hotels I've stayed at with the reviews. Many people are way to picky (ie complaining about dust under the bed, when they never vacuum under their own beds @ home).

 

[mbb]

the other posters...take it with a grain of salt....especially the posts that begin with "The front desk staff was rude, and wouldn't give me a free upgrade!!!" LOL!!

 

[RC Fan]

Hello!

I just came back from a two week trip to Arizona and Nevada. I found TripAdvisor to be fairly spot on. I think if you take the general overall sentiment of the reviews, you will end up with a decent idea of what the place is like. I do agree some people are too picky though.

 

[jtdl]

I post reviews on Trip Advisor of all the hotels I stay at - the good and the bad. What I did when using the reviews to plan my own trip was I looked at all the reviews and kind of analyzed them as to were they somewhat similar or were some good and a few extremely bad or vice versa. You know that if most say the hotel was bad and then one says it was the best place they ever stayed in, that the hotel is more than likely bad. And if the reviewer didn't like it because the desk wiggled or there was a piece of lint on the bedspread, then the reviewer was probably someone who was used to staying in much "higher class" accommodatations.

 

[wicket2005]

Well it didn't even cross my mind that posts on trip adviser may not be genuine. I posted one review on the Comfort Inn LBV - a truthful one which I hope will be of benefit to anyone wishing to stay there.

I think it is a good site to get an idea of what a hotel is like though I only discovered it and these forums after I had booked this year's holiday. Fortunately, the Rosen Centre does seem to get favourable reviews.

 

[swincha]

i have found trip advisor to be pretty accurate. you might see 1 horrible review but should read overall how the hotel is. we went to new orleans and the main complete about the water temp was on target. however we knew this before we went. we went to mexico and it was also right on target. lets you know the good and bad and you can decide if you want to stay there.