Trip Advisor Do you use it?

[Damselfish]

...I saw your related SCUBABoard post http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/mexico/220070-royal-cancun-recommended-dive-operators.html, and from the responses, it bears up my suppositions. It's a nice resort. Dive operators are nearby. You got all the response one might expect from a post on a SCUBA Diving board....

I don't think av8er23 was complaining about the lack of response, just making an observation that other sources are more useful sometimes (oh, the sacrilege!)

 

[Doc]

I don't think av8er23 was complaining about the lack of response, just making an observation that other sources are more useful sometimes (oh, the sacrilege!)

Complaint? No.

Another source useful? I'm sure not seeing this with his search on Trip Advisor.

Again I ask~ where does Trip Advisor say anything about diving from The Royal Cancun?

SB is not the only solitary best reference I have found. UseNet provides us with Discussions - rec.scuba.locations | Google Groups Get in the Pepsi Generation, man. Click on this!

If you want a good dive travel resource, there's the real deal.

 

[av8er23]

I was never searching trip advisor for dive information. I did not expect to find dive related information on there. My vacations often include diving but I am not the person that goes to "Go Deep Dive Resort" every year. I usually pick my accomadations and dive operators seperatly. This is why i find trip advisor of some assistance.

 

[Andi327]

I post on TripAdvisor quite often. Here is my page.

Member Profile - TripAdvisor

As you can see I post good and bad reviews. I've never had any of the hotels call and complain about my posts. I've even told a couple of the hotels that I would be posting on TripAdvisor about my stay and they didn't seem to care (how stupid can you be). Anyway, there is always some kind of corrupt business going on with any business, but you've got to look past that. It seems kinda obvious when there are nine great reviews and one bad one. If you are that curious you can always look at their page and see if that is the only hotel they've rated. If so, it looks suspicious.

As for diving. If the post says absolutely nothing about diving, they probably don't dive. You should read more reviews or like others said look on ScubaBoard where it is certain they are divers. It's a lot better to read TripAdvisor than to go to a hotel, restaurant, etc. oblivious as to how it really is. Happy travels!

 

[RJP]

The biggest challenge to the use of Trip Advisor is that you don't know anything about the person writing the review. And I don't mean do they work for the hotel or the hotel's competitor.

There's a couple points to consider:

1. People generally fall into two distinct groups: Easy to Please, and Impossible to Please. If you don't know which group an individual is in, you don't really know how to look at their review.
2. People with strong opinions - either positive or negative - are most motivated to post. So you only get "extreme" opinions, perhaps missing the opinions of the 80% of people who thought The El Vacationer Grande resort was "perfectly fine" but you will for sure hear from the 10% who thought it was worse than Gitmo and the 10% who thought it rivaled Versailles in terms of luxury.
3. You don't know what people's frame of reference is. I'm happy that the Royal Vagabond Resort is "the most fabulous place" you've ever stayed, but if the second-best place you ever stayed was "the White Star Motel out by the old abandoned drive-in theater on highway 6" I'm not so sure your review means much to me.
4. Everyone has cultural, ethnic, and economic prejudices - no matter what. Some people might not understand that what is considered "friendly" in one country is considered "aggressive" in another. For others "rude and indifferent people" often means "their skin was darker than mine and they talked funny." One person's idea of "a charming, simple island" is another person's "poor, dirty little country." My idea of an "ideal laid back" vacation may be a hammock between two palm trees while yours is a mink covered chaise lounge at the Ritz.
5. You don't know what the reviewer had in mind when they picked the spot. Maybe THEY screwed up! The fact that a couple on their honeymoon "hated" Buckaroo Banzai's Blizzard Beach Family Adventure Toon Town Resort and SkateBoard Park doesn't mean that you and your family of six kids ages 10-16 should dismiss it as an option.
6. Many people are just plain stupid. "Our trip to this idyllic little island in the middle of the ocean was ruined by the food - all they had was fish!" or "When we checked in we were dismayed to find that the Cliff Top suite we had specifically requested was a 5 minute walk along a steep path down to the beach." or my favorite "The brochure said this was the best resort in all of Mud Flats but after staying there for 14 nights I can tell you it's no Four Seasons!"

Lots of fun to read Trip Advisor, but take any review with a GIGANTIC grain of salt!

 

[UnderwaterBumbleBee]

I use it as a reference. I booked White Sands Cove in Ambergris Caye, Belize after really researching it. Almost all of the reviews were excellent and there were a good amount of them, we had a great time there so those were validated. I also use Expedia all the time to compare airfare and hotels but I've never booked with them.

 

[johnny_bravo]

For business travel it has served me well...for recreational travel sometimes it's been misleading...I suspect is due to unreal expectations from most tourists posting reviews.

Cheers.

-J.-

 

[tadeotadeo]

Old Providence is a very romantic Island. but depending on what you are looking for, it may suit you. NO lagre resort but cozy mom and pop bed and breakfast type of Cabanas. I can even get a private home on one acre of tropical gardens for total privacy.

 

[Damselfish]

Old Providence is a very romantic Island. but depending on what you are looking for, it may suit you. NO lagre resort but cozy mom and pop bed and breakfast type of Cabanas. I can even get a private home on one acre of tropical gardens for total privacy.

I'm unclear how this is related to a discussion of Tripadvisor?

 

[HowDidIGetIntoThis?]

The biggest challenge to the use of Trip Advisor is that you don't know anything about the person writing the review. And I don't mean do they work for the hotel or the hotel's competitor...

Lots of fun to read Trip Advisor, but take any review with a GIGANTIC grain of salt!

Your points are well made. Most of the folks replying have inferred that the question refers to dive trips, but the question was only "What do you think about Trip Advisor?"

I do use Trip Advisor, and contribute to it occasionally. I generally put more trust in the reviews if there is a variety of positive and negative opinions for exactly the reasons you mentioned. So long as the reports go into enough detail to explain their point of view, they can be very useful. For that reason, it is important to read the comments rather than skipping to the ratings summaries.

Regardless of the need for a grain of salt, I'd rather take the time to do the research than select a facility with no information at all, or even just the promotional brochure.

For my purposes, the more sources of good quality information the better.