20 ridiculous complaints made by holidaymakers

[snopes]

We present 20 of the most ridiculous complaints made by holidaymakers to their travel agent, taken from research by Thomas Cook and ABTA.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/pi...daymakers.html

[snopes]

We present 20 of the most inexplicably simple queries fielded by tourism officials.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/pi...-tourists.html

[Arriah]

Hey, this one's not stupid at all!

I want to walk from Perth to Sydney - can I follow the railroad tracks?

I'm sure there's train tracks. You just have to follow them for about 5 months!

[geminilee]

Originally Posted by Arriah

Hey, this one's not stupid at all!

I'm sure there's train tracks. You just have to follow them for about 5 months!

Actually, to an American it is immediately stupid; you are walking the length of a country!
To someone from England it might not be that stupid, it is the length of a country; it is a good long hike, maybe take a couple days. Ok, it is still pretty stupid, but if someone hadn't realized or internalized the size difference it could happen. I will admit that in my mind, the default for "we drove across the country" with no country specified takes weeks. I can see someone from a smaller place thinking of "country" by default as being, well, small.

[Spam & Cookies-mmm]

"We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as yellow but it was white."

Don't tell me that's not a valid complaint. The color of our sand is very important to us. We tried to get our sugar white sand named State Sand of Florida.

But wanting yellow sand? Ewww.

[geminilee]

Originally Posted by Spam & Cookies-mmm

Don't tell me that's not a valid complaint. The color of our sand is very important to us. We tried to get our sugar white sand named State Sand of Florida.

Hey, be fair, now. You live here, you know that sugarsand is not normal sand. It is a lifeform of its own, and lives by eating tires, flipflops, and the occasional tennis shoe.

[Skeptic]

I've had more than one American tourist complaining about Cuban cigars being sold in the town I lived in. (In Ireland).
Apparently they think we should all follow their policies and boycott "those commies".
PS - in one case it was part of their holiday through Europe, including Poland and Czeckoslakia. (sp). Guess they only don't like Cuban commies.

[Ariadne]

Mr. Ariadne once overheard some middle-aged American tourists complaining to a hotel desk clerk about the heat in Rome. In July. After they left, he and the guy at the desk (who was very nice) had a good laugh about it.

[Troberg]

Originally Posted by Arriah

I'm sure there's train tracks. You just have to follow them for about 5 months!

Trust me, if it's extremely stupid, someone will do it. If someone climbs Everest, someone else has to do it without oxygen. I'm just waiting for someone stupid enough to do it nude...

Which, by the way, reminds me of the excellent song by Arrogant Worms, 'History is made by stupid people'.

[Simply Madeline]

Originally Posted by Skeptic

I've had more than one American tourist complaining about Cuban cigars being sold in the town I lived in. (In Ireland).
Apparently they think we should all follow their policies and boycott "those commies".
PS - in one case it was part of their holiday through Europe, including Poland and Czeckoslakia. (sp). Guess they only don't like Cuban commies.

Interesting. Any time I've ever been in a place that had both American tourists and Cuban cigars, I've been practically mowed down by the tourists rushing to buy the cigars. Not a word of complaint from anyone...

ETA: The 20 ridiculous complaints from the original article mostly sound like punchlines from "dumb tourists" jokes.

[Skeptic]

Originally Posted by Simply Madeline

Interesting. Any time I've ever been in a place that had both American tourists and Cuban cigars, I've been practically mowed down by the tourists rushing to buy the cigars. Not a word of complaint from anyone...

Yes, the complaints were uncommon. More often than not, when it was mentioned, it was a case of "Hey guys, look at these, they're Cuban".

[Richard W]

Why is it stupid to ask if the tourist office has any information about Samantha Fox...?

"Which bus do I get from the Orkney Islands to the Shetland Islands?" doesn't seem that stupid, either. You can get a bus from France to England (Paris to London) after all, and could even before the tunnel - it just goes on a ferry and includes the ferry fare in the price. In principle there could be a similar service between the Orkneys and Shetlands.

In practice I suppose it's a bit silly because if you were there, you'd probably be able to see that Kirkwall and Lerwick are both right on the coast and if there's a direct ferry between the two (I can't remember) then you'd not need a bus at either end, except the local buses to and from Kirkwall or Lerwick.

[Spam & Cookies-mmm]

Originally Posted by geminilee

Hey, be fair, now. You live here, you know that sugarsand is not normal sand. It is a lifeform of its own, and lives by eating tires, flipflops, and the occasional tennis shoe.

That's what I figure the people who complained that "The beach was too sandy" were thinking.

[htonl]

I think that "I want to walk from Perth to Sydney - can I follow the railroad tracks?" may be apocryphal. There's a similar list of "stupid questions asked by tourists going to South Africa" which has circulated here for a while, which includes the item "I want to walk from Cape Town to Durban, can I follow the railway tracks?"

[damian]

I want to walk from Perth to Sydney - can I follow the railroad tracks?

A 4500 km walk across the driest continent on Earth? Be my guest. (Look for the sign that says "Indian Pacific")

Is Wales closed during the winter?

Well, it was closed during the last "foot and mouth" outbreak.

[Dactyl]

Originally Posted by damian

Well, it was closed during the last "foot and mouth" outbreak.

Which was especially harsh IMHO, seeing as the outbreak was in Surrey.

[Pudding Crawl]

Originally Posted by Troberg

Trust me, if it's extremely stupid, someone will do it. If someone climbs Everest, someone else has to do it without oxygen. I'm just waiting for someone stupid enough to do it nude...

Well, there is this...

[Jay Tea]

Originally Posted by Pudding Crawl

Well, there is this...

Is that Irvine and Mallory Pudding Crawl?

[Hans Off]

Originally Posted by Spam & Cookies-mmm

Don't tell me that's not a valid complaint. The color of our sand is very important to us. We tried to get our sugar white sand named State Sand of Florida.

But wanting yellow sand? Ewww.

Much of which is imported from Western Australia...

(If you believe everything you hear when Touring Oz)

[Pudding Crawl]

Originally Posted by Jay Tea

Is that Irvine and Mallory Pudding Crawl?

'Tis indeed. (George's boot?)
I keep running into the nude picture in the most unexpected places.