Tossa de Mar sucked. It represents the first (and thereby worst) miss in the history of my relationship. It was a trip so bad that the stink of it followed us home by way of a series of travel mishaps entirely reflective of the journey to even get there. Nothing went right. The morning we left a lady staying next door to us was carted out on a stretcher after moaning (loudly) for a half hour. The beach was rocky and crowded with terrible humans. Yet for all of that, we managed to find moments. We also managed a few decent showers.
I say all of this as preface to the main point of the blog, which is reviews. At the end of any stay, you’re offered an opportunity to write a review. Ostensibly the goal is to create an ecosystem of feedback that raises the level of the establishments that want to do so, and to warn consumers of those that do not. I do not participate in the review process. For one, I’m lazy. Secondly, and most importantly, I’m scared.
Let’s take, for example, Airbnb. If I were to write a review of the place we are presently staying, it would not go well for the place we are presently staying. When we looked through the numerous reviews for the location prior to booking, none of them pointed out the issues that I find most troubling. I’m going to list them below and let you decide if these are worth being concerned about:
- If you are above 5’10, you will be forced to stoop whenever moving around the loft area, which is where you sleep, bathe, watch TV, etc. None of these activities can be accomplished without stooping because the roof is too low. If my 6’3 self lifts my head, I hit my head. That is made worse by the fact that the bathroom doorway is built for a hobbit. The 5’7 Lady Talis has to duck. Can you guess what happens when she doesn’t?
- The floor directly above the space is where the kids hangout. Loudly. With a lot of late night tv and pounding of feet. This is mostly relegated to the weekends… Which is when the parties may happen.
- No blinds on two windows that look directly into your sleeping area and bathroom respectively. It’s creepy.
There’s more but not a lot more time to wrap this up. The point is this: If I said all of that in a review (like nobody else did) I would end up as one of those Airbnb clients who has bad reviews on places. Who wants to have that client come to your spot? I’m scared of not being allowed to stay places. So I deal with this by not writing reviews.
I have this blog though… It isn’t connected to Airbnb at all. It also gives me space to voice my… opinions.