Budapest - Not much to do. Grand Cayman - very crowded, not as scenic as I expected.

St Lucia.

The contrast between the resorts and everything else was sad.

Not a major location, but I was so let down by Hershey Park, especially the "factory" tour.

Randomly St Lucia. If you aren't up for shelling out $1000 a night you can't stay anywhere that's nice and on a beach. The roads are SO treacherous and terrifying so a nice hotel is a must unless you're interested in risking your life every time you get in a car.

Anonymous wrote:Amsterdam -- while there were some interesting things to see, I just didn't like the 'vibe' of the city, as trite as that sounds. Perhaps because I wasn't a 20 year old backpacker at the time of my visit?

Amsterdam is one of my favorite cities in the world. The art, the food, the people, the accessibility from the east coast is also helpful. Love the weather, the architecture, the Dutch style of design. I'm 30 and my fiancé is 38 and we would move there in a heartbeat.

Unlike some of the PPs, I love Paris and the parts of India I visited.

Didn't like Rome nearly as much as other parts of Italy, though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amsterdam -- while there were some interesting things to see, I just didn't like the 'vibe' of the city, as trite as that sounds. Perhaps because I wasn't a 20 year old backpacker at the time of my visit?

Interesting. We're thinking of planning a trip there, but I wondered if I would enjoy now that I'm older as well.

It's beautiful! There are museums, great architecture, and nice parks. And if you don't like it, jump on a plane or train and be somewhere completely different in a few hours.

China. We were there in 2003 (so before the Olympic "clean-up") and while the rural areas were lovely, the cities were horrible. Aggressive street vendors, restaurants stealing each other's business, and constantly trying not to be ripped off because we were tourists. We really couldn't "enjoy" anything about the city because we were constantly fighting off/avoiding aggressive, tourist-preying vendors. In the end, we spent WAY less money than we might have because every business transaction was such a hassle.

Anonymous wrote:Amsterdam -- while there were some interesting things to see, I just didn't like the 'vibe' of the city, as trite as that sounds. Perhaps because I wasn't a 20 year old backpacker at the time of my visit?

Interesting. We're thinking of planning a trip there, but I wondered if I would enjoy now that I'm older as well.

India. Half the people we met were wonderful and half were horrible. In Amritsar, I went to a jewelry store, and they brought clearly fake items out from behind the counter and said they were a "new style" of gold. After I rejected the fakes and asked to see the real gold items, the sales people refused to serve me and looked the other way when I asked for assistance. (Maybe because I was a foreign woman alone.)

In Delhi tour guides treated us like an ATM, trying to fleece us out of as much money as possible. They had no problems telling blatant lies. If I took a taxi, I would somehow always end up at the same tourist store where drivers get a cut. For my flight out, my paper ticket got buried in my things, and I couldn't find it once I got to the airport, because they bind each luggage upon entry. They refused to look up my booking and wouldn't let me on the flight, and then they kicked me out of the airport at 11 PM at night. (People without tickets aren't allowed int he airport -- an anti-terrorism measure.) I had to buy a new ticket back home.

Amsterdam -- while there were some interesting things to see, I just didn't like the 'vibe' of the city, as trite as that sounds. Perhaps because I wasn't a 20 year old backpacker at the time of my visit?

Anonymous wrote:St. Thomas

Why?

St. Thomas

Vietnam. Many Vietnamese are aggressive. The roads are terrifying.

I don't know if I've ever been disappointed, but there have been places I traveled to where my expectations were low to start with and the trip did not exceed those expectations. I'm thinking of Detroit, in particular - which I only went to because I had to.

The San Francisco thread got me thinking. What other places have you travled that were disappointing? We traveled to Paris with friends recently and they were disgusted by the crime and filth there. They said it was nothing like they expected and would never go back. On edge the entire time thanks to crowds and agressive pick pockets.