Tourist Destinations to Avoid
Playwright and wit Oscar Wilde commented that Niagara Falls “is the first disappointment in the married life of many Americans who spend their honeymoon there.”
Tourist Trap Warnings
We've all been there. We've handed over decent coin to experience a tourist attraction, only come away disappointed thinking, “Was that it then?”
Fortunately, some people have reviewed the world's tourist traps so we can learn from the mistakes of others. The vacation rental company Casago analyzed thousands of comments made on TripAdvisor to identify places that deliver an “inauthentic experience.”
Herewith, the lowdown on:
Six-Gun City—am amusing personal experience
Fisherman's Wharf
Times Square
Disney Parks
An Inauthentic Experience
Years ago, probably in the Cretaceous Period, my wife and I visited Six Gun City in New Hampshire. Its promoters had recreated a Western town main street as they believed it to be from watching Hollywood movies.
The highlight was the staging of a bank robbery. Two spotty-faced teenage lads trotted onto Main Street aboard scrawny horses whose galloping days were long behind them. To the accompaniment of copious equine farts, the desperadoes fired blanks from their revolvers and made off with the town's loot.
To add to the drama, another youngster gave a play-by-play account over loudspeakers; on the cusp of puberty, his voice cycled between soprano and tenor.
Some might see the Six Gun City as a tourist rip-off, but we felt we got more than our money's worth, all five dollars of it, out of the experience. It provided us with an hour of unintended hilarity that we could use as dinner-party stories. Because, as observed by British comedian Richard Ayoade, the purpose of holidays is to gather anecdotes.
With that as the framework, here are a few tourist destinations that have been widely criticized as providing a lack of value for money, although, no doubt, many people have visited these places and have had their time there filled with joy and excitement.
Unsurprisingly, Six Gun City is no longer with us.
Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco
San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf tells us it “is a world-famous tourist attraction and a thriving and vibrant local neighborhood and commercial area. Home to world-class dining, shopping, hotels, and endless entertainment opportunities.” The hype attracts 12 million visitors a year, but, it seems, a lot of them leave feeling grumpy.
Writing for SFGate, Madeline Wells says, “The wharf is overcrowded with tourists, tacky souvenirs, and overpriced food that isn’t good.” Sounds like just about every other popular tourist destination, but Fisherman's Wharf goes the extra mile in delivering misery to its guests.
According to Casago, the location gathers more negative reviews from visitors than any other location in the world, and mention is frequently made of the seagull poop.
A tourist from Montreal, Canada, noted for TripAdvisor that, “If you want to be one of the many tourists that are overcharged for lousy food and lousy service, this is the place for you.”
Others complained that while they were strolling around the area, their cars were broken into, and some echoed this comment: “Fisherman’s Wharf is festering with trash, bums, and graffiti.”
Many visitors say the only authentic thing about Fisherman's Wharf is the sea lions.
Times Square, New York City
Casago joins many other analysts in placing New York's Times Square near the top of its list of places to avoid.
There are at least 1,500 attractions in the city, yet tourists are drawn inexorably, as though by some weird magnetic impulse, to this cathedral of garish amusement. More than 300,000 visitors a day, a million on New Year's Eve, and almost none of them are resident New Yorkers.
Here's insider.com, “Locals avoid this spot at all costs, and so should you. Not only is it overcrowded, it's also full of expensive souvenirs and tacky chain restaurants that you can find anywhere else in the country.”
And there are countless opportunities to be scammed out of money.
The so-called Crossroads of the World is a canyon of gaudy billboards, peopled by aggressive costumed characters who cajole visitors into selfies for a price. Spiderman, Cookie Monster, and Mickey Mouse jostle other plush-covered panhandlers for tips, and if the rubes don't pay up, they get belligerent.
Arrests are frequent. But there's worse, as reported by The New York Post:
“The Times Square Elmo busted for grabbing a 14-year-old girl’s rear while posing for a photo is far from an isolated incident, according to a new report that found the handsy panhandlers touched an average 24 people per hour without consent.”
You might buy a CD or DVD at a really great price only to discover when you put it in your player that it's blank. Hucksters will hand you flyers advertising what look like good deals from Broadway shows that aren't. Also, there are pickpockets jostling the crowds and lifting wallets.
And, nothing says family entertainment like the desnudas; women who, for a fee, pose topless for selfies.
Thousands of tourists just waiting to be fleeced.
Disney Parks
You can wait in sweltering heat for up to an hour to experience a two-minute thrill ride that may trigger motion sickness, and pay more than $100 a day for the privilege.
The more than 20 million people a year who go to Disney World must think this is a bargain; of course, not all of them throw up, but some do. “Stand clear, Timmy! Oh no.”
You can beat the queues by booking a ride time online—ish. You'll need to make your reservation when the virtual queue opens at 7 a.m., and there's a fee. What this means is that you'll be able to stand in a slightly shorter line. Kelly Shatto wrote on the website isitpacked.com:
“We were just at Disneyland and California Adventure last week (October 2022) and the Car's ride line was 3 hrs long. Needless to say we did not wait. All of the lines were ridiculously long, wait times 90 minutes to 120 minutes. We waited 90 minutes to get on the Haunted Mansion. Later that day we saw it was a 2 hr wait for that ride. It was hard to even move around in the park let alone enjoy anything about it because we were too busy trying to get on the rides that we wanted to get on and waiting in 60 to 90 minutes lines.”
Of course, it's easy to cherry-pick patrons with a gripe to make it look as though Disney properties aren't worth the price of admission, yet millions of visitors leave happy. However, an ongoing and grubby political fight over the Orlando properties affects everyone.
Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, throwing red meat to his conservative base, pushed through an anti-gay law. Disney World staff pressed their employer to oppose this assault on human rights, and their employer obliged. DeSantis retaliated by trashing Disney's favourable tax status, Disney hit back, and then...lawyers are making so much money they could afford to take their whole families to the parks.
The question this stirs up is, do vacationers really want to get in the middle of a fight between the Hatfields and McCoys over social issues? More often than not, the answer is probably no. They just want to have fun.
Political fireworks between Disney and DeSantis.
Bizarre Tourist Complaints
No matter how hard they try to please their customers, people who operate tourist attractions will always come across idiots who find fault. Here are a few stupid complaints gathered from sources that are usually reliable news sites:
- “There was no sign telling you that you shouldn't get on the hot air balloon ride if you're afraid of heights.”
- “I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes.”
- “The street signs weren't in English. I don't understand how anyone can get around.”
- “The animals at the zoo looked very sad, and it made our children cry. Can't they train them to smile?”
- “When we were in Spain, there were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us there would be so many foreigners.”
- “I compared the size of our one-bedroom suite to our friends' three-bedroom suite and ours was significantly smaller.”
- “The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room.”
A woman wrote complaining about a beach being topless because her husband spent the entire day gawking at girls.
Bonus Factoids
If you have a bucket list keep these underwhelming attractions off it. You'll be glad you did:
- High Point, North Carolina—At 38 feet tall it's the world's biggest chest of drawers.
- Freeport, Maine—Outside the L.L. Bean headquarters there is a gigantic boot.
- Waterbury, Vermont—A graveyard of flavours rejected by Ben and Jerry. Wavy Gravy ice cream anyone?
- Cawker City, Kansas—World's largest ball of string, more than eight million feet.
- Cut Bank, Montana—Statue of a talking penguin that stands 27 feet tall.
- Holualoa, Hawaii—The World's most scenic urinal.
Let's stop here before this thing descends into poor taste.
Sources
- “The Biggest Tourist Traps Worldwide.” casago.com, April 2023.
- “'There’s a Lot to Hate': A Local's Honest Review of Fisherman's Wharf.” Madeline Wells, SFGate, October 12, 2021.
- “The Worst Tourist Trap in Every State.” Sophie-Claire Hoeller, insider.com, October 15, 2019.
- “Times Square’s ‘Creepy’ Costumed Characters Are out of Control.” Elizabeth Rosner, Ben Cohn, and Aaron Feis, New York Post, September 9, 2019.
- “The Line at Disney Land Are Getting 'Ridiculously' Long.” isitpacked.com, March 11, 2022.
- “The Most Ridiculous (Real) Complaints Made by Tourists.” Daily Telegraph, May 6, 2017
- “DeSantis vs. Disney: Why the Florida Governor's Fight with a Theme Park Matters.” Nick Logan, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, April 6, 2023.
- “38 Most Bizarre Tourist Attractions In America.” Syjil Ashraf, explore.com, November 4, 2022.
This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.
© 2023 Rupert Taylor
