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UK holiday resorts so shabby
Hotgossip
Posts: 22,385 Forum Member
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I am staying in a uk hotel for a long weekend. The hotel is spotless so no complaints there but the state of some eating places and food shops is terrible. Public toilets are truly gross.:o
Yesterday we went to a cafe/bakery for a coffee and once we were seated and looked round we noticed the general shabbiness of the floor and shelves, staff with really grubby uniforms and people were waiting ages for tables to be cleared.
Today I had to use a public toilet and it was disgraceful. It was a council toilet and they are just not employing enough people to clean the floors and empty the bins. You just don't see this in any other places abroad. They employ ladies to keep the toilets spotless and wipe the floors every time a person leaves. Same with the bins on the sea front .... Extra people for the bank holiday means more rubbish so therefore they need the bins emptying more frequently. You can't blame the public because the bins are overflowing, so they put their litter on top or neatly at the side and then a gust of wind blows it all around.
We were in Northern Portugal last summer and the toilets were amazingly clean. Likewise shops selling food and cakes have glistening tiled floors, staff in immaculate uniforms and looking hygienic. The Balearics, The Canaries, Croatia, Malta ... We've found them all much cleaner than the UK.
Yesterday we went to a cafe/bakery for a coffee and once we were seated and looked round we noticed the general shabbiness of the floor and shelves, staff with really grubby uniforms and people were waiting ages for tables to be cleared.
Today I had to use a public toilet and it was disgraceful. It was a council toilet and they are just not employing enough people to clean the floors and empty the bins. You just don't see this in any other places abroad. They employ ladies to keep the toilets spotless and wipe the floors every time a person leaves. Same with the bins on the sea front .... Extra people for the bank holiday means more rubbish so therefore they need the bins emptying more frequently. You can't blame the public because the bins are overflowing, so they put their litter on top or neatly at the side and then a gust of wind blows it all around.
We were in Northern Portugal last summer and the toilets were amazingly clean. Likewise shops selling food and cakes have glistening tiled floors, staff in immaculate uniforms and looking hygienic. The Balearics, The Canaries, Croatia, Malta ... We've found them all much cleaner than the UK.
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To be fair it's most of the main UK seaside tourist resorts, compared to Europe we are a slob nation and nothing to be proud off. Granted the nicer not so touristy spots are wonderful and the experience is completely different. In fact anywhere the Brits go en masse we tend to be the problem not other nations.
It's one place this weekend I will agree. I live just a few miles inland from several well known seaside resorts and I visit them regularly so include those in my observations.:)
Go on tell us, where are you. The larger resorts can be horrible. The Brits do have a problem with an inability to either not throw rubbish around or the authorities thinking it never needs collecting. I won't get started on filthy public loos!
They put some hotels in Butlins Bognor and Minehead and they are quite nice from what I heard. Plus they have wi-fi now.
I agree with you there
Yes you do and you only have to pop over to France to see plenty of examples, especially those places that have cliff hanger toilets.
I stand corrected then. I have never been to France and now have no desire to do so. ;-):D
Done especially for when the Brits visit, it makes them feel at home
In the last couple of years there has been a big push in getting people to holiday in this country and they came up with the tag Staycations. I just don't get why they don't start with the basic, cheapest stuff first like employing extra attendants/cleaners for public toilets and more people to go round emptying bins before they start overflowing.
When we were in Croatia the other year it was spotless. We noticed bins had a large bottom section for general litter, on top of that was a section for recycleable stuff like plastic bottles and cans, then there was a section for dog poo and a roll of plastic bags for dog poo and finally on top was a section for **** ends. They were emptied regularly and it was such a good design.
A lot of resorts that were popular back in the day (Southend, Clacton, Margate) are now tired and run down but they have a certain charm - they must do as people still go?
Furthermore people with more disposable income are less inclined to visit places filled with such people.
Venezia was much more comfortable.
Infact, some of the worst public facilities I've encountered have been in Germany, a country long favoured for organisation and cleanliness. In France, it varies from region to region, with the Basque region being very good, and the north of the country, less so.
We do have a problem with rubbish here, I don't think you can entirely disconnect a 40% reduction in Council spending and the worsening public realm...but it's about culture as well. One of the reasons German and Swiss streets are so clean is because it is seen as socially unacceptable to drop litter (it's also socially unacceptable to be riproaring drunk there, which often exacerbates lots of our litter problems).
UK public toilets are frequently a disgrace though. I blame public spending cuts - councils regard them as a low priority, so won't pay for attendants to keep them clean.
Theres a lot more shittholes on the Med
The funny thing is it always seems to me that half of Europe decamps to the Scottish Highlands in summer. Almost every other car or motorbike you pass has a foreign plate. I can honestly say though beyond London there is nowhere in England I have an overwhelming desire to visit.
If you've chosen to go to one of the crappy ones, that's your problem, but don't tar our beautiful coast with your limited knowledge about it.
That said a few years ago I went to London for the day when staying in Oxford. I remember going to the toilets in Costa, McDonald's, BK and St James' Park.
The ones in SJP were the cleanest