Tripadvisor: Plan & Book Trips

I travel quite a bit for business and even more for pleasure and this app is perfect for both. On business trips, I can put in the city I’m visiting and when I’m going and it gives me restaurants options and the most popular things to do. I can read reviews from other helpful travelers that give me thing to looks out for and best times to go places. When I travel for pleasure, I start with Trip Advisor. I get a destination in mind and save hotels/vacation homes, activities and transportation info to the trip and have it all planned out before I book. I also use the app for planning with others. I planned a girls trip to Jamaica with my friends and was able to send them the details to review before we booked. I was able to book a lake house in NC for a Thanksgiving dinner my family is planning this year. I think the next step for the app is allowing splitting of payments for different things or allowing multiple payers. Also being able to joint plan a trip would be nice. Overall though I have no complaints about the app and love using it. I love leaving reviews for places I’ve been an helping other fellow travelers.

I evaluate most of the hotels, restaurants, and local sights on TripAdvisor. I only rarely have to give bad ratings since I have checked in advance on TripAdvisor. By reading many reviews you can quickly get a good idea of each rated place. Note that some reviewers are always negative - either they are never satisfied or they are so grumpy that they have brought out the worst in everyone they meet. When hundreds of visitors have given a place “excellent” or “very good” ratings, usually the few bad ratings are due to such trolls. I usually do read several negative ratings - bad days do occur and there are flaws in everything and it can help you to notice those flaws - but if most people liked it, I will probably like it too. I have used “Yelp” at times for restaurant reviews (sometimes searching sends me to Yelp). It is ok, but I have not usually found it more convenient. I am less familiar with it - and I have never posted a rating there. If I have to sign in each time, this is the last time you will hear from me.

I can’t leave home without it as it helps bring the world to me. Reviews and recommendations are typically spot on. However, it can be a bit clumsy when it comes to searching. I put in day trips/tours in Dar es Salaam and I keep getting safari results for 3-15 days. Not sure what part of “day” the app does not understand. Also, I booked a trip that has not existed for about a year and was none refundable. When I tried to cancel on the app, it warned me that I would lose 100% of the cost. I reached out to the tour operator via WhatsApp and fortunately, they were gracious enough to inform me that they no longer do that tour and will fully refund. TripAdvisor needs to stay on top of operational tours. Finally, whenever I book a tour through TripAdvisor, things generally go smoothly except for when they don’t. The reply button to the tour operator contained within the confirmation email seldom works. All in all, I enjoy using this app as my go to travel companion. I don’t even need to research ahead of time (I know, lazy right? ;) and the idea that I can travel on the fly and have TripAdvisor app do all the legwork is ever so appealing. It would have been 5 star but for all the issues listed above!

response required

My issue with Trip Advisor is they block you from providing any updates until 90 days later after posting negative review. My post of review from Sheraton Hotel Marina in San Diego November 2019 received a response from Sheraton. They posted they want to talk further to me about issues that took place at time of visit. I have responded twice to their email that they provided in their response post. I have had no response at all from Sheraton. If they really wanted to speak to me they should have provided a valid phone number and contact person in their response. Posting an email address but never acknowledging my emails back per their posted request, just makes it looks like they( Sheraton) made an effort. Trip Advisors blocks me from reporting this to travelers until after 90 days. Thus, current travelers seeking real time information will not be given up to date information from travelers that have experienced recent issues that could impact current travelers. So reading allowed posting without allowing immediate updates makes Sheratons attempt to work out issues meaningless. Trip Advisors followers will not know that Sheraton has failed to actually resolve issue and fail to acknowledge my 2 emails back to their request. I consider this deliberately misleading travelers.

I use this app almost every time we go to a new city to find what food is good and where to eat. That being said there are some improvements I would like to see. 1. For vegetarians and vegans the app can be a little difficult to navigate. One change I would like to see is in phrasing and searching filters. There is a difference between vegetarian/ vegan restaraunts and a restaurant having vegan/vegetarian options. The app currently does not show the difference which can be vexing. 2. Another change I would like to see is in the search. Often times i go on here to find food between point a and point b but currently there is not a way to search along that route or slightly off from it. Yes you can go through each address and see but for tourists this can be difficult and additional time to your task. It’s a good time to mention that even if these changes don’t occur I will keep using the app but it would be nice to see a change to help support those of us with different diets. And not just non-meat eaters but, gluten free eaters, paleo people or even those that have a lot of allergies to food such as nuts, milk, eggs and more.