I broke one of my main rules today. I went on TripAdvisor to look up a hotel I’m scheduled to stay at. Sometimes it’s good to break rules. Sometimes breaking the rules confirms why you had the rule in the first place.

The no-TripAdvisor rule exists because I spend most of my life in hotels, and have never yet met anyone with anything sensible to say about their stay. Not that I’m blaming or criticizing, just that unless you visit too many hotels than is good for your sanity, you don’t really have a means of calibrating how good one is relative to the other fifty in town.

The reason I broke the rule is because I wasn’t going to be alone on this trip, and my better half told me I had better not let her down.

The hotel I’d chosen had 306 reviews posted. Surprise, surprise, the average rating was a shade over 4 stars. I thought I’d better look at one of the non-4-star efforts. Like this one, posted a few days ago by ‘Penelope27’ (name changed)

This hotel was well sited for my work purpose. I arrived and checked in with the usual formalities, my room was spacious and clean. No view. Usual facilities ….. tea/coffee, UHT milk, nice cookies but only on first night. I ate on my first evening, a simple soup, well presented, cheap and cheerful. Was hot and had flavour. Came with fresh bread. The menu was basic pub grub which I guess people want. I prefer whole healthy foods. There was a salad bar but included lots of mayo ….. I don’t do dairy.  Two bar staff, male, were really friendly and helpful. I asked if they sold chocolate, I fancied after my soup, the young man behind the bar suggested a few shops I could visit, then after a few minutes came to my table with a chocolate flake (obviously for deserts) and a big smile. I was impressed with his thoughtfulness and acted upon his instincts to please. In the morning I was treated to a huge breakfast bacon and mushroom bap. the young lady serving was helpful and friendly. I asked for herbal tea and was told there wasn’t any, then I was offered some loose tea on the shelf, peppermint which was lovely. My second morning was different, my breakfast bap was 4/5 mushrooms less, and I was told abruptly by a different server that peppermint isn’t in the breakfast deal and therefore was denied it, despite my saying I had it the previous morning. What a shame ……. I felt quite upset that the “special loose tea” was not included in the breakfast. A small spoonful of tea leaves which would have completed my morning breakfast was denied by an indignant young man, who did not offer an alternative tea, just smirked and walked off. Other diners refused a hot drink in the morning, surely one small of tea is not too much to ask???? Other than that …… it was ok, some staff were really kind and friendly especially the lad who offered chocolate. made my stay really warm and welcoming ….. isn’t that what counts????????

So the question now is should Penelope27 influence my decision to stay at the hotel?

The three-star rating Panelope27 offered suggested I should probably think about changing my booking to another hotel.

But, just who is Penelope27?

I thought I should run her review through the PanSensic tools.

This is what I learned:

She is a Myers-Briggs ENTP, and so therefore quite unusual.

She is great at finding problems.

She has some rather fixed ideas about what ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are.

She is extremely naïve and innocent.

She is rather self-absorbed and ‘entitled’, and therefore probably GenY, although, if I had to speculate, at the older end of the scale, higher than ‘27’, but lower than 34.

Should I listen to her review?

Answer: no.

Ditto the other 305 reviews.

In fact the only vaguely useful content out of all of the reviews came from the hotel’s proprietors. Where they had occasion to respond to a comment, they revealed themselves to be:

Diligent, paying a lot of attention to detail, probably ESTP.

Flexible.

Calm and unphased by idiots.

Empathic enough to know when to stay out of the way.

I think I will like our stay at the hotel.

I think, too, that my no TripAdvisor rule stands firm. Although I might see if we can set up a TripAdivsor API that strips out all the reviews and just leaves behind the responses from the staff. That seems to be the only meaningful stuff.

Hmm. I wonder if TripAdvisor know about this? Maybe they already know the only point of encouraging millions of Penelope27’s to write meaningless reviews is to provoke meaningful responses from the hotel staff? That’s what I’d call borderline genius.