Twenty most ridiculous complaints received by tour operators

[Lewis]

Aroused elephant tops list of bizarre holiday grievances
Telegraph Travel has compiled a list of the 20 most riduculous complaints received by tour operators.

Concerns about the sand being too white, anger at too many fish being in the sea and feelings of inadequacy after seeing an aroused elephant were among the most bizarre complaints made by British holidaymakers.

Using research by The Association for British Travel Agents (ABTA) and Thomas Cook, Telegraph Travel has today compiled a list of the 20 most ridiculous complaints received by tour operators in recent years.

One envious holidaymaker complained that his friendâ??s three-bedroom apartment was â??clearly biggerâ? than his one-bedroom place, while others could not hide their frustration that it took them nine hours to fly back to England from Jamaica when it only took the American travellers a mere three hours to get home.

One Briton complained that the £3.50 pair of Ray Ban sunglasses bought from a street vendor, proved to be fake, another that his travel agent had failed to tell him to wear swimming trunks for his trip to a water park, while another tour operator was criticised for not telling a traveller that mosquitos could, in fact, bite.

Among the more jingoistic grievances were that there were too many Spanish people being in Spain and too much curry served in restaurants in India.

A spokeswoman for ABTA said that it had witnessed a rise in complaints in recent years â?? in 2008 more than 22,000 people made complaints to ABTA-recognised operators, up from 19,552 complaints in 2007.

A spokesman for the Air Transport Users Council, the air passenger watchdog, said that the number of complaints it has received in the first three months of 2009 were up by more than ten per cent on the same period last year.

Website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/trave ... ances.html

For the list http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/pictu ... akers.html

I thought the beach one was the best.

[blackdog4444]

lol What the hell? I wonder if they're just trying to make excuses to get a discount on something or what. They're probably just raised to be whiny, spoiled brats up to adult hood, which is kinda scary....

[Earl]

Thanks, Lewis, for the hilarious item. I read the list given in the second link to my wife, and she laughed out loud. One of the ridiculous complaints was misquoted, though. It should have read "No-one told us there would be sea kittens in the sea. The children were startled."

[RaleighRob]

Tourists can be some of the biggest complainers in the world.

And...no offense to anyone here...but I'm not surprised this list came from Britain. They're about the only ones in the world who have a worse reputation than Americans in the Foreign Tourist category. Though that's probably due to the fact that America's rudest tourists are less likely to go overseas and will just go to the nearest cheapo beach.

The one time I left the country I tried to adapt to the culture around me...not expect them to adapt to me. Funny, I thought that was common knowledge.