trip advisor: you know can't trust all the reviews, yet you can't stop checking

we had narrowed our resort choices down to two. having never been to jamaica, or either of these resorts we couldn't make the decision on our own. and so began the review searches. ahh trip advisor... i have used this site in the past, and know all posts must be taken with a grain of salt. everyone has different ideas of what their vacation should be like, and often people only post to complain. in addition, we're not idiots and realize hotel mgrs. and owners are likely on there also, boosting the reviews and ratings of their hotels.

http://tripadvisor-warning.com/share/is-tripadvisor-manipulating-reviews-for-certain-establishments

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2032997/TripAdvisor-investigated-ASA-fake-reviews.html

outside fancy sofa bed hotel.
at least they gave us an umbrella...

 in fact, i've experienced something similar to this before. dave and i had booked a hotel through priceline a few years back, and thought we had gotten a great deal. when we showed up, we were given a nice room but there was no bed - i guess we got  the living room portion of a suite. we had a sofa bed, pulled out and made up awaiting us. we went down to complain but were told - well it's a bed. having paid less than 100 for the room at this 4 star hotel in vancouver, i wasn't going to complain further. however, when we got home, i did post a review in trip advisor, warning frugal travellers they may be stuck with a pull out couch at this hotel. that's all, not even really a bad review. i received a trip adivsor notification a few months later, telling me i was lying and this wasn't possible and that i'm trying to give the hotel a bad name. obviously, i know i wasn't lying. and who the heck is this person harassing me? i can only assume it's some working at the hyatt... i mean, who else would care?

to make a long story short, i know that trip advisor offers some honest, some not so honest and some crazy reviews. you can't help but read them....

and so began our frenzy of indecision. choosing between two resorts for the wedding - both highly recommended by our agent. each review, both positive and negative would change our minds. what was wrong with us? we know the truth about trip advisor. and yet there we were, hooked on each sentence.

finally, we decided to step away and try some other searches. i searched through blogs and pics of previous weddings at both locations, while dave researched on google earth to really see the size of both the resort, and the beach. we spotted the 7 km stretch of beach at the riu negirl - since both resorts already looked beautiful, we stuck with our beach theme and chose the best beach location.

so, we locked in.

then came the biggest mistake. reading more trip advisor reviews...

in hopes of getting more excited, we got more paranoid. did we make the right decision? should we change to the other?  it's not to late... or is it? i have no idea why, since both resorts have similar positive and negative reviews.

having been on trip advisor so much recently i've noticed a trend. it seems visitors from the europe and canada generally leave reviews for the resorts than americans. i don't know why. perhaps it's higher expectations, or just that americans like to complain (sorry dad). regardless, a recent increase in great reviews,  while looking at actual visitor pictures has made us confident in our choice, and oh so excited.

and though i swear to not bother with these reviews any longer, i can't help but to keep checking back.