Coca-Cola

TripAdvisor is like Coca-Cola, the sensible South African woman at the other end of the phone told me.

This was the first time I had ever spoken to anybody intelligent or efficient at TripAdvisor, what a revelation! 

I had rung them to ask how to award myself a five-star rating; and to qualify for the 'romantic','family friendly', 'luxury' etc categories that line the top of their page.

The nice lady and I were chatting about how they measure the blob rankings, and she was explaining that it is down to a secret coding which nobody is privy to, just like the recipe for Coca Cola.  

Meanwhile, to get myself a five star rating, I have to contact Expedia, she told me.  And to get categorised, you need to have lots of the appropriate words quoted in your reviews.  TripAdvisor's computers look for these key words, so the more reviews you have, the more likely you are to get categorised.  So I'll give up on that one, with my mere two rooms then.

I contacted Expedia regarding the star ratings, and five days later they got back to me, predictably advising me to ask TripAdvisor about it. 

Meanwhile, Wydemeet continues to languish in the Number Four slot, and I'm not sure what else I can do, other than entreating an entire family of four to write individual reviews for me (providing they enjoy their stay, obviously) and see if that gives us the boost we need!  Or should I simply give in, acknowledging that there must be something in the Coca-Cola mix that we're never going overcome, and we'll never achieve that Number 1 slot.  Perhaps Number 2 might be better anyway.  I mean, look at One Direction!