Sometimes when you’re feeling down, like nothing in your sphere of influence is going just the way you’d prefer, it helps to read random local reviews on Google to boost the spirits.
If you think you’re miserable, ineffectual, fed up, there is no better balm than perusing the absolute, self-absorbed misery found on Google Reviews.
First of all, imagine what kind of person goes on Google to review a park, a dock, or a foot bridge in the first place. Do you think they’re happy with their life? Fulfilled in their endeavours?
If you answered yes, you may be a Google reviewer. But if you’ve spent any time reading these reviews (filtered by lowest score for maximum schadenfreude), you’ll know what I mean.
Someone who takes time out of their day to write a one-star review for an inanimate object doesn’t exactly exude self-actualization. But at least it provides some perspective for the rest of us.
On that note, here are just a few notable, one-star reviews of Whistler landmarks—keep them handy for a quick pick-me-up the next time you’re feeling down.
RAINBOW PARK
As with most of the amenity reviews we’re reviewing today, Whistler’s Rainbow Park has mostly favourable marks, with a near five-star average. But it’s not the positives we’re after in this exercise.
“This was my first experience swimming in a lake, and it was just OK. I guess I had a different image in my head,” writes one first-time lake swimmer in their one-star review of one of Whistler’s best parks, and what might be one of the very best lakes in all of Canada.
“Some grass areas were wet/muddy due to sprinklers, and most of the good sitting areas were already taken. The water is cold and just doesn’t look too clean—but maybe this is normal for lakes? I probably only stayed in the water for five minutes before I started wondering if I would catch something.”
Depending on when they were there, they might have caught a bout of swimmer’s itch, but other than that, rest assured—the quality of Whistler’s lakes is tough to beat.
Another one-star reviewer advises to avoid the park in winter.
“The car got bogged in the carpark and it took hours to move it. Currently still stranded there until further notice. We are safe,” they wrote. That was six years ago—no word on if the car is still stranded.
Either way, some people just can’t be satisfied…
WHISTLER OLYMPIC PLAZA
…like the tough-to-please reviewers who felt it necessary to weigh in on Whistler Olympic Plaza.
“Just a huge space that doesn’t really matter. Unless you want to see what is on the other side,” writes one connoisseur of public spaces (who clearly doesn’t understand the concept of event timing—or that “huge spaces” generally exist to be filled).
Another one-star reviewer seems to base their experience solely on the quality of nearby food.
“Great location and ambience,” they wrote, before looking forlornly down at their unsatisfied stomach, coming to a decision and clicking one star. “Food was average.”
But the price and quality of food is a recurring theme in Olympic Plaza reviews.
“I made a mistake by getting a pizza,” another one-star reviewer offers, regretfully. “I have to say it was truly horrible, the worst thing I ate.”
Vacation ruined. Wait until Google Reviews hears about this injustice.
BLUEBERRY DOCKS
Over at one of Whistler’s little hidden gems, the Blueberry Docks, a user had this insightful review to share: “Too many people, windy and stuff in the water. Wouldn’t recommend.”
Let it be known: if you can’t handle some people, a bit of wind, or unidentified “stuff” in the water, avoid the Blueberry Docks.
THE WHISTLER SLIDING CENTRE
Whistler’s Olympic legacies are some of the community’s best assets, entertaining guests and cultivating new Olympic superstars year in and year out. For the most part, they have great reviews on Google. Except from the guy who really could not get over a lapse in commentary on a single run at a live bobsled event.
“When the final run was happening the announcer stopped commenting on the run. I just think this is underwhelming for this event,” they wrote. “Why did this happen? There was no information on the final run or standings, the event was great but the commentary was very poor.”
The verdict? Despite this self-confessed great event, another one-star review. That’ll teach you to get your minor technical difficulties under control, hmm?
WHISTLER SKATE PARK
A user of Whistler’s excellent skate park liked the aesthetics, but found it “a little too cool for kids” in issuing their one-star review. “My seven- and 10-year-olds were ran off within five mins by what they said was a ‘dad,’” they wrote (this may actually be a positive review, depending on your outlook).
Another user somehow missed the many, many parking stalls in the direct vicinity of the skate park, leading to the very succinct one-star review of “no parking.”
On and on it goes, the entitlement and negativity unfurling endlessly from mildly unsatisfied or inconvenienced fingertips. Alpha Lake Park is “awful, water was murky and gross and saw leeches all over, found two on my paddleboard.” Not leeches! In a lake?
The playground at Meadow Park “sucks, don’t go here.”
And a large contingent of ill-prepared guests is apparently, at any given time, wandering aimlessly in the Cheakamus region, unable to find the Train Wreck, as evidenced by a number of one-star reviews saying variations of things like “couldn’t find it.”
One of the immutable facts of life is that it is sometimes hard—long and arduous, lined by disappointment at inopportune times. Sometimes you get stuck in a parking lot, or eat something you don’t like. Sometimes it’s windy. Sometimes you see a leech.
These things happen, and normal people know they’re not worth lashing out about.
To Whistler, I give a solid 4.9 stars—expensive, not perfect, but one of the very best places a human can find themselves in the entire world.
To the reviewers who think their tiny inconveniences are worth a damn beyond their own self-inflated egos, I give a taste of their own medicine: one star.
