Two hours in line for Madame Tussauds? I was aghast when I heard from my wife's sister, who was visiting us in Shanghai for the first time from Chongqing during the recent National Day holiday week, that she had spent so long just to get into this tacky wax museum.

Like many young travelers who fly to Shanghai for the holidays, her enthusiasm for what she perceived would be an exhilarating week in one of Asia's most historic and cosmopolitan megalopolises was rivaled only by her sheer disappointment in the realities of the touristy side of Shanghai.

Her exhausting visit, described below, exemplifies why Shanghai saw a shocking 24 percent decease in visitors to its tourist attractions this October compared with last year. During the 2014 Golden Week holiday, 1.75 million tourists marched through Yuyuan Garden and 2.5 million visitors overran the Bund, necessitating in police locking arms just to keep in the crowds.

Those scenes of chaos, along with news of surging hotel and restaurant prices in the city center, went viral on social media, giving potential tourists cause to reconsider visiting Shanghai this year and instead travel abroad. But for my wife's sister, who preferred to spend her holiday and hard-earned travel money domestically, Shanghai wasn't nearly the glamorous experience she thought it would be.

Day one of her four-day swoop through historic Puxi and cyber-city Pudong involved us simply showing her the shops lining Nanjing Road East Pedestrian Street, People's Square and the Bund. At night I took her to the "evening watching zoo," which is my pet name for expat bar street Yongkang Road. Note to local travel guides looking to enhance their itineraries: she and her friend had a blast marveling at all the leather pants-and-cravat doting drunken laowai.

Day two entailed a marathon journey through Yuyuan Garden, from which they didn't return until late due to shoulder-to-shoulder crowds. Day three included the aforementioned meltdown at the wax museum, which they failed to get into due to the thousands of people ahead of them. So they dashed over to Pudong for skyscrapers, shopping and selfies in front of the Oriental Pearl Tower. On their final day, they rose early and determinedly went back to Madame Tussauds - why, I don't know.

Shanghai has much to offer, but nearly all of its sites and attractions are either overrun or under-utilized during Golden Week. The biggest entertainment act in town that week, for example, was some international DJs sponsored by a Western beer company. Despite the best efforts of the expat media, the reality was reportedly a flaccid affair. Crappy beer and even crappier trance music are not enough anymore to entertain Shang-high-rollers.

There could have been more global entertainment on offer in the numerous stadiums across Shanghai, but there was not. Nor were there any promotions in English of the fireworks that went off on the eve of October 6. I didn't even know about this until I heard them from afar.

Back in August, Bloomberg forecasted that 4 million Chinese would set aside their political grudges to visit Japan this year, with the mainstay coming from Shanghai. They were right. Nearly half a million mainlanders flew over to Japan during Golden Week, splurging a reported $830 million at Japanese luxury retailers. Many shops had to impose spending limits, and long queues of Chinese were seen lining up in front of malls.

Yet, while other mainland places such as Beijing and Hainan saw an uptick in tourists and holiday spending, Shanghai seemed to be the only city to see a decrease, and no small one at that. Why? Because Shanghai's sites and sights are either always packed, lost in translation or missing in action.

For the majority of young Chinese travelers who come to Shanghai to get a taste of its legendary party scene, shopping streets and historical attractions, but only encounter crowds, congestion and clichés, this stagnating city is slouching toward boredom.