Setting off on holiday-please tell me your journey disasters!

[EllebellyBeeblebrox]

The plan was to leave early (for us, which means about 8). After multiple disasters this morning including an escaped guinea pig, an unexpectedly knocked out tooth pissing blood everywhere and having to turn back ten minutes up the road because we'd forgotten Henry (small smelly blue elephant belonging to dd) we are finally on the road. I hardly dare tell dh that at 34weeks pregnant I'm likely to need a wee in about 5 minutes (that is if ds doesn't need one first). Aargh!!!

QOD I was also abroad with ash cloud!

Around 1982, family holiday to visit friends in Germany - would have been Easter of October as we only ever went at those times. I was about 6. French customs officers were striking. Lorry drivers were getting iffy. Ferries got blockaded by lorry drivers. We were at Dover on the docks waiting for a ferry. Ended up there overnight, all the food and drinks ran out at small shop, Mum and Dad never bought snacks on journeys (Dad didn't allow eating in the car) so we had no food of drinks, the toilets - well less said the better. I slept in the boot. Mum made us terrified of the lorry drivers!!

Before I was born my parents had 2 children and went on holiday to Romania (1973). It was the days of having children on the parents passports. DF had eldest child and DM had both DCs on hers. Coming back they arrived at passport control in Romania and the controller took the passports and counted 3 children (one on DF & 2 and DMs) several hours of explaining then took place to convince passport control that parents had NOT sold one of their children in Romania and there was ONLY 2 children!!

A minor one, but it felt so bad at the time.

A friend's mother lives in Spain so I often give her and her son a lift to or from the airport.

So friend and son have an early morning flight, I text to say I'm picking them up but going through the 24h McDonalds drive through ans do they want anything.

So I get to the drive through and place my order, they ask me to repeat it and then tell me I am TOO EARLY for breakfast.

I phoned friend back to see if she want anything from the day menu. She says no but by this time someone has gone through from the place you give orders to the window so I can't get out.

I know it's really trivial but at 5.00am being deprived of McD breakfast was a huge thing.

There’s a reason we aren’t going away this year.......some of these stories are awful.

About 18 years ago....We were just packing the afternoon before our flight. My dm came round and started flicking through the passports (laughing at our photos). She said "where is dgd's passport?" To which I reply, "oh she doesn't have one, she's on mine". A bit of a debate ensues where I'm telling my dm she must need new specs etc...only then it dawns on me that I renewed my passport the year before they hadn't put her on it (it was when kids started needing their own).
Mad panic, call main passport office, made appt for 9am and FIL drove DH and Dd on a 180 mile round trip to get it sorted whilst I took our car and DS to the airport. They literally got dropped at departures as they were about to close check in.

I’ve currently got a broken knee and go on holiday in 34 days ... waiting for fracture clinic to make sure I can still go (UK luckily)

Flew to LA- get to hire car place at 10pm, it’s a shit show and don’t get our car until 2am. We all cried. Kids were frightening and exhausted. How DH drove to San Diego? It was so bad.

Driving back to the airport in SFO, sat nav stops working, we get lost, run out of petrol and very nearly miss the flight home. Both very very stressful.

We were taking the kids on a last family holiday, the kids lived at home but were adults. DS was 23 at the time and exceptionally accident prone.

I'd banned him from football or any other practice that may result in broken bones etc for 6 weeks prior to flying. This worked well, until 2 days before we were due to fly he appeared in the lounge one morning looking worried.

"Er Mum. I dislocated my thumb. In my sleep"

He had as well. Could have cried. A&E fitted a cast as I explained we flew long haul in 2 days. An appointment was made for the following day in fracture clinic where thank God the case was replaced with a brace.

Still had to spend half the holiday in a brace but still not as bad as it could have been. He has form though, he dislocated the other thumb the morning of his GCSE Maths exam.

Dh was also abroad during the ash cloud, with three colleagues. They eventually managed to get booked on the Eurostar, but it was two bookings of two tickets each, all in the names of just two of them - the ones who had been trying to make the bookings, so Dh travelled home under a female colleague's name! Luckily there is nowhere in the Eurostar check in and security process where they look at both your ticket and your passport together, and he was able to check in using the automatic gates, so it was never spotted and he got home eventually.

He also had a difficult journey when the Beast from the East hit - he was working down in London that week - we live near Paisley - so whilst I was completely snowed in with the dogs and the cat, and nothing moving in or out of our street or our end of the estate (due to 9 foot drifts between the hedges), he was in a hotel, able to get to work and being fed three course meals each night and full English every morning! However, his flight home on the Friday night was cancelled, and the trains weren't getting further north than Carlisle, so he had to stay in London. On the Saturday, he decided to get the train to Carlisle and booked our local taxi firm to collect him, so he could finally get home - £160 taxi fare!!