Thinking about Meadowhall, what's the longest time you've been stranded somewhere?

[chomalungma]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50341846

Overnight in a shopping centre?

I spent 3 days in Pittsburgh airport many years ago because of snow. Apparently is was the North American Blizzard of 2003. The only food we could get was from the restaurants. Couldn't leave the airport at all and the hotels were all full near us. The person I was with was not my cup of tea either.

But I am sure other people can easily beat that.

Hi OP - I'm surprised this is unanswered as I bet there are some fab stories out there. I was stuck in hospital for a three day induction that did not work with one of my children, if that counts?

5 hours on the motorway in total gridlock on Christmas Day because of a crash.

People got out of their cars in the end and one woman went round with a cake tin of Mince pies. Surprisingly good spirits, it was like a strange cocktail party in a car park.

Went on a boat trip to an island once. Hadn't really looked into it/ thought it through and just turned up to the boat (fit about 10 people on - old motor boat, not a luxury yacht or anything). After a 45 minute trip the boat dropped us on a tiny island with some ruins and nothing else. We had nothing with us- no food or drink and we'd rushed straight out of the holiday cottage with just a coffee that morning as we're always late (although there were no toilets so maybe that was a good thing). We had envisaged a touristy trip with at least a cafe or gift shop. Longest 3 hours ever waiting for the boat to return.

Not that long really but this was northern UK in April and cold!

It'd be stuck on a motorway in a traffic jam if have thought. Think longest I've had that is about 3-4 hours. Had airport delays but think longest was about 4 hours.
Got stuck in a lift once - was probably only about half an hour but felt like forever!

3 hours in an out of town shopping centre car park one cold Winter's day. I'd been at a meeting when there was a bomb scare in the centre and we were evacuated (actually, we weren't because we were in a meeting room two floors underground and didn't hear the alarms and no one thought to alert us, another attendee went up into the centre to get something and found it deserted).

The person who'd driven a few of us there left her bag in the meeting room when we got out and wasn't allowed back in to collect it so we were stuck.

My husband spent 12 hours on the M40 once, much of it spent stationary. He'd volunteered to drive a colleague to a Heathrow hotel for a flight the following day and the drive there turned out to be on a day with very heavy snowfall. He sent me a photo of a large snowman which had been built in the outside lane.
As it happened, the colleague's flight was cancelled and he didn't get away until three days later.

On holiday in West Coast USA and waiting in the boarding lounge to get on the plane home to the UK via NYC, watching TV. We saw the planes hit the towers.
We were stuck for another week, due to the circumstances it was utterly miserable. Though I'm very grateful that I made it home alive when so many heading to New York that day, did not.

About 36 hours on a bus in the middle of nowhere somewhere in France. We had a very very basic petrol station nearby (about 30 minute walk) other than that there was just fields. We had to wait for someone to drive apart for the bus from Germany. I was on a school ski trip but we only had half the bus the other half was an adult ski group. We all developed some sort of cabin fever andnim sure my claustrophobia started from sleeping in the space under the seats on the bus.

I was almost stranded in Spain once having managed to throw our return tickets away during our holiday. This was in the days of actual paper tickets that were sent to you. The airport charged 18 euros and wrote out manual tickets though so crisis averted.

28 hours in Prague airport, it sucked!

5 hours on a road in Israel when the bridge got washed away

About 7 hours in chambery airport when all flights were grounded due to snow. If anyone knows the airport, it’s tiny. It was standing room only, no,space to sit down even on the floor.

Had small kids with us so me and a friend gate crashed the Mark Warner lounge even though we hadn’t been on holiday with them. But less cramped and toys for the kids. Some Mark Warner rep was suspicious and quizzed me about where we’d stayed but luckily I knew where the MW chalet was in val d’isere so totally blagged it. 😁

It took me 13 hours on a train to get from Manchester to London once due to snow. We kept moving one station and then stopping for half an hour. I was in the smoking carriage (which tells you how long ago this was!) and we had a whip round at each stop to go to the off licence. The entire carriage was absolutely hammered by the time we got to London about 2am. I stayed friends with a couple of people from that journey for nearly 5 years before we drifted apart.

About 12 hours overnight in a station in Paris, after interailing. Exhausted, out of money, desperate to get home- we were running ahead of strikes to be sure we made it home before our tickets ran out. Then the station closed for a few hours overnight and threw us all out. I sat on the pavement outside, with my trusty sharp knife in my hand just in case, dozing.

I've never been so glad to get home.

@EstherMumsnet I had a choice between a probable 3 day induction or a c section. I went for the c section

Our town was cut off for 5 days a few years ago due to extreme weather conditions. No electricity, no mobile signal. In March. That was fun!

23 hours on the Isle of Man ferry.

It was a bloody nightmare.

10 hours in Johannesburg airport while they grounded the flight to Malawi due to unpaid tax.
A day in a mountain hut in Switzerland - couldn’t set off for the next one due to bad weather. Played card games and drank rose wine!

6 hours on a local dual carriageway due to snow was pretty grim.

Also not quite a stranded story but I once got a sleeper bus in India for an 18 hour trip. My bus broke down just before departure so they moved me to another one, but the only space was in a shared sleeper cabin with a random girl from Germany. To imagine the size, it was the width of a small double bed and without enough height to fully sit up. I quite enjoyed them when I was on my own but it was a very long journey in such a small space with a stranger. She kept whining. I had a flight to catch otherwise I definitely would have bailed.

Forgot one - 8 hours in Amsterdam airport as our plane had emergency landed and the fire service wouldn’t let anyone near it

24 hours in the ardeche valley on a canoe trip, that should have taken 8. I think I was about 11 at the time. We found a handy beach to sleep on. I hated every minute of that trip.
Even when we went past a nudist camp where a 4ather large German chap, pink and naked rowed past on a yellow dinghy. We also saw a lady who had extremely sunburnt boobs.
I'm nearly 50 and I find it depressing that I can remember that but not a lot else of my childhood

I was stuck in an airport lounge for 16 hours.
Made worse by the fact the airline brought us to different meetings all over the airport about every 30minutes from 5am until 9pm assuring all the passengers they’d let us know at the next meeting where we were boarding.
We finally got told at 9pm we could start to board the plane and were then left on the runway for about 2 hours waiting for the airport to let us take off as we were an unscheduled flight by that point.

Once we got on the plane they issued everyone a letter dated 3 days earlier apologising for the delay saying that original plane had broken parts and we had to wait for the plane we were on to be free.
So they knew when they were booking us in at 5am we wouldn’t even have a plane until 9pm that night but kept us on pins all day.
It would’ve been so much better had they just said you don’t have to board until 9pm entertain yourselves.

Oh and three days in Cuba waiting for a part for the plane.

About 5 hours on a train that had broken down honestly about ten metres from the platform. They couldn’t move the train either way and we were just out of the ‘safe’ distance from the platform so they couldn’t just open the doors and allow us to get off. It was July, about 28 degrees and I had a terrible cold. All the electricity was off and everybody was getting a bit delusional by the end of it. Train staff weren’t great either - someone went in search of a bottle of water from first class for a pregnant lady who felt very faint and they refused as she wasn’t a first class passenger! A man actually smashed the emergency window in the end and jumped off.

We once got stranded in Florida for three days when our flights were cancelled, it was brilliant we made zero effort to find new flights we had a similar thing in Vegas with overbooked flights, I worked as a travel agent and it was known that if you checked in late for a Vegas flight home then they'd often book you on to the next days flight and give you a free return ticket somewhere of your choice. Loved that job

Oh yes. I was stuck on a train for hours after it hit a herd of cows. What a lovely noise that made as they ripped the pipes from under the train to leave us with no heating and unable to move.