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Original poster

Weird people you meet on holiday.

329 replies

Diddumz · 02/08/2021 17:04

1988 - went to Majorca with my family. There was a woman who kept pretending she was drowning in the pool.

Have you met any oddballs on holiday?

OP posts:
DuckyMcDuck · 05/08/2021 18:24

Holiday in Ibiza in 1987, first holiday with DP.
On our second day, made the mistake of asking a 20-something girl who was in floods of tears, if she was ok. Turns out her boyfriend had got off with someone else on their second day of a 2 week holiday and she couldn't get a early flight home.

It was obviously awful for her, and she then developed an allergy of some sort so couldn't go out in the sun.
She latched into us wanting to sit next to us by the pool or beach fully dressed and come and eat with us every night. We did try and be nice but as she kept bursting into tears it wasn't easy. She used to sit in the hotel lobby and wait for us and we used to find different ways to sneak our way through.

Original poster
Diddumz · 05/08/2021 18:37

Oh, lord these are brilliant! Tellytubby impersonations!

OP posts:
Original poster
Diddumz · 05/08/2021 18:42

Remembered another one - 1983, family holiday to South Of France.

A loud lady from Canada strutted around the hotel restaurant in a mini dress. She was quite elderly and generously proportioned.

She kept saying hello to all the diners and introducing herself as "Aunty Needlepegs".

I have no idea of the inspiration for her self styled moniker, but she was a gracious soul.

OP posts:
DontDrinkDontSmokeWhatDoIDo · 05/08/2021 18:46

@illuyankas

For me, it's more weird to still remember something that happened 33 years ago and start the thread.

I can't imagine Mumsnet in general holds much interest for you, then, @illuyankas !!

froomeonthebroom · 05/08/2021 18:53

A bloke on the beach who asked to join in with DH and BIL who were leisurely chucking a rugby ball to each other. He did diving tackles and raced all over the place for about 10 minutes then went on his way. We discovered afterwards that during said tackles all the change had fallen out of his pockets.

itsgettingwierd · 05/08/2021 18:59

I was a holiday rep for years.

I met some very strange people on holiday (just I was working!)

The weirdest was a guy who tried to claim he needed some paperwork for insurance for very expensive electrical items after the roof blew off the hotel in a storm.

His room was ground floor ConfusedHmmGrin

FlorrieLindley · 05/08/2021 19:06

On a road trip in the USA, we checked into a motel somewhere in Nevada. The receptionist asked us where we were from and when I said: "Scotland", she replied: "Oh yeah, where the kangaroos come from, right?"
I didn't know what to say to that so kind of just stared for a moment.

On another road trip, this time we stopped off at a small town in Illinois and saw a tourist information office, so we went in to ask for recommendtions on where to stay that night. We followed their advice and directions and checked in to a motel, where the owner and his wife asked us to have a drink with them in their quarters, as they didn't get many overseas guests. The man had been a German prisoner-of-war in England during WW2. He was reminiscing about the POW camp and the food etc., then got very heated and said:\ "But they would not let us celebrate Hitler's birthday. I thought it was disgraceful we could not celebrate our Fuhrer's birth."

NotReallyTheVicar · 05/08/2021 19:15

On holiday and one evening quietly drinking a cup of coffee when a fellow guest with whom I had struck up a polite conversation began to tell me how bad coffee was for me. I countered that as I was drinking decaffeinated it was OK. “Not it’s not because they use chemicals to process it”. He then went on about the evils of modern food production. The best bit was when he told me that drinking paraffin could cure cancer and that medical professionals knew this but suppressed the knowledge so that they could make more money I made my excuses and left.

Longdistance · 05/08/2021 19:19

On our honeymoon in the Maldives, we met a couple who smoked like chimneys, I’ve enough to chat to etc. We got talking and they mentioned the time they ran out of money on holiday and couple helped them out. Me and dh 🏃‍♀️ 🏃‍♂️ 💨

dayswithaY · 05/08/2021 19:37

In the Caribbean when I was about 20, lots of American guests. One man of about 50 befriended me and BF, by that I mean he talked and we listened. He said he had been on death row in America for a wrongful conviction, just got let out, was active in civil rights etc. We just didn't believe him as he cornered every guest and loudly talked about "When I was on death row..."

He said he wanted to visit London but would probably only go to South London as the weather would be warmer there!

A word for warning for anyone making friends and swapping addresses on holiday. We made friends with an Australian couple - just drinking buddies. They then plagued us with early morning phone calls (due to time difference) for years. I remember taking 7am calls on a Saturday morning from them and not being able to get away. Then the reason became clear, they were visiting UK and could they stay with us for two weeks. When I told her that our first baby was due the week after their arrival they just said

"That's fine we won't need you to do anything as we'll be out all day".

I said no, sorry not happening. Never heard from them again.

Another time we met a nice couple on holiday but being wary thus time, DH gave them a fake address. A few months later he heard someone calling his name at his office - Mr Holiday Friend had just started working in his building and wondered why they hadn't heard back from us. Grin

FrenchBoule · 05/08/2021 19:37

The guy insisted he knew Einstein…Even in my tipsy state the years didn’t add up.

He wanted to join us for our meals out. We packed up quietly in the morning and left the campsite before he got up.

popcornfrenzy · 05/08/2021 19:53

Not so much weird people but over friendly and quite imposing. As a single parent I was feeling overwhelmed so when my DS went to stay with his dad for a week I booked an AI to Egypt (I'm a scuba diver).

Anyway a family decided that Egypt was no place for a single white woman to be on her own and tried to 'adopt' me - they accosted me at every point to join them for dinner and saved me a sun lounger next to them. I was too polite to tell them I just wanted to have time to myself and did the typical English silent rage thing. I was 32 at the time so not the naive young thing they thought I was - it was quite bizarre behaviour from them and I've always remembered it

HumbugWhale · 05/08/2021 19:54

Not weird exactly but dh and I have made holiday friends with 3 different people of 3 different nationalities who have all been huge Liverpol fans and have spent the time telling us all about every match they have ever attended. Strangely all 3.of them referred to "Liverpool football club" in full every time they mentioned it. Dh and I now also refer to Liverpool football club in full in any footie discussion!

PatsyJStone · 05/08/2021 20:14

A couple on honeymoon, been to Florida Disney doing stuff. She got a certificate saying she had a bad ankle so she could get a wheelchair, husband had to push her around in it. But they could jump queues and got a good viewing place for the parade apparently. Absolutely no need for a wheelchair on the second leg of the honeymoon, where we met them.

Cattenberg · 05/08/2021 20:32

Several years ago in Morocco, one of our fellow hotel guests was an English bloke who told us he’d never been abroad before, except to Benidorm. The staff in the hotel wore traditional Moroccan dress and we heard this bloke order drinks in the hotel restaurant by saying, “Eh, Eh, Bin Laden! Over ‘ere lad. Two Heinekens”.

Towards the end of his holiday, this bloke came down with food poisoning. He moaned about it and asked if anyone else was affected. Strangely, everyone else seemed to be fine.

travailtotravel · 05/08/2021 20:35

Only the chap next to me on the couch. Yup, I met DH on holiday!

girasol · 05/08/2021 20:35

Sadly not my own story, but my best friend’s parents used to have a place in Lanzarote and flew regularly between there and their home in Ireland. One one trip back there was a sizeable delay to the return flight so the passengers were given vouchers for an airport restaurant. They saw a fellow passenger put some of the chips from their meal in her bra and then duly fish them out to share with her family on their flight back.

ufucoffee · 05/08/2021 20:37

@Diddumz how would you know what a certain Mumsnetter looked like and why were they famous? Misses point of thread

Shedbuilder · 05/08/2021 20:44

@popcornfrenzy

Not so much weird people but over friendly and quite imposing. As a single parent I was feeling overwhelmed so when my DS went to stay with his dad for a week I booked an AI to Egypt (I'm a scuba diver).

Anyway a family decided that Egypt was no place for a single white woman to be on her own and tried to 'adopt' me - they accosted me at every point to join them for dinner and saved me a sun lounger next to them. I was too polite to tell them I just wanted to have time to myself and did the typical English silent rage thing. I was 32 at the time so not the naive young thing they thought I was - it was quite bizarre behaviour from them and I've always remembered it

Having been on holiday in Egypt and (even at the grand old age of 42) been pestered every time I left my room, I honestly think they were showing concern for you. Although I started out with your attitude the hassle was so bad (and I'm not at all lovely or glamorous) that I would have loved a kind family to take me under their wing and offer some protection. I'm sad that you thought it was bizarre.
MrsMidgeMaisel · 05/08/2021 20:47

Me and partner were on holiday, hotel had a lovely spa that we hadn't tried. We kept bumping into a particular couple who would make small talk and chit chat (usually in the evenings after a few drinks). One afternoon we bumped into them and they said they'd just come back from the spa. Said it was beautiful and they highly recommended the Turkish bath. Few days later me and partner decided to check it out, had a lovely time. Next time we see this couple - we say 'thanks for the recommendation, the spa is lovely etc' - they looked at us blankly and say 'there's a spa here?' So strange. To this day we can't fathom what had happened/ how they forgot it!

RiderGirl · 05/08/2021 20:48

Always remember my mum making friends with a middle aged couple once on holiday - they seemed nice enough, but had basically arrived at their Spanish hotel and gone straight out on the piss (this was before mobile phones/Internet), and gotten so drunk that they couldn't remember where their hotel was. This was in a large resort with hundreds of hotels, and they had basically been on the piss for about 4 days when my mum met them, with still no idea where they were staying!

ARabbitisaBunny · 05/08/2021 21:12

Twin sisters staying in our hotel. I would say they were in their sixties, dressed identically and finished each other’s sentences. We were having drink in the bar and they engaged us in conversation which was quite normal until they brought up the subject of Neil Diamond. It soon became apparent they they were completely obsessed and went into great detail about all aspects of his life and their passion for him. Then, one of them leaned forward, touched my knee and asked if I was also a fan. I replied that, while I quite liked his music, I wouldn’t describe myself as a fan. I don’t think they could have been more offended. They slammed down their drinks and swept out of the bar in disgust. The upside was they didn’t talk to us again for the rest of the week! Grin

TheChosenTwo · 05/08/2021 21:20

Years ago on a girls trip to Amsterdam we met this group of Dutch people in a pub, they were sitting at the table next to us.
One of the men took a fancy to my friend and decided to woo her by playing the dusty old piano. He made awkward intense eye contact with her the whole time, we sat and watched in awe for about 3 minutes as he plinky plonked his way through some Chopin (badly, plus the piano was also severely out of tune which didn’t help) and his friends were all watching on in admiration.
Embarrassingly my friend was at the time teaching piano to make some extra money and after the performance he came over to her and asked how it was Grin
She told him he was pretty good and gave him a couple of tips and he went nuts at her, one phrase he shouted out was “You know nothing, I am very handsome, you’re just a smelly kipper,” and we all fell about laughing Grin
Their group left shortly after this and we saw them again a few days later, my friend who had been the girl of his desires pointed him out and we ducked into a little shop to avoid them.
Even now, 10 years later, we address each other as kippers!!

GrrRightBackAtYou · 05/08/2021 21:31

@FluffyPersian that is so lovely Smile

MothaClucker · 05/08/2021 21:32

Not me, but a colleague.
Went on holiday (I forget where) with husband. It was early season, the hotel was very quiet. After supper, they went to the hotel bar, where the only other patrons were two other couples, both different nationalities. A few nods and 'cheers' signals were made, but no chatting as none spoke the others languages.
Well, the measures were generous, and after a couple of hours, my colleague and her husband found themselves standing in a circle with the other four guests, playing Invisible Pass the Basketball (bounce the ball, through the legs wahey! pass to one of the others).
For forty minutes.