Ever been on holiday where you couldn't wait to come home

[GardeningQuestionTime]

OK I'm in the sun and it's February...but I'm stuck on an where nothing to do except snorkel and its too windy.

The hotel needs serious updating, there are cocks crowing all night, the breakfast was minimal. The advertised beach is lovely but literally a beach. My alternative plan of lying on the beach reading are scuppered by no umbrella or lounger.

The hire car is a worryingly battered piece of shit.

I'm being churlish but there's a long 5 days stretching out in front of me.

Honestly some stories of shit holidays would help!

Yes Agadir, Morocco 2016.

German hotel, windy as fk, very cool, worst 14 days of my life.

Back home hottest weeks on record.

I'm sorry OP at least its just a few days...

Many years ago we had a cheap holiday in a static caravan on a large site. We soon discovered, the power was on a meter we had to feed with pound coins at regular intervals, the mattresses were wrapped in thick plastic to stop them getting dirty, and finally there was a nasty smell

it didn’t seem to be based around the toilet unit, there was nothing in the caravan to explain it so I went looking under the caravan

at the back of the caravan there was an earth bank, and at it’s base I found a small brown puddle. I looked closer and saw something pink amongst the brown. It was a few inches long and soft looking. Then I understood, it was a used tampon and our caravan was over a sewage leak!

we have never left anywhere so fast

Bulgaria about 20 years ago, we all got the shits from the buffet, not surprising as some of the food was covered in flies! My dad had to have the Dr see him in the hotel room as he was so unwell.

Caravan holiday in rainy Dorset with an ex boyfriend who I no longer wanted to be with. I was young and didn’t have the courage to finish with him before we went as things were booked and paid for. He then slipped a disk and spent several days sleeping in the one bed which was also the seating area while I read books sitting on the floor at the other end. Couldn’t wait to get home and finish with him. I’ve had some less than perfect holidays since but doing it with someone you want to be with makes it seem not so bad.

I found Egypt to be a shit heap....

Caravan holiday in Oct while I had an awful bug. I was so unwell all I wanted to do was come home. Rained for the full time we were away and was so expensive for everything. And to cap it all, I got my period halfway through while swimming. 😕

Two weeks on holiday with my now ex-BIL after my sister had left him and had declined to come on the holiday.

By the end of two weeks, I wanted to divorce him too and he wasn't even my husband.

Cape Verde for a week.

We were incredibly bored by day 3 and I was fantasising about being back at home. There just wasn't anything there, I like to do lots of sightseeing and excursions.

It's our fault for booking somewhere that so obviously wouldn't be our cup of tea.

A camping holiday in Ireland when I was a teen. It was wet and freezing. Malaga, on the other hand, even in rain would be a delight. The Pompidou museum, the Picasso museum and the enormous fish and vegetable market, for starters.

I didn't even get to go on my worst holiday. My now ex-boyfriend rang me up and said his mother wanted to go instead of me. So he told me I couldn't go anymore and took her!!!

Dominican Republic and Egypt. We booked early flights home.

Bulgaria in 2010. We'd just graduated, were about to start new jobs and I had unexpectedly won a prize at university of £500 which was given at graduation. My now DH and I went into a travel agent and asked them to book us somewhere in that budget leaving tomorrow. We ended up in Sunny Beach. We had barely left Glasgow airport when the captain of the plane had to threaten to turn back if people didn't stop fighting/ smoking in the toilets. That set the tone for the holiday. The hotel was basic, pool was OK but it was mainly big groups of letchy lads holiday boys there and I felt uncomfortable swimming in front of them. We ended up doing every excursion on offer including the day it poured with rain and we still all trekked up a hill to look at a small muddy cave, and a supposed fishing trip where no one caught anything, most of the passengers got seasick and inexplicably couldn't just puke over the side and kept aiming (badly) for bins etc on the boat.
My DH then managed to get heatstroke on the one really sunny day. I've never been so glad to come home!

Family holiday booked by my parents at a time share type hotel next to a busy highway. In the smallest room despite being three of us (dh, non sleeping toddler, i was pregnant) aircon didn't work, super hot in room and sister prowling round complaining that non sleeping toddler was sleeping even less due to aforementioned heat. Couldn't open window because of deafening highway. Toddler then got croup and slept even less. Everyone tired and grumpy. Covid restrictions meant there were like 5 sun loungers for the whole hotel which you could only use for an hour, and most of the pool was in shade anyway - sunny areas were next to the bastarding highway. Such a fucking relief to fly back.

😂

Oh yeah, and the holiday where I found out just before i left for the airport that my recent ex had been cheating on me for a while and had basically shacked up with her as soon as I'd left. It was a ski trip but everybody was at a different level from me, so I spent a few days sobbing alone on chair lifts and then flew home early to 'fuck the pain away' with inappropriate but big dicked rebound guy 😆

Yes, 1 week in Turkey at a Holiday Village. Couldn't use the buffet as kids were snottering all over it and my 13 yo 'awkward teenager' DS refused to take part in any activities and looked miserable most of the time.

Holiday cost a lot as there were tons of facilities for kids and older kids clubs, e g discos, archery, basketball etc, and we ended up not taking part in anything due to DS and had to eat out for every meal as the snotty buffet was a health hazard. Was bored, too hot and couldn't wait to come home!

A week's touring/sightseeing followed by a week at an AI resort. Time of year supposed to be pleasant weather - dry season, hot but not unbearably so.

It rained heavily for the whole of the first week, pretty much all day every day. Roads washed away, landslips, deep mud everywhere (Buddhist temples where you have to go barefoot,) several planned activities impossible due to dangerous conditions, couldn't see a thing from the best viewpoint etc.

The second week was VERY hot and humid, and I dont cope well with high humidity. Hardly any umbrellas for the sun loungers so I had to get up at 6 every morning and still often couldn't get one. No air conditioning in the public rooms, only the bedrooms, so I spent most of the week in the bedroom, crying.

Other people who have been to the same destination say it was their best holiday ever.

we are the only people here tonight, we met the owner at check in and a woman cooked us breakfast this morning ….there is no one t9 ask.

the upside is there is no karaoke singing of fucking off to church. @Aposterhasnoname you made me feel grateful!

Fiji. Took one year old DS there on our first OS holiday with a child.

The 'resort' we booked into failed to tell us they were more of a transit hotel for people heading to the islands, and apart from a pool had zero amenities. They also didn't tell us they were pile driving supports for a new hotel a few metres from our room, starting the day we arrived, so the entire building was vibrating from the thump, thump all day. Add to that, the driver we hired via the hotel ripped us off. We asked to go to a famous lookout and he took us to a road side covered in rubbish and refused to acknowledge that it wasn't the right spot.

Second one was last year: The Gold Coast (QLD) Went for a week as we couldn't go too far. Half way through a friend called me when on my morning esplanade walk, at 6am (it really is gorgeous at that time) and commenced to do an emotional, crying, dump onto me. Then announced they were coming up as her husband had booked but not realised we were there. I managed to keep it to one meal, where I quizzed her husband and discovered she'd booked before we'd even left. I don't really speak to her now. It ruined my holiday.

13 hour flight with a toddler and an infant. The toddler brought norovirus on the plane which we found out about 3 hours in. She covered an air hostess, another passenger, herself and my husband in sick outside the toilet. DH arrived at our destination in airline PJs without his clothes as they were in chemical waste disposal. We then all got norovirus one by one and barely left the hotel room on our trip. Infant almost had to go to the hospital in a non English speaking country as he was so sick. We regretted that one from the moment the sickness started on the plane 🤦‍♀️.

Essaouira Morocco.
I feel down the tiniest step and cracked my tibia.
Couldn't leave the hotel room, so 5 days of mooching about with one crutch while DH went to the port daily to watch the comings and goings of the glue sniffers

All that time in Bentota, not surprised you were fed up, but there are supermarkets and plenty of eating places, maybe give it a miss if you go back to Sri Lanka......

Two weeks in a caravan in Blackpool when I was 11 or 12. My mum's then-boyfriend got in my face and called me a cunt as I didn't want to babysit (again), so they broke up halfway through the holiday.
Awkward doesn't really cover it.

Am laughing at some of the awful experiences here and reminiscing about mine (listed above). It’s galling to spend money and take time off work to end up feeling you’d have been better off at home decorating the spare room. Social media really does sell us a fantasy about holidays.

I am really looking forward to our first big holiday in years (covid, illness, new puppies but no available dog sitters until now etc) but this thread has reminded me to not build it up in my head before I get there this time. If family life is stressful at home it will not necessarily be less so when away. It’s the same people, after all.

And, of course, we’ve tried to be a bit more pragmatic this time and chose a location/resort that allows a broad choice of activity/site seeing/eating options… and space for teens to sulk alone without it upsetting me and HD.

Last summer in France, Dordogne, so bloody stinking hot and no aircon in the gite.. I spent much of nearly every day indoors with the fan on. There was a big pool but unlike the Gdcs I didn’t want to spend nearly all day in it.

Once in Greece, when there were unexpectedly several days of rain* in the first half of September. But we weren’t on a package so could change flights and go home a few days early.

*they did need it, so in one way were were happy for them.