To ask for stories about ruined friendships/relationships from holidays

[Spice22]

Just that really. My family is going to Florida with another family next week and I'm slightly nervous. It got me thinking what stories people have. Basically, I'm looking for some Sunday evening entertainment.

I went to Newcastle on a friends hen weekend. On the Saturday night we were on our way out when I realised that my shoes were going to be a problem so I told the bride to be's brothers partner could they wait whilst I nipped back to the room in the hotel to change
Now this woman... I'll call her Lynne was in my opinion not the nicest of people. I had never had a problem with her. I just didn't quite trust her but my friend is from a lovely family and it was her brothers long term partner so I never mentioned it to anyone. However she was the nearest to me out of the group so I told her.
I came down to find they had all gone so I had to leg it in hopefully the right direction to try and find them.
Thankfully I did and this woman proceeded to grab my arm bend it behind my back and screech how we should all stick together.
No one saw this and I was so shocked all I could utter was 'but I told you'
She replied 'I'm deaf in this ear you stupid bitch' whilst pointing at her ear.
It totally ruined my trip and all I felt I could say to the others was that she had had a little bit of a go at me!
Anyway she finally revealed her true colours when she walked out on her partner stealing a lot of money before she went.

When I was 18 I went on a girls holiday with three friends. We were two sets of best friends.

On the first evening we all got really drunk and my best friend took offense at something another one of the girls had said. I can't remember what it was.

The other two went out clubbing and I stayed back to calm my best friend down and said we'd join them later. My best friend was adamant that she was going home and nothing could calm her down. She packed and ordered a taxi to the airport. She went to the loo before she left. I thought she was taking quite a while so I knocked and went in (I didn't wait for a response, that was pretty normal for us) and she was on her hands and knees scrubbing the rim of the loo with one of the girls toothbrushes.

She went home and changed her mobile number. None of us have spoken to her from that day on. That was 12 years ago.

I went on holiday to Sri Lanka with someone I had only known 6 weeks. For 3 of those weeks he was away from home with work. We are now married

Me and DH went on holiday about 30 years ago with another couple, we had all just got married. We took their car so that meant we were completely beholden to where they wanted to go/do...except they didn't want to go anywhere or do anything. We were trapped in a holiday apartment with them all day long. She was permanently on a diet so wouldn't eat at normal meal times which meant I got stiffed with all the cooking (DH ironically does most of it now). She'd then start messing about making herself beans on toast when we'd all eaten and were ready to go out somewhere..cue more sitting about doing nothing.

We found a swimming pool with a spa attached and she agreed to go. I came into the sauna in my swim suit (I was pretty fit back then...alas, not now). She immediately started screeching at her husband for "looking at me".

It was utterly horrendous. On the way home their car started playing up. DH looked at it and diagnosed the problem immediately and said if we drove to a garage and picked up a part for about a fiver we could get home pronto. They totally ignored him and waited 4 hours for the AA to come. The AA guy said verbatim what DH had said. Never, ever again.

On that same girls holiday, one of the girls brought a bloke back to the hotel room and proceeded to try and have anal sex with him. It was quite funny at first but half hour of drunken talking about plugs and stretching was more than I could take. I knocked on next door (occupied by five young men) and asked to sleep in there. That was fine until one of the lads vomited cider and kebab everywhere just after I'd started dozing off to sleep. I went back to my room where my friend was engaged in regular missionary sex which, thankfully, only lasted about 10 minutes.

A couple of years ago we went on holiday with friends. We have kids and they don't. ( should have been huge red flag!!)
So it was me, Dh, dd(19) her boyfriend, dd(17) and ds 6.And our friends.
I picked the villa- Twas gorgeous! Real luxury job.
HOWEVER, friends are used to luxury hotel holidays where they never lift a finger not self catering ( even though it was luxurious!).
They left towels everywhere, left the a/c running in their room despite me saying they couldn't as owner included certain amount of a/c in rent but not excessive and we'd have to
Pay extra. She was constantly on her phone as was he so the rest of us struggled to to get online as the wifi wasn't fab.
They thought they were Michelin star chefs-they weren't. he cooked one night. Made spag Bol and put an ENTIRE bottle of red wine in it. Didn't find this out til after ds had eaten his. I was up all night with him vomitting and basically he was 'hungover' the next day:((

On the last day my family all got up at 7 to tidy up the villa, empty fridge/ bins etc. I had said the previous evening we needed to leave the villa clean and tidy. We had to vacate by 10am. They got up at 9.30 moaned there was no milk for breakfast and left their room with wet towels on the bed all the lights on and a/c running!
I dashed round hanging towels turning lights off and turning off a/c.
Needless to say our friendship hasn't been quite the same since!!

Shortly after I divorced my friends clubbed together to send me on a holiday to 'get over him' (it was a lovely but misguided idea - I was quite happy to be divorced, the marriage was a hell of a lot worse than I'd ever let on). It was a cheap and cheerful Costa Brava trip that I found out was 18-30s at the airport . I was 25.

They sent me with a friend (19) that I'd always got one with, had lots of fun with but didn't really 'know' IYSWIM.

It was Hell from the word Go. She shagged for England. I'm no prude and have had a fair share of ONS's but she did 16 blokes in 14 days - one by the side of the pool with God knows how many people watching. She didn't want to sunbathe, or go in the pool/to the beach/to town during the day. She would stay in bed all day then get herself ready to party at night, cop off within an hour or so and leave me to it, locking me out of 'our' room until the morning.

I actually managed to sleep in my own room twice - the rest of the time I was able to room hop with people that had taken pity on me, and a couple of times slept on a sunbed. Thankfully I was up for having fun so was able to drink and party with other groups.

To be fair I barely saw her, so she didn't exactly impact on my holiday, but I spent a fair bit of it alone hacked off with her.

When we got back she actually complained that I kept in touch with some of the people I'd met out there - apparently it was a 'what goes on on holiday stays on holiday' deal and I'd broken the rules by making friends and then staying friendly with them!

I had a good time in spite of her, but things were pretty strained between us from then on, luckily I moved on a few months later and never saw her again.

Haven't been away with friends for years, not since we were all very young, and those holidays were brilliant. I wouldn't do it with kids in tow as holidays are so different.

Some friends of ours go away with a big group of adults and kids have a lovely time but it sounds like my idea of hell.

I would NEVER go on holiday with friends as a family and these horror stories are the reason why.

DH and I had a friend (I met him at university) who we got on brilliantly with but only used to see about once a year as he had emigrated to another country. He invited us to come and stay with him and his new partner and we thought it would be lovely, a chance to spend some time with a good friend, get to know his partner and see the sights.

When we arrived he announced that his partner was a Christian and that, thanks to her, he had also "seen the light" and was really excited to talk to us about "letting God into our lives".

That was a long week.

Only once and never again!
About 18 years ago I had a lucky windfall and DH and I decided to take DS1 (almost 5) and DS2 ( 10 months) to Florida for Christmas. It was DS1's 5th birthday on Boxing Day and we thought it would be a fab, once in a lifetime opportunity. For some obscure reason, DH asked how did I feel about his lovely Grandparents coming too? Now, much as I loved them, they were pretty elderly and I didn't feel that a theme park based holiday would be OK for them; besides they had a nice relaxing cruise planned (but not yet booked). I told DH this, he agreed, end of conversation - or so I thought. No, he asked them to come and not wanting to disappoint him (they lived in Spain, us in UK, and they missed him), they said they would come. Dear Lord, it was just terrible from start to finish: their plane was delayed from Costa Blanca to Madrid so they missed their Florida connection. They got hopelessly lost on the freeway when they eventually arrived, drove round for hours until someone kindly led them to the rented villa. This was about 12 hours after they were supposed to arrive, we were frantic - managed to ascertain they'd landed, but that was all. We called the police - who came to take a statement just as they drove up. We'd woken up to find a tornado had missed the villa by 1/4 of a mile. The weather was unseasonably cold and we'd brought summer clothing - trip to the shops. It turned out that DH's grandfather had early stage Parkinson's and dementia which his GM had hidden from everyone. He had a catastrophic episode which ended up with him in hospital, poor man. DH ended up staying a week longer to support them while I flew home at the end of the holiday with the children. DS2 was poorly and I ended up with dreadful sinuses - there were loads of other little things, but it was truly sad and awful for everyone. To make matters worse, when they eventually arrived home, they had been burgled and also discovered they'd been mis-sold their holiday insurance and it didn't nearly cover almost a week in an American hospital.

Still, did you get to triumphantly say to your husband, I TOLD YOU IT WAS A BAD IDEA?

Fuck yes!!!

Wow
Who need Eastenders when all the drama is here? Haha

Aww lara thats such a sad story!

We went away with another couple who we'd met at evening classes. They had an old farmhouse which they were doing up. They'd exaggerated about how nice it was - it was a dump. Spent two days with them then went off camping as previously arranged. Weather had been nice/dry/sunny. First night camping it threw it down with rain. And didn't bloody well stop until we returned to base. Their ideas were totally at odds with ours. They liked to eat in every night and have a 'big blow out' on last evening in a posh restaurant. We preferred to go to little bistros each night. We remained on speaking terms but our friendship had definitely cooled off. We had nothing in common with them. Our experience was quite mild compared with others.

Looong term relationship. We'd talked of marriage. All great. We lived together. I'd booked a holiday for us in Italy, over valentines day. I proposed. I wasn't JUST turned down. He also confessed that despite stringing me along with talk of marriage and children he'd been seeing his best friends wife for YEARS.
He then wanted me to stick with him travelling for the last week, visiting his Italian family (as they'd be disappointed).
Yeah. That was pretty awful. The low point was that my confidence was screwed I stayed to Rome.

Oh god, went on holiday with friends and got SO FED UP of having to deal with their DC appalling behaviour while they just sat there and looked sheepish! I'm talking unprovoked violence to my (younger) DC, homophobic rants and damaging our stuff deliberately - not just being a bit annoying. They would occasionally manage to weakly say the child's name by way of a telling off. I was FUMING by the end of it.

It wasn't even the behaviour, I understand some DC are challenging, mine can be a handful too, but to just not do anything about it and leave it to us, that's what really pissed me off.

Friendship was over as I just couldn't look them in the eye any more, I was afraid I'd blow up at them.

However we've had many successful holidays with friends and still do it. It's great when you have a gaggle of kids and they all get on and run around in a group.

A friend of mine went to Paris for 5 days with her boyfriend, she saw it as a make or break last ditch attempt to save their relationship, he obviously thought more of it and proposed on day 2 at the top of the eifel tower. She said no and they had to spent the rest of the holiday getting on with things. Needless to say they didn't last much longer!!

Go away with friends (just us, no kids) once a year, usually four days just after the summer hols have ended. One year we invited another lady from the school who we'd recently got to know... literally from the minute we got there til when we left, she spent the entire time arguing with her husband on the phone. It made everyone's weekend awkward and miserable because we didn't want to leave her on her own, but she kept stalking off and sitting in random places arguing with him. It was so draining because if she wasn't on the phone to him, she was sulking or moaning about him. It was unbearable.

She doesn't speak to us much any more, claims to everyone else we 'left her on her own' the entire time we were away

Went away with a few friends on a city break a couple of years back. One friend was just suddenly so bossy and controlling and it was insufferable! At the airport she ordered someone to go and get her food! She had quite bad food allergies, which meant she thought nobody else in the kitchen (we were sharing a rented apartment) should have cheese or a load of other things there- it would have been more sensible for her to arrange her own. It's been..frosty..ever since!

Just back from a week with friends.
Worked well.
We know each other very well.
Children of similar ages late teens and twenties also like each other ( we have DS's they have DD's NO NOTHING LIKE THAT).
Done this many times.
Secrets of success:
One person overall in charge of food planning. Everyone takes it in turn to cook.
Lots of bathrooms.
Lots of activities, walking, cycling, beach etc depending on venue.
Had nightmares with going on holidays with my extended family, who like to sit around till 3pm and view our wanting to get out by midday as some kind of nasty alien affliction.

Oh cat I've had similar situation with a friend pre-kids. She didn't have allergies, but was really faddy and would go and see a nutritionist and decide on a strict new diet every few months. Of course she decided to do this right before several of us went away to a cottage for new year. She hogged the kitchen making her own special version of every meal and harrumphed if anyone else wanted to use it too (to cook for the rest of us!). SO annoying.

Went on a big house party, everyone pitched in to cook. After a few pa comments about me not pulling my weight (hadnt sat down or had a drink since we got there) I bit my lip and cracked on. When everything was cooking and everyone sat down to socialise I took dd up to shower and change. Kids were getting fed first. Came down to find kids had eaten, they'd forgotten dd. Ok she can sit with us. Much huffing and puffing as dynamic was changed. Was the same the next day with cracks about me being lazy (I'd got up early and started on breakfast). Never went again and was beginning of end of friendships.

Let's just say that if DH ever again invites his elderly mother to stay 'in a nice B&B' near our soggy campsite so that she can pop over to visit all day, EVERY BLOODY DAY for a week, there will be murder done.

Especially if she says 'No, no, don't mind me, I'm used to sitting on my own all day', and then takes umbrage when I bugger off to do urgent stuff elsewhere.