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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To consider cancelling Spanish holiday for fear of a terror attack

110 replies

MiMiMaguire · 03/06/2017 23:34

Due to travel to Spain for 2 weeks soon with DH and DD... Am really terrified of a terrorist attack at a tourist spot/beach , really feel like not going (at the loss of over 2k) and staying put where I feel safer..my DH wouldn't feel the same I really am afraid. Really hope there are no fatalaties in London tonight, Hope everyone is ok.

OP posts:
Brittbugs80 · 04/06/2017 08:20

We've just come back from Spain and we are going to London in August.

You can't let them control you through fear. You're more likely to be killed in a car crash on the way to the Airport than by a terror attack. I have Anxiety. Crippling anxiety and I have to train myself to read and remember statistics and learn really hard how to keep realistic.

I understand your fear though but having lived a life of fear, I refuse to anymore.

HoldBackTheRain · 04/06/2017 08:34

Caroldecker don't be fucking rude.

firsttimemum15 · 04/06/2017 08:36

Caroldecker i found your c9mment unneccesary. People are, understandabky scared but its ok to have an opposing view too.

OP i feel the same. I dont want to travel or go anywhere. I actively avoide places that i think are "higher risk"
.

HoldBackTheRain · 04/06/2017 08:37

I think it's safer in the Middle East right now than the UK

It really, really isn't Sad

Mulberry72 · 04/06/2017 08:40

We're due to fly to Spain in a few weeks for our holidays.

Not a chance we will cancel.

specialsubject · 04/06/2017 08:46

Be grateful you don't live in Kabul. Or any of the other places where this is a frequent thing, there is no decent healthcare and no one in the west cares.

PoppyFleur · 04/06/2017 08:47

Go on holiday OP and enjoy it, create memories with your child and celebrate life whilst we have it. I completely understand your fear but statistically we are living in one of the safest times in history.

MoominFlaps · 04/06/2017 08:47

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Shockers · 04/06/2017 08:49

Last year, on the way home from a French holiday, we had a 2 hour wait at Calais. There were 5 men (20s and 30s) in the car parallel to us. I watched them pace around, check their phones repeatedly, hardly speak to one another, take selfies with the ferry in the background. They looked a bit wired.

By the time it came to board, I was close to a panick attack. I had emptied large water bottles and put them in my Beach bag, with a pashmina, and I had worked out how best to tie them to DD's body if we were to end up in the water. I saw the port police circling the rows of cars and was convinced that the car next to us was being watched.

Fear is so powerful. I felt daft afterwards, but for those few hours I was utterly terrified.

That's not making terrorism 'about you', it's reacting to fear.

The thing is, this is why terrorists do these things... to drive fear into the minds of ordinary people... to stop them living with joy.

What you're feeling is a natural fear response, OP, but you have to be better than the terrorists, or they've beaten you. Be strong, go on holiday and live with joy.

Oblomov17 · 04/06/2017 08:51

No one has got where you are coming from, because no one has agreed with you. All are saying YABU.

I'll take your holiday if you don't want it!!

BarbarianMum · 04/06/2017 08:58

What happens if you don't go on this holiday, or the next one, and you avoid days out and trips into town and festivals and concerts and celebrations and something happens to you/her anyway?

^^I don't know if this will help but its what i tell myself whenever I'm anxious about doing stuff with the kids. I don't want to leave them/lose them without having made the most of our lives (and especially theirs if they turn out to be short ).

MargotLovedTom1 · 04/06/2017 09:10

Thinking logically, what would be the pay off for attacking a random Spanish resort? There isn't one, or at least not one worth the risks involved.

What was the pay off for attacking a random Tunisian resort? The pay off is having people worried sick about where an attack may happen next. Random examples: Christmas market in Germany; pop concert in Manchester; holiday resort in France; bridges in London; rock concert in Paris; a beach in Tunisia. I could go on.

You can harangue the OP until you're blue in the face about the statistics and relative risks, but none of the hundreds (if not thousands) of people caught up in attacks in recent years expected it to happen to them either. It's hardly surprising that members of the public are worried, especially when there are children to consider too. Measured reassurance and discussion is good; labelling people attention seeking, melodramatic drama queens isn't going to help.

BusterGonad · 04/06/2017 09:23

I think not going on your holiday is a slippery slope, you aren't any more likely to be attacked on holiday in Spain, in fact I'd think less likely BUT I'm no expert. I wouldn't cancel, I was in Turkey at the airport 3 weeks after the airport shooting, I was also in Istanbul on news years day morning. People work in the center of London everyday. Sometimes you've got to get on with living otherwise you'd end up living a half life.

PookieDo · 04/06/2017 09:28

I am really struggling right now with my 12yo child due to go on a school trip for 5 days to Rome. I honestly would rather lose the money so I get how you feel

TheBogQueen · 04/06/2017 09:31

No one is getting between me and my holiday.

OhtoblazeswithElvira · 04/06/2017 09:32

Imagine an Italian parent whose child is due to go to London on a school trip... A Spanish tourist wondering whether to cancel their holiday to the UK...

What would you say to them OP?

carjacker1985 · 04/06/2017 09:34

I work in London Bridge. I have to go back there tomorrow, I don't have a choice.

It's understandable to be worried, but this could happen anywhere. Unless you're ever going to leave your house ever again, it would be a shame to waste the trip.

Ceto · 04/06/2017 09:45

OP, have you stopped your child travelling on the roads? Because of course the risk there is much greater. If not, can you explain why?

OnGoldenPond · 04/06/2017 09:45

Spain is safer than the UK, the terror attacks on tourists were in Islamic countries. I can't honestly think of any recent terror attacks in Spain.

Go and enjoy your holiday.

MargotLovedTom1 · 04/06/2017 09:49

Nice is a tourist resort and France isn't an Islamic country. The Berlin Christmas market is a tourist attraction and Germany isn't an Islamic country.

Shockers · 04/06/2017 09:52

DS2 was supposed to be travelling to Paris, with school, the weekend following the attacks there. I felt immense relief when the trip was postponed. I would have made the trip with him, but I didn't want him there without me.

Irrational fear maybe, but that's the impact terror attacks are designed to have on society.

PookieDo · 04/06/2017 09:56

I can't go with my DD to Rome. Yeah I would feel the same as a parent with a child travelling to the UK!

OnGoldenPond · 04/06/2017 09:56

The French attacks were not on beaches, not specifically against tourists.

Read some of previous attacks, Spain is safer than U.K., hasn't had a terrorist attack for years.

OnGoldenPond · 04/06/2017 09:57

Read some of previous posts, not attacks

Hoppinggreen · 04/06/2017 10:00

We were in Spain when the Manchester attack happened ( DH works there) and I was actually very glad we were as I felt much safer - probably just perception but I did.
We weren't in a major tourist resort though

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