For you to tell me your worst holiday stories?

[pintsizedblondie]

Sat here feeling sorry for myself 5 days into a two week all inclusive to Mexico. My partner has slipped this morning on a wet floor due to heavy rainfall and has fractured his shoulder and is now in agony in a sling. We spent the morning in A&E, hotel manager very disingenuous and unsympathetic and now facing 9 days of probably quite an unenjoyable break. Am I being unreasonable to ask you to tell me your worst holiday stories to help cheer me up?!

I second the advice to ring your travel insurer - you may be able to get them to agree the cost of coming home early instead of staying out there and running up further treatment costs.

Not exactly a holiday, but a travel story. The best one I've heard that didn't involve illness, injury or personal danger.

A friend from university spent some time on a small atoll in the Indian Ocean with a population of about a dozen. He said it was beautiful but he struggled with the isolation.

When it was time to come home, he misread the timetable and missed the boat. The next boat was in three months!

He found out later that his family had looked into chartering a boat, but it was beyond their budget (and before the days of gofundme).

He was stuck there for another three months with nothing to do. To start with he busied himself with photography, but then dropped his camera into the water, so didn't even have that.

By the time the next boat came, he had lost three stone. His father didn't recognise him at the airport.

A: if you're reading this: hi, and sorry for stealing your story, but you have to admit that it's a good one.

I can think of one but it's nowhere near as bad as your experience.

We were on an accompanied cycling/camping trip to the south of France. All fine and dandy, but the 'leader' lost his temper with one of the punters because of what he considered to be their excess luggage which caused ill-feeling. Quite apart from that he was so full of himself he very rarely stopped talking. Now, I've a very long fuse but even I wanted to strangle him.

Some of these are awful! Puts me off holidays all together!

Sorry you're having a rubbish time, I hope the pain subsides quickly so that you can enjoy some of your holiday. In the meantime could he relax on a sunlounger while you have a day in the pool?

My worst holiday was a girly holiday aged 18 with some "friends" who turned out to be absolute bitches. I spent the entire 2 weeks being bullied relentlessly, endless "practical jokes" like locking me out of the chalet, all getting up early for a day out and leaving me alone with no keys, spiking my drinks, hiding my clothes, I spent a lot of that holiday in tears. I kick myself for not just going home but 18 year old me was not at all confident to stand up for myself.

@anitagreen by dc also got a vomiting but from butlins but luckily it was in the last day . On the day we went home dc was sick in bed so I soaked the sheets in the bath and told maintenance when we left . I felt bad for housekeeping .

My DP and 2 DS went to Mauritius - DP is rarely ill and even if ill it's even rarer for him to complain. But he start saying he had a sore throat, it was so bad he couldn't eat, then couldn't drink. Went to nurse, then doc, then ended up in the local hospital 35 miles away from me and 2 DCs on a drip. He had a problem with his salivary glands. He spent 8 night of our 2 week holiday in hospital, me and DCs went to see him every day - but it was an 70 mile round trip. I tried to do things with the DCs around visits and the hotel were amazing about it. He literally took a taxi from hospital, to airport where we met up, got home and went straight back into hospital in the UK! I loved Mauritius - but am scared to go back (unreasonable I know!)

About a year after I passed my driving test, I decided to drive to visit a friend who living in Kent. I was working in Northumberland at the time so it was a fair distance. Another friend came with me. That's the good bit.

About halfway there was got a message to say that the person we were going to see has collapsed and was hospital but it wasn't thought to be serious. Kept going, getting updates as we drove.

By the time we arrived, she had gotten worse and was headed to ICU with a severe brain infection. Nothing we could do and we weren't allowed on the ward to see her.

We had nowhere to stay at this point because we'd been meant to stay with her. Her creepy brother insisted we stayed with him and took my phone off me after I said no and was trying to find a local hotel to stay in. (I did know creepy brother and had since we were both little so he wasn't a total stranger, just fucking creepy and he still is to this day)

He then tried to insist on driving my car back to the house but I refused, got my phone back and friend and I wandered away to figure out what to do. The only local hotel that was open wanted £££ for a room so we decided to make the best of a bad situation and accepted creepy brother's offer. Gave him a lift back to his house which turned out to be some sort of prefab that was bitterly cold inside. We spent the night huddled together on a mattress on the floor under a thin quilt, both out costs and the towels we'd brought with us. We'd had nothing to eat since the stop where we'd first got the news 7 or 8 hours earlier but he didn't even offer.

I don't think either of us slept a wink and as soon as it got to a reasonable time we chucked everything in the car and found a local McDonald's for some warmth and food! We ended up coming home the same day because there was literally nothing we could do.

Horrible experience.

Ours was a skiing holiday a couple of years ago. There had been a significant snowfall about a month before, but little since, so the snow was patchy and really icy. We're not very confident skiers anyway and the right of other guests coming back bandaged up the first night didn't help our confidence.

DD then got ill with a horrible viral bronchial infection that turned into croup, we then found out that 90% of the hotel staff were ill with either this or a vomiting bug and that an entire staff floor of the hotel was in quarantine.
DH then got the viral bug and DS and I the vomiting one.

Luckily everyone was too ill to ski much so we didn't get injured, but when we were ready to start again the ski schools wouldn't have either DS or DD back as they were too far behind the others......

We haven't skied again, although we got a significant amount back from travel company, who should have closed the hotel with the amount of staff sickeness they had.

Went to a hotel in The Gambia. Apparently newly refurbished! When we got there, our room was literally covered in dust, even on the bedding. There were wires hanging loose from where electrical sockets should have been, when my OH tried to open the balcony window, it fell off it's runners and smashed onto the floor. In the corridor outside, were literally dozens of locals, supposedly building workers, but were just smoking and drinking. We heard a loud bang and looked outside to see our new "neighbours" in the next room picking up their room door which had fallen off its hinges. And this was Thomson 5 star hotel!! Needless to say, the Thomson rep was useless, couldn't move us and just promised to get the room sorted out, so we had a succession of local builders for the rest of the day trying to sort out the problems and then a cleaner came in to dust it down. Next day, OH tripped on a threadbare carpet on the stairs. There's more, but it was basically a nightmare. We actually got a full refund from Thomson after taking them to court!

Went to Malta with a friend. She turned into a complete cow - recently told me she doesn't go abroad because foreigners are all dangerous , which explains it in hindsight - and it was non-stop for the whole week. Firstly she had forgotten her shampoo and conditioner so used mine, which "made her hair all limp!". It turned out she hadn't bought enough clothes and needed to borrow some shorts. Immediately I was told her bum looked "much better than yours does in them" complete with showing me in car wing-mirrors! She got really grumpy and said she needed pot, which I managed to source from a local. He hung around (i'm not that kind of smoker but I assume he was hoping to have a bit or a thank you from her after I paid him) and she turned on him and called him a pervert! She then found 2 guys from London to chat to and flirt with for the last 2 days who were competitively telling us about stab wounds and how many guns they had held . It was possibly the most depressing week of my life and I vowed never ever to go away with her again. Probably unsurprisingly we don't speak any more!

Not as bad as some of these, but first holiday abroad didn't know I had to tell the bank so they blocked my card, I was left with no money, luckily my dad managed to sort it for me.

Second time abroad, I remembered to tell my bank, but had my small purse with all my change stollen from the hotel and had my bank card copied.

Some of these stories really do put me off ever going anywhere! It's nothing compared to some of these but my dp got sick on a trip to Spain, either a viral bug or food poisoning but it was one of 'both end' types. Couldn't eat for the whole holiday and I was completely paranoid about picking it up before flying home so barely went near him. I have huge anxiety surrounding sickness and tummy issues and my worst nightmare is being stuck in a queue/bus/plane where you can't quickly access a toilet. Luckily I didn't get it.

A male friend of mine went on a stag doo abroad where all the lads just got wasted at the airport and were throwing up all over the plane. Would be awful to be another passenger on that flight!

I had saved for a long time to trek the Inca Trail and go for a week to The Galápagos Islands which were amazing but sadly had serious altitude and then sea sickness.

Haha! shell Island Wales - before DC came along. So the day before holiday our car was broken into. This meant a courtesy - ended up with a tiny ford KA.
Noticed our lovely cat was missing but had to set off for holiday, notified local vets etc and set off feeling very flimsy missing cat, cat trauma. Arrived to beautiful weather and pitched our tent on a cliff top. That evening a huge storm happened - ripped the tent clean in half! Me and 6ft 3 Dh had to sleep in tiny courtesy car.
The cat turned up though and is still with us to this day!

Went to the Italian Lakes

Meet and Greet parking at the Uk airport, the guy was new and was an hour late getting to us

Spent ages at the car rental desk in Italy waiting for the slowest man in the world to rent his car

DH misjudged a gap and cracked the wing mirror on the car

Went to the local town the next day and a truck ploughed into the back of us. We were all ok but they insisted on taking DS to hospital to check him out - I didn't have any ID on me so had to convince them DS was a UK citizen so didn't get a huge bill - rusty faltering Italian using google translate- DH had to go back to the airport to pick up another car

One of the souvenirs we bought broke in the case on the way home

It rained the entire time

Oh and 4 months after we got back DH got an Italian speeding fine through the post after tripping a camera (5kms/hr over) trying to get back to me and DS at the hospital

We came home for a rest

@polpotnoodle Anaxos. I think it made it worse that every other resort we drove to looked so much better!
I've never been back but to be fair it is a lovely island. It was just an unfortunate collection of events.

When I was about 19 I went to Ibiza with my then boyfriend and his friends, including his best friend and best friends girlfriend.

They were a little odd, the group was very insular and I always felt like an outsider but I was dead keen on the boy so put up with it. Silly teenage me!

Four days in to a fortnights holiday I caught my boyfriend and his best friends girlfriend in the shower together.

Naturally lost my shit and everyone turned on me! It was the strangest thing ever, no anger towards the cheating pair just me for being a "drama queen"🙄

Anyway, I couldn't face another ten days with these people so I made a very tearful phone call to my Dad who organised an earlier flight home and a different hotel for the two nights before I could leave. It must have cost him a fortune.

Did get some revenge though, my parents were doing the pick up from the airport to get us all home after the holiday. Obviously this didn't happen and I got a frantic phone call from the now ex boyfriend and his fucking weird friends who were stuck at Gatwick at 11pm with no lift home.

Told him to get fucked, hung up and cried for about a month.

Compared to some of these it doesn't seem so bad, at least I wasn't hospitalised!

We went to Yorkshire in December with a 9 week old and a 21 month old to a ‘luxury’ barn conversion. The fact that the heating was included was the thing that attracted me. Pre internet days I didn’t realise that the heating had to be restarted every hour and the button was downstairs. It was wet and freezing and everything was closed, the only thing we could find to do to entertain the toddler was the local fish farm as we hadn’t taken enough toys although we did buy some extras in Settle.
The bathrooms, although lovely had marble floors which turned into ice rinks when slightly wet. The number of times the toddler slipped and fell was horrific, fortunately she’s a tough kid.
Never again, it was Eurocamp in France for our holidays for the next 15 years.

Went to Malta last Feb. Arrived late Saturday night. Contracted food poisoning on the Sunday, admitted to hospital on the Wednesday, then discharged directly to the airport on the Saturday. The hospital was amazing but I can't believe how ill I was (fab for weight loss though) .

I got Malaria in Lombok.
A couple of days in a Catholic hospital being nursed by nuns was surreal, but fixed me, and weirdly, the extra time spent there meant we very luckily missed the Bali bomb of 2002 which we would have been caught up in.
However it also meant I overstayed my visa and had to pay a bribe fine to be able to leave.

We had a terrible holiday. when my kids were little. My mum had just died suddenly a few weeks before and we really shouldn't have gone as I was in a state. It was a caravan holiday with 4 children under nine in Devon. We had torrential rain the first few days and my nine year old ds1 slipped I the clubhouse on a wet floor and a bolt that was sticking out of an open door went through his shin where there was hardly any flesh and he had to have it stitched and heavily bandaged meaning no beach or swimming and one of us had to stay in the caravan with him for days whilst the other tried to entertain the 3 others on their own. The kids all got head lice, rain was leaking through the caravan skylight and it was just generally miserable. I begged my dh for us to come home early which we eventually did.

Holiday I went on as a favour as colleague had no other single friends to go with.

To set the scene. Her DH had left her after a short marriage. She was devastated. No kids. He was wealthy as was his family. Out of guilt, he bought her a £250,000 flat outright and gave her another £50,000. This was in the early 90s so a shitload of money.

His family had a luxurious apartment near Marbella and she suggested we go there for a week, obviously for free. She and her DH had spent happy times there. I said bad idea as it may be painful for her but she insisted. I had already had a holiday and didn’t really want another but felt sorry for her. I was single and paying a mortgage, she was minted - see above.

From the moment we got there she was a monumental fucking bitch. Sulking, silent treatment, tantrumming like a toddler, picking arguments over the most minor stuff and being abusive. Making it very clear it wasn’t me she wanted there with her. It was a bloody miserable week for me and I ended up taking my book down to the pool every day just to get away from her.

To top it all, when we got back I discovered that her STBXDH had paid for her flights and given her spending money. I thought the least she could have done in the circs was to offer me half my flight costs seeing as the holiday had cost her nothing. I changed jobs soon after and strangely enough, didn’t keep in contact with her.

Eastbourne caravaning 1991. We’d been there an hour when my Nan fell and broke her hip- she spent 2 weeks in Eastbourne hospital and was introduced to marijuana by the locals in the smoking room (she was 70!)
Oh and my mum got attacked by a lunatic swan.

When I was a child we went abroad and my parents got drunk. We were out and about in the evening. As my brother and I wandered away from them, two local men approached us and tried to persuade us to go with them to see their friends. One was drunk and put his hand around my shoulder. I was about 12.

Initially we agreed, not knowing how to say no. As I began to realise they were leading us into the darkness, and further away from any other people, I suddenly refused to go further and we ran away. As we ran away we heard them say "fucking hell they're with their parents" so I guess they weren't local after all.

I absolutely shudder when I think about that holiday and what their intentions obviously were. So yeah, worst holiday ever! Our parents were devastated too. Took me years to realise the significance of it.