Ask what’s the worst holiday you’ve ever had?

[Alwaysonyonsn]

I’ve been lucky and never stayed somewhere terrible apart from one place.

No one at the front desk for half an hour. I called the number left and no one answered. Knocked on the office door (could hear people) and no one answered.

The room didn’t lock and they pretended not to understand. I had to carry any valuables with me whenever I left.

So true. We had an amazing 2 and a half weeks there in the middle of covid, was a nightmare trying to get out of the UK but once we made it, it was amazing. Just as beautiful as I remembered from childhood (a family friend had an apartment which we stayed in). We stayed well outside the main tourist areas (which were dead in 2020/21 anyway). Don't think I'd have coped with the following year without that break.

Tbh, I think with a lot of these, the common factor is going all-inclusive or on a package and not venturing outside the resort except for 'excursions'. The actual location is kind of irrelevant.

I'm glad people have said this about Lanzarote as if you explore the whole island there are so many beautiful things to see. Isla de la Graciosa off Orzola (tiny fishing village) is one of my favourites. I'd love to go back.

My worst time staying away was probably in Chester. I stayed in a B&B and the owner was over familiar. It was so cold I had to sleep in my clothes (which were wet as well as it had rained). My room had a weird window in the side that led into a garage. In the middle of the night someone tried to climb into the room and I ran out grabbing my bag off the chair. I left the key under the doormat and didn't go back. I had paid in cash. It was just a horrible place. I shouldn't have accepted the room seeing the weird window thing into the garage/laundry area but it was late and I was tired.

@maddiemookins16mum @Trustylion
I didn’t know the name but that must be it! There cannot be more than one motorway campus hotel!

Not the couple from Leicester you befriended @Trustylion !

La Graciosa and Orzola are both truly beautiful. We stayed in the north of the island in a small fishing village - it was not expensive at all and was very very beautiful and peaceful. All 'resorts' are basically shit, in the end.

@Wheredoallthepensgo

Yes you read right, electrocution (not fatal/serious). My son went to plug his phone into a socket in our apartment in Corfu and got an electric shock. There was part of a prong broken off another plug stuck in it which kept the charge live. Two days earlier we'd missed the flight because we went to Gatwick instead of Heathrow 😳then the day after that all our beach towels got nicked off the veranda, then electrocution day. Wondered what might happen next but the rest of the holiday was great!

I also wish to know this!

Had discounted Eurostar tickets one summer so went to Lille on a limb. Booked a hotel through the Eurostar site which said it was close to a metro station with easy access to the centre.
It was a complete sh*t hole with dirty handprints on the walls and very unsafe area around it. The kids were young so we left the tourist attractions early each day and returned to this awful hotel. We left two days early thankful we weren't attacked.

Hotel built without planning permission and was half a mile up an unfinished track - all the local taxi drivers refused to go there.

First room stank of damp so demanded a new room.

Worst bit was the pool filter was broken and they were guessing at chlorine levels so there was a dilute form of chlorine gas - the stuff used to kill soldiers in WW1 - coming off the pool! It left me with a wheezy laugh for YEARS (and I got the nickname Muttley at school)

Some great / awful ones here!

like a PP I have had a few that should have been bad but weren’t:

• Gambia mid-90s, hassled by the locals, food awful, hotel middle of nowhere. On the plus side, beautiful wildlife and I made friends with ‘Sammy’ the beach lifeguard, who took me round the local markets and cooked me & Mum a beach feast of foraged food. I was invited to his house, it was a room in a Favela with no electricity or water but immaculately clean. I gifted him my Walkman and felt bad that he was so happy about it.

• a cruise round Italy with DH, we had only been together 4 months, it pissed down and we were in a lower cabin where the waves broke against the window scarily! We were seasick a lot. On the plus side, together 22 years now and we joke we can weather anything.

• Devon camping, about 8 years ago. No idea why, when we’re odd-night campers, but I booked a whole week. It tipped down, the loos were flooded, nothing really walkable. Luckily I had just that trip upgraded our Argos 2-man tent to a massive Outwell, with a ‘living area’ and electric hookup. We spent 5 days in the pub and laughed ourselves silly, had the occasional fire when it stopped raining - where we were visited by Tarquin (I kid you not!) the boy from the tent next door, who was posh but charming, and gave his poor parents a bit of ‘them’ time. We have a lot of ‘in jokes’ from that trip.

oh happy memories! 😂

sorry to be so positive!

@ImperioMarch where was that (because obviously I’d love to book it 😭)

Gambia a few years ago. Weather was awful, there was nothing to do at the hotel, the food was awful. Booked a few trips out, bus showed up 2 hours late and took us to a cattle market full of poorly treaty animals.

The other trips got cancelled due to outbreaks of violence locally.
I’ve travelled all over the world, including other parts of Africa and mostly liked other places!

All these stories of wet dreary UK breaks aren’t really holidays though are they

Ooh now you've done it! 😂

Edinburgh. I was a young teenager. On the drive through we saw a poor person knocked down and killed by a double decker bus. It was just horrifying. I can still remember the rain on the back windows of the car looking out. I started my periods on that holiday and I think that whole hormonal melancholy just added to the bleakness I felt.

I still wonder about her now, how she had got up that morning, carefully dressed and gone about everyday life and then wham, it is all over in the blink of an eye.

I have been to Edinburgh since and absolutely loved it. I love the city now, one of my favourite places. The bleakness and sadness of that moment haunted me for a long time.

@SpacetoRoam I once saw someone killed in a similar way on the way to work. It is so sad to think of them leaving their house that morning as if it was just another ordinary day.

Dominican Republic in the 90's. Was truly awful. Accommodation was not as described, the second twin bed that was advertised was actually a lumpy sofa bed on the floor that was very uncomfortable. Hotel then lost all power and we had to move to a new hotel. Then the AC flooded our room, so we then had to move to a new room in this new hotel not to mention the cockerel outside our room that woke us up very early each day.

We were bothered all the time by sellers, they never left you alone. We went on a few excursions but they stopped at 3 or 4 shops on the way back to the hotel trying to get you to spend money, when all we wanted to do is get back to the hotel. Never again.

Never ever had a bad holiday.
However, I once went to New-York + Montreal + Quebec for 2,5 weeks and I remember vividly being super homesick and not enjoying it. I was comparing everything with home, in Europe, with actual history, culture and old stones.
It wasn't my first time in New-York and this time I got annoyed by it.
Montreal and Quebec were ok but a bit bland.

In hindsight, I was just in a bad mood, I would happily go back to those places to give them another chance.
Not New-York though, went back already, was better but I don't need to go again anytime soon, but at least we're at peace now, NYC and I.

My worst holiday was about 18 years ago, but it did have lots of lovely memories too!! It was just a bad time for all of us, for a couple of reasonssad]
It was a caravan holiday on a very small caravan site where all but 2/3 caravans were privately owned, in Cumbria on the edge of the Lake District National Park.
The Park was lovely, clean, quiet & staff couldn't do enough for you😍😍
But, it was a first holiday for MIL & SIL after FIL had died & me & exh thought it would be lovely for them to tag along on our hols with our 2 dds too, all they had to pay was the difference between a 4 berth & 6 berth caravan, as we were going anyway & contributions to food. We covered the cost of hiring a people carrier to fit us all in the same vehicle. It was also the first holiday with my youngest DD being diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes 2/3 months earlier🙁🙁 MIL stayed in bed until between 10.30am & 11am every day, making it hard to go out for a day trip as she needed breakfast & 2 cups of tea, even before she 😀washed & got dressed, which in effect led to us going to the local supermarket 15 minutes before closing at 6pm, to pick up food for tea as both her & SIL refused to decide on what they wanted to eat for our evening meal, it did get quicker as we had ingredients/food in already as leftovers from previous meals😀 MIL & SIL did nothing as far as tydying, cooking etc was concerned, not even making a cup of tea😡😡Plus as neither of them can drive, all the driving was left to me & ex husband along with paying for all the petrol costs🙁That being said, we would off done all the driving & paid for all petrol if they werent there, but as they wanted to go places that we wouldnt have gone to & just relaxed a bit more, the offer of petrol money would off been nice!! But the most major thing was that on the morning of departure from the caravan, the departure time was 10am, which we reminded both MIL & SIL about several times the day before, & while we were packing up the evening before for the 4 of us plus stuff that we could pack up for all of us, they just sat & watched & said they had nothing to pack😡😡 Then on the morning, MIL refused to get up early, so when she went toilet at 9.45am, we stripped her bed & she was most put out that she couldnt get back into bed!! She sat at the table waiting for a cup of tea, that I made SIL make much to SIL annoyance that she had to something on holiday while we were cleaning the caravan & looking after our DCs!!! Then half way into her cup of tea, we asked where their cases were, so we could load them into the car & they looked at us blankly & said we thought youd packed them last night!!Then I asked whod packed their cases to come on holiday & they said a friend had come & done all their washing, ironing & packing to come on holiday with us!!!! Before FIL died, hed done absolutely everything for them!!!
I was so glad to get home after the weeks holiday & so were they!!! We never went on holiday with them again!!!

Panama City- even in the better parts of the place you had to be accompanied by a guard with a machine gun! Very strange place, we visited during a cruise around South America.

@TwoMonthsOff Ibiza. Next resort over from San Antonio bay

@ShabbyNat I'm curious as to how old your MIL and SIL are?

MIL was 66 at the time & SIL was 44

I don't understand why Thomsons kept letting her book 😅

We were holidaying 3 or 4 times a year in the 80s and 90s, it was pretty hard to avoid booking with them when there were no alternatives (in terms of flight and/or accommodation availability for the places we wanted to go and anyway, few tour operators went to those places back then), and anyway, in between those 3 cases, we had some perfectly normal holidays booked through Thomson.

Tokyo. My husband was working there for a week and his company paid for me to go too. He had to work long hours and I planned to explore on my own whilst he was working. I usually love cities and have no trouble being on my own, but it was horribly unfriendly and unwelcoming. People just stared and it was awful. No-one smiled and I absolutely hated it. We were staying in a fancy hotel, and to use the pool you had to wear a horrible swimming cap and be checked for tattoos before entering. Everything was just so weird. I accidentally ventured into the Love Hotel District, and that was the only place where people showed even a glimmer of friendliness... maybe they thought I worked there!!! I found it culturally very cold in Japan and also very misogynistic... it wasn't for me!!

We arrived at a lovely gite complex in France and did the tour - lovely accommodation, nice games barn, lovely swimming pool etc. Made a cup of tea and biscuits and then dd went to play on the swing. 3 minutes later she fell off and broke her wrist in 2 places. The gite owner was pissed and kept saying she was fine. The noise she made will haunt me forever. Found the hospital and she was admitted to have it reset under GA. DH went back to gite to get supplies and he got lost. They shut all the doors at 10pm so told him not to bother coming back. I was crying and starving by this point but dd was fine after the op. They let us out after breakfast - though there was discussion that she might need to stay for 3-4 days.... Then it pissed it down for the rest of the week. We never did go in the pool. The place itself was lovely though and we had really nice neighbours who adopted cast ridden dd as an extra grandchild and played endless board games with her.