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.

I’m so sorry Hoolihan

I hope your father and sister were able to fight it. Such an awful disease 🥹

How many days were you in Sicily for?

We used to have a VW Campervan, when DS1 was a toddler, we decided to do a tour Belgium, Germany Switzerland Etc. 2 days in we visited some good friends in Germany and stayed overnight. Our friends were going away the next day for a week. We drove off and stopped on a lovely campsite by the Rhine, it was sunny there was a swimming pool etc.
DH discovered that he had left our passports and travellers cheques at our friends house, and we knew that we couldn't move as we were short of cash, no passports (this was years and years ago) and needed the petrol in the campervan to drive back to our friends.
It rained solidly for the week and we were trapped in the van with a grizzly toddler. Every time we went for a walk he got muddy, we got wet and muddy. We couldn't afford to pay for the on site launderette.
After the week we drove back to our friends washed our clothes, dried out and returned to the UK.
I never felt the same about that campervan after that!

Tunisia. Hotel and food (all inclusive) was actually nice but weather (May half term) was really cold and very windy so beach and pool not enjoyable. We were told by the rep not to venture outside the hotel grounds as visitors got a lot of hassle - we did a couple of times thinking it would be OK - had been to Morocco a couple of years earlier which we found manageable as the hassle was quite friendly - but in Tunisia it was quite hostile. Plus although the hotel was nice it was very European and most of the staff were English so no sense of experiencing another country/culture.

The main reason it was shit though was because my husband and I had had an absolutely massive row the morning we left. Tensions had been brewing for a while as we'd suffered multiple miscarriages/failed fertility treatments over the last few years and our marriage was pretty much on the brink. Divorce was mentioned. Then it was time to go off and catch the plane, hey ho. So a very miserable week during which I tried to make the best of things for our son whilst husband snapped and glowered at me.

At the time our son (who was later diagnosed with ASD and ADHD) was obsessed with trains. Opposite the hotel entrance was a level crossing. We spent a lot of time there with him each day waiting for and watching trains go past, in stony silence and with miserable faces. One day the security guard from the hotel came out and told us to stop doing it or he would have to call the police as he was concerned that we looked as if we were planning to commit mass suicide. So that was fun. (Spoiler, things got much better once we got home, we are still together and happy; it feels like that holiday was experienced by someone else!)

We've had other holidays where crap/disastrous things happened - missed flights, stolen property, electrocution, bad weather but we always managed to make the best of it and see the funny side. Tunisia though ... that was a really bad holiday because we were in a "bad place" rather than being in a bad place!

A beautiful cottage with a gorgeous garden in a lovely quiet village in Scotland. No air - only midges. Solid black walls of midges. We couldn't use the garden. We couldn't open the windows. We had to drive for over an hour to get to anywhere where there weren't midges. We plastered ourselves in all manner of repellants - they worked for DH and DS but the smell of them gave me a week-long migraine and the fuckers bit me anyway. I had bites so inflamed that they flashed red and white in time with my pulse. I barely slept because of the itching. I can normally distract myself from most things by picking up my camera, but on the second day a midge somehow got inside my shiny new DSLR and died in there, and every single photo I took all week had a massive dead midge in the corner (and I had to pay £££ to have it taken apart and serviced when we got home to get rid of the bloody thing). We had a blissful midge-free day day on Mull looking at the Balamory houses, but the rest of the week was just misery and itching. Such a shame because the area was absolutely stunning and we'd wanted to go there for years.

We went in 2010 and it was bloody awful!! Really tacky and noisy, and I just didn't feel safe. We had 3yr old blonde haired, blue eyed dd with us and the locals were giving her waaaay too much attention. I literally had her clamped to my side.

Luckily the hotel was amazing so we only ventured out twice.

I'd never to back.....

Cornwall.
Went camping with dc, had recently split with dp. Site was very windy so just about had a breakdown trying to pitch tent while kids did nothing to help (random man - thank you so much for helping!). Everything cost a fortune. Kids wanted to eat at the site restaurant all the time, we all hated the entertainment, had to drive to the town/beach and pay £8 parking. Dc2 decided she hated sand. Tent half collapsed one night in the wind so kids were scared. Pitch was next to main road and had lorries from 5am. We left after a week cos I couldn't bear staying for the 2nd week.

Hastings Haven

OH 'surprised' me with it one year. I didn't want to go but he'd spent an absolute fortune and couldn't get a refund.

It was extremely expensive, it rained nonstop, all the leisure activities were booked up (Oh didn't have the foresight to actually organise anything), the caravan and the site were extremely grim and neither of us drove at the time so trying to go anywhere offsite was a nightmare. Ds (1 at the time) hated it too and wouldn't settle.

Oh and to top it off I actually lived in that area for several years so it didn't feel like a holiday. It would also be the last place I would choose for a holiday!

We nearly ended up divorced. Not even joking.

Wild camping at an oasis in the Mexican desert. Idyllic at first. Then the sandstorm hit and raged all night.

Corsica. 25 years ago. Stayed in very expensive accommodation, private houses and hotels. Beautiful island fantastic wildlife but the people were awful. They resent tourism and it was obvious wherever we went, bullet holes in every road sign so you struggled to find your way about and the food was dismal. One house we stayed in the couple refused to speak to me because I didn't speak Italian or French, the wife told me this in fluent English !

Tunisia. It was over 30 years ago and my first holiday. I got food poisoning and the hotel called the doctor out to me. A fat, bald guy called turned up to my room to see me and introduced himself as the doctor.

He gave me this rather thick looking old fashioned glass thermometer to take my temperature. I was about to pop it in to my mouth and he was horrified and gestured towards my bum region.

I remember being equality horrified that I had to put that up my arse. He offered to do it for me but I said no. I pretended to do it as I remember being scared in case he hadn't cleaned it. He seemed satisfied that my temp was normal.

He also put the thermometer back into its case and whether or not he cleaned it later I don't know. But what I do know is that was not going up my bum. I was then charged 20 dinars for the privilege.

I spent the rest of the holiday shitting through the eye of a needle and having the worst tummy cramps ever.

Nothing worse than being sick abroad.

Weekend in Lisbon with two female friends, celebrating a 50th birthday. I detested it! but I do love Lisbon and have been many times. It was just the company. Thank God it was only a couple of days.

Rainbow beach Australia. The house we had was absolutely freezing, there were sandflies everywhere, the local businesses all smelt like backpacker BO. The real locals were the worst part, real old fashioned sexist men 🤢

Went to Seville over half term and discovered I'd lost my passport as just as I was about to go through security and it was 5.00pm Friday night.
Mass panic about what to do which ended in DH taking DD home on the scheduled flight and me staying so I could get emergency docs.
Travelled to Malaga to pick up docs after applying on line which I then picked up Monday morning.
Once I calmed down I had an amazing weekend, doing exactly what I wanted, when I wanted, eat what I wanted, do what I wanted - it was great!
My DH on the other hand thinks differently especially as I had the car keys in my coat pocket as he found out when he got to the airport carpark 😬

Dominican Republic at a supposedly 5* adults only hotel. I got food poisoning the second day there and vomited for the next 4 days. By day 5 I was ready to lie beside the pool only to discover women appeared to be ‘renting’ males 😳 We saw the same guy with 4 different women over 2 days (all over them in the pool, coming out of rooms). We discovered these were Sanky Pankies, male sex workers. Issues with the food included deep fried chicken which was pink in the middle, flies covering luke warm dishes on the buffet and in the a la carte restaurants and the worst was a fish at the poolside bbq being cut open and a load of flies flew out of it. I’ll be forever grateful to the cabin crew on the flight back who gave me 2 extra meals.

Honeymoon in a small Scottish town with XH. I was very young. Hotel was freezing, dusty and had soft toys everywhere. He was meant to be paying for the hotel, meals, etc (his idea as I’d covered other wedding expenses). He told me after the wedding that he had no money available (I hadn’t heard of financial abuse before we got married, he gave me lots of other examples of it while we were together.) So we ate at crap pubs, and had shop bought sandwiches, dodging the hotel manager who kept asking if we would be dining there. XH disappeared off to watch football at the pub the afternoon after we got married, leaving me miserable (I felt physically ill with anxiety over the money situation) and trying to stay warm in the room while I watched Dumbo on the TV which only had 5 stations and only three that weren’t fuzzy. Neither of us drove and his idea of nice walks was following the main road. We ended up leaving early after just a couple of days. The marriage only lasted 18 months which was much longer than I should have put up with his abuse.

All of them. Because, no matter how much I try, the cost of the bastards just keeps reminding me that I need to relax, everyone needs to be happy, we need to make every moment count, memories must be made… if something goes wrong then the guilt of having spent all that money then inflates me like a big blimp of misery. I’m a fucking nightmare.

OMG.. some (most) of these posts.. I'm staying home..

First ever holiday with DH in 1977 was two weeks in a B&B in Cornwall. Believe it or not I had never been in any kind of hotel before. This was grim and they threw you out between breakfast and dinner. It rained 24/7 for the whole 14 days.

Kefalonia 1981. Lovely island and enjoyed the holiday but the accommodation was awful.
We had a "studio" above a post office. You could barely turn round and every morning seemingly at dawn there were hoardes of local women stood outside yelling at each other.

Croatia 1982
This was when it was in Yugoslavia and still a communist state. It was poor and the people were rude and unpleasant everywhere. The locals all wore the same outfits like a uniform. Shops with bare shelves. The staff at the hotel were like prison guards. A waitress in the restaurant shouted at me in Serbo Croat for some transgression until I was in tears.

and Tony from Hollyoaks holding court by the pool every day

This made me laugh out loud

Every single family I know who has been to 5* resort in Dom Rep has ended up with food poisoning. Some even had to be hospitalised.

Spain with a colleague (both mid 20s). Booked fairly last minute because we wanted a relaxing week away after working long hours on a big project- the plan was a bit of sight seeing, nice food and a bit of sun bathing. When we arrived our room was in an annex of the hotel about half a mile up an unlit dirt track. Friend left me alone or with random leery blokes every evening whilst she was getting off with someone- except for one evening where she disappeared with one of them for a couple of days only returning when he went home and she decided she needed me to help her find somewhere to get the morning after pill. Then spent the final day of our holiday texting him all day and refusing to go anywhere as she was too tired from partying. To add to the joy, some of the friends of her bloke were vile to me- including giving me a list of reasons that they would not shag me and I could not come back their place with friend (the fact that I had absolutely no desire to do either had escaped them). Friend had a long term boyfriend at home so I had really not expected this. I spent most of the week chatting to 'ladies of a certain age' around the pool who clearly felt sorry for me and sight seeing alone. If I'd wanted a solo holiday I'd have chosen a very different resort!

I remember going to the canaries once when I was a teenager and there was an infestation of huge flying cockroaches. I remember it was impossible to open our balcony door else they'd get in and we could literally hear one scratching at the glass 😅 It was so grim. There was one that got in the bathroom and one in the living room and I remember we slept with a huge towel in front of our door to stop the cockroach getting in! The one in the bathroom took so long to die after we used insect spray on it. It had super strength. They were just sooo big. Bleugh. The hotel and tour rep were bloody useless and did nothing...

Every childhood holiday because my father was an abusive dick no matter what country we were in.

As an adult, Paris. Our hotel was in a slum and it dampened the mood for the whole trip.

Multiple shitty holidays mainly due to the pressure I put on myself to plan all the activities and make sure everyone has a good time and cope with moody withdrawn teenagers and unhelpful stroppy husband. This year was particularly bad. I'm taking myself off to a yoga holiday alone next year. It makes me very sad that family holidays have become so tense and fraught especially after the effort I've put in over the years. Going away with friends hasn't worked that well either so I've decided to just go it alone. 😔