What is the worst holiday you have had?

[TwinklyFawn]

I will start. In 2023 i went to the haven caravan park in Berwick. I stupidly forgot to pack a shower mat and i slipped while getting out of the shower. Anyway i had to phone an ambulance as i could not put any weight on my right leg. At the hospital the doctor asked me to stand up. I could put a bit of weight on my leg but i fell again when i tried to walk. My knee just gave way. I still shudder when i think about this holiday.

Brussels, about 15 years ago. We got a taxi from the station and when he heard our destination the taxi driver said ‘I’m very sorry to be dropping you here. Be careful.’

We got to our hotel and the name of the hotel looked like it had been painted on the door with tippex.

We got to reception and the receptionist was checking that all couples staying in the same room were married. Luckily we were.

We left the hotel for a walk and there was blood on the pavements and we were followed through the streets. I felt so unsafe and cried with relief when we found an open cafe.

We heard gunshots overnight and saw a fight through our hotel room window. We didn’t leave the hotel again until it was time to leave (luckily only 3 days).

We would go down for breakfast, which was horrible, eat as much as we could stomach and then go back to the room. Luckily there was a tv and the World Cup was on.

When we came to leave, we got to the station a little early and waited in a park. There was a group of men there harassing all the single woman.

Fast forward a few years and we discovered it was where the terrorist cell that carried out the Bataclan attack in Paris came from. It didn’t surprise me at all.

@SecretWitch

Camping with friends and their seventh month old baby in Maine near the Canadian border. It started to rain just as we pulled into our campsite. The men set up the tents while we tried to make a campfire for cooking. The rain increased in intensity and the fire was a no go. We ended up dining on crackers, cheese and sausage. Everyone was exhausted after our 7 hour car journey to get there so we just bedded down early and hoped the storm would pass
Awoken during the night to frantic shouting and cries of "wake up and get out!".. stepped onto the tent floor that was floating. We were in the midst of a flash flood. The Rangers told us to abandon camp and leave immediately.,
We drove three hours before finding a hotel to crash at. We used all our money on the hotel and all we had to eat were bits and bobs we found in the car. Fortunately my friend was nursing so the baby was taken care of.
We drove the rest of the way home in damp clothes, utterly starving. I came down with strep throat the following day.
I've never been camping since and have no plans to sleep in a tent ever again.

That sounds truly and utterly horrific. I shuddered reading this

And they call us uptight Poms!
Doesn't go on holiday but is going to NY. Oh no, sorry, that's as a traveller, not a tourist, so that's OK.
Apparently nobody outside of Aus/NZ knows where Tasmania is.
(I think all caravans are breathing a collective sigh of relief).

A damp holiday cottage in Wales with another couple. We were in a room at the back, which was actually dug into the hillside, with small windows at floor level. We agreed we'd swap rooms half way through but this never happened - we've never seen them again.

Omg, that’s horrendous. Did anyone catch the irresponsible snowboarder?

That sounds dreadful.

I must be incredibly lucky because I can truthfully say I've never had a bad holiday. I've had a few scrapes during holidays, though they've never spoilt the overall experience. eg:

• some sort of horrendous gut upset in Libya (during the Gadaffi years) - we were on one of those adventure-type breaks where you all pile into a rickety minibus and tool around the desert. I was shitting blood for 48 hours. As we were in the backside of nowhere somewhere in the Ubari sand sea, there was nothing for it but to take Immodium and hope. (You know you're poorly when even the dung beetles don't want to tackle your leavings.) But I was still able to visit prehistoric painted caves, explore the World Heritage site of Ghadames, furtle around Leptis Magna etc.
• nearly being shot in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. Another adventure holiday, about 20 years ago. The itinerary involved accessing the Valley over the hills on donkeys. I am not a horse-walloper by any means and my donkey clocked this early on. When we descended to the Valley floor it put its ears back and went for it. We crossed the two lanes of speeding tourist buses at full tilt, with me hanging on and eyes firmly shut. It screeched to a halt outside the police hut, whereupon it set about the nice little flowerbed in which grew the mint for their tea. The police all piled out shouting and waving their guns - luckily they realised what was going on fairly quickly, and found it highly amusing.
• DH and I taking a wrong turn in Tripoli and walking back to the hotel through a completely unlit residential area, which we were later informed was one of the roughest there. Most people found us amusing (again).
• DH and I taking a wrong turn in Amman and walking up to the Citadel through what was, at the time, a major area of settlement for displaced Palestinians. The friend we were staying with was horrified when she found out where we'd been, but we experienced nothing untoward (apart from multiple offers of tea from amused residents).

Any holiday with my ex husband. He magaged to ruin every one we ever had. My daughter's agree,

Tunisia - everyone kept threatening to kill us.

@Mermaimum
Alvor has a long sandy beach and doesn't really have high rise hotels. Perhaps the one you stayed in was an early build and new ones are more in keeping with the town.

It was the one place I have visited where a polite "no thank you" response to a request to buy something/go into a shop etc was met with a "fuck you English Bitch" on several occasions.
We have been all over the world and I have never ever been so uncomfortable as in Tunisia and its the only place where I didn't want to leave my hotel.

It was a walk along the beach to Alvor right enough. So on the outskirts of alvor but our hotel was very high rise with what appeared to be many more being built. It was 40 years ago though.

The funniest thing I've read on MN @ginasevern 😂😂

Croatia. Went in a 4. The other three decided they were a little unit so did my own thing mostly. Actually enjoyed the solo part the best

DD to one of her Uni mates who had a "Gap Yah"
"No you didn't go travelling you went to Thailand for 3 weeks and spent 1 week with your Godparents at their fancy house and then 2 weeks in nice hotels"

Part of the difference is that Australia is so far away from everywhere. So you do have to "travel" to get anywhere that isn't Australia.

We can easily get to France, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Finland, Poland...all over really in a just a few hours, by plane, train , boat or driving...all relatively cheaply too. (Similar to your trip to Tasmania (if from Melbourne)

If every precious week you had booked was teeming with rain, or as low as 9° with a freezing cold sea and bitter wind, you'd value a guaranteed week of sunshine. Very few 24 year olds in the UK could get six months off work to go travelling. I've booked Scotland in June, the weather could drop to around 11° and rain a fair bit. That's the difference.

The first week in Antigua was great. We flew to Barbados for the second week. Sadly, our luggage went to St Lucia. We got it back on the last day as there was only a couple of flights a week from StL

It rained 6 out of the 7 days.

A factory along the coast contaminated the water with a spillage. So even if the weather was nice, the beaches were closed anyway. The smell was so bad in the streets we had to take a deep breath and run past the worst bits.

To add insult to injury the barman made me a Brandy Alexander with milk, not cream. Barf 😧

@Hoppinggreen sensible, down to earth DD!

Kiwis can't help it, they are always smug.

Interesting thread - some of these stories are crazy!

I was thinking hard but I genuinely don’t think I’ve had a bad holiday. Most of the (relatively minor) mishaps that have happened to me have been on home soil lol

That’s horrific 😵‍💫

Hopefully she or he will eat themselves.

We do pay for our own flights. I'd happily pay for my own accommodation but this resulted in histrionics when suggested. Good for them that they can do their own thing but with limited leave and ridiculously expensive flights this became our main holiday and we did none of the things that most visitors that place do.

Why didn't you just go off and do it on your own if they were being like that?