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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

What is the worst holiday you have had?

378 replies

TwinklyFawn · 18/01/2025 16:33

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.

OP posts:
Temporarynameforthisone · 18/01/2025 18:49

Norfolk broads - Awful. Boat smelt, had a damp feeling to it and horrendous condensation.

Ayia Napa, Cyprus - apartment above a bar and huge cockroaches!

TwinklyFawn · 18/01/2025 18:51

Wendolino · 18/01/2025 18:25

I'm sure the Haven in Berwick is where my sister and family went one year and some girls in the next caravan were throwing dirty nappies out of the windows when they changed their babies.

Disgusting.

OP posts:
guiltyblameless · 18/01/2025 18:51

aw. Your story made me sad, OP.

Blushingm · 18/01/2025 18:52

Cyprus with exh and our 2 dc and his parents.

They agued so he slept in the sofa and didn't speak for a week and on the way back to the airport (we'd hired 2 cars) the parents were arguing, fil was so distracted he crashed his car in to ours......

Thisisallabitshit · 18/01/2025 18:53

Kitzbuhl for a two week ski holiday. Twisted knee on day 3, couldn’t ski or walk properly and we were in a cheapo hotel so no spa or anything else to do. Pre-kindle/internet, ran out of books pretty fast and the weather was gloomy. With boyfriend who was sympathetic but spent all day skiing and all evening talkng about what a great day he had had, friend from work who was also only interested in the skiing and her psychotic boyfriend (we hadn’t met him before) who claimed to be ex-SAS and couldn’t be in a bar for more than five minutes without accusing somebody of looking at him funny and offering them a fight. At one point he tried to pick a fight with somebody in the street because he said they had looked at him as they walked past. Longest two weeks of my life.

mabelandmaud · 18/01/2025 18:54

Me, Dh and our dog had a holiday in the Isle of Man about 20 years ago. I booked the hotel by email and had confirmation of our booking. Arrived at the hotel at midnight after travelling by ferry and car to be told they hadn't got a booking for us, we insisted we'd booked and showed them the emails -we told them we'd been travelling all day and had no where else to go so they grudgingly agreed we could stay that night and they'd decide what to do about us in the morning.

We kept waking in the night to the sound of howling dogs and when we finally get to sleep we were woken about 6am by the sound of lorries rattling up and down the road. There was a dog kennels opposite the hotel and it's was on the road that led to the island's refuse site

Next day after our disturbed night They said we could stay although refused to believe we'd booked despite showing them the email booking again. They wanted to charge a higher rate than we'd agreed in our original booking. It was a bit like faulty towers with everything a bit faded and jaded, no one knowing what was happening and everyone blaming everyone else. The kitchen staff kept complaining to us about the managers and asking us to help them find jobs in England.

Then DH got a tooth abscess and we had to find a dentist and get antibiotics

Despite the hotel saga and tooth issue, we did have a nice holiday on the Isle of Man.

3luckystars · 18/01/2025 18:56

I had a pretty bad experience in Turkey once, start to finish everything went wrong and then the worst sickness I ever had. 45 degree heat also. I still don’t like holidays now after it. It was the WORST.

Ellmau · 18/01/2025 18:56

We were right, it was a dead body. It was a waiter who had apparently been shot and had been there for 2 days.

Did they get round to removing it?

Plantmumfailure · 18/01/2025 19:00

I've never had a terrible holiday tbh. But my worst one was probably many years ago when we booked one of those last minute teletext deals to Spain. Ended up in a v built up part of Costa del sol in this aparthotel thing which doubled up as a retirement home. It was not that bad but was pretty weird.

NeedToChangeName · 18/01/2025 19:04

(1) the one where boyfriend and I split up on the way to the airport

(2) the one where hotel staff hadn't been paid, therefore couldn't afford their rent. One by one they had moved to live in the hotel instead. This meant there were fewer and fewer rooms available for guests. The boss turned up to find out why his income had reduced. He had someone with him, allegedly armed bodyguard

NeedToChangeName · 18/01/2025 19:06

CoralOP · 18/01/2025 18:29

Tunisa, absolutely horrible people everywhere we turned. Probably spoke to about 9 people out of the hotel, each one tried to scam us or demanded money from us, taxi drivers, shop keepers and random people coming up to us.

Even the staff in the hotel were nasty, we were all inclusive and they were clearly angry that I (as a woman) was drinking, I'm not a big drinker at all but was drinking wine to try and get through that horrendous holiday. Could never recommend there.

Sorry to hear that. I have fond memories of a trip to Tunisia and found people friendly

RamsaySnowsSausage · 18/01/2025 19:07

A long weekend away in a gorgeous holidy cottage in Whitby with XH after his affair as a make or break situation (spoiler...it broke 😂).

I was in full pick me mode (I cringe so hard at the memory!!) trying to be miss perfect while he kept sloping off to speak to OW. It was not good!

I went home early and the OW went for the rest of the booking. And I had paid for it!!!

TravellingSpoon · 18/01/2025 19:08

Sun £9.50 long weekend holiday to Camber sands. Just shocking.

I was super broke and just wanted to get away with my DS. I cried when we arrived at what looked like a gulag. All the other families were noisy and so kids were shrieking up and down the hall at all hours.

The are was beautiful but we came home on the Sunday so I could sleep.

TwinklyFawn · 18/01/2025 19:09

I went to the haven site a few times after my granddad died. He left me a list of things he wanted me to do. I hated every holiday. If i ate the disgusting food from the fish shop i would get diarrhoea. The phone signal was crap. I am not on my phone all the time. However my train tickets were on my phone. It took ages to sort out when my train was cancelled. If i had been thinking clearly at the time i would have stayed somewhere else.

OP posts:
FoxtonFoxton · 18/01/2025 19:14

RamsaySnowsSausage · 18/01/2025 19:07

A long weekend away in a gorgeous holidy cottage in Whitby with XH after his affair as a make or break situation (spoiler...it broke 😂).

I was in full pick me mode (I cringe so hard at the memory!!) trying to be miss perfect while he kept sloping off to speak to OW. It was not good!

I went home early and the OW went for the rest of the booking. And I had paid for it!!!

This one's a shocker. Actually made me angry for you! I hope you've had a much happier life without the prick.

AlmostCutMyHairToday · 18/01/2025 19:14

It was actually a school trip to a budget ski resort when I was 12. I was severely car sick from the 18hr coach trip to get there, so I had to skip the first day. Consequently, I missed the 'how to ski' training session in English so the following day I was given some training in Spanish - which I didn't understand, so I spent the whole time just falling to the side on purpose when I was picking up too much speed as I had no idea how to stop.

AmandaHoldensLips · 18/01/2025 19:15

"Luxury five star tent experience in the desert" which turned out to be a hideous shit hole akin to a para-military training camp on the surface of mars. With no alcohol allowed and swarms of flies on the inedible offering they called "food".

shellyleppard · 18/01/2025 19:17

Romantic weekend in Paris..... supposedly 🤣🤣 flew out on the Friday, our luggage arrived on the Monday( day we returned!!!) couldn't work out the sizing in the shops so brought a tracksuit for the entire weekend!!! No romantic boat trip and ended up wearing my boyfriends pants home 🤣🤣🤣 but compared to some of the tales on here......🤢😳

NoodleDoodleDandy · 18/01/2025 19:19

PermanentTemporary · 18/01/2025 17:21

Bloody hell. Mine are so minor in comparison.

A British Trust for Conservation Volunteers week in Stoke on Trent. I've had some great weeks with them and back then they cost £30 for a week, but this one was at the end of the season and I think the leaders were really fed up. There were an older couple who complained about the accommodation- we were in a village hall with sleeping bags, which was standard, but that week there were a few activities we had to move for. So they found us alternatives - sleeping in a sports changing room on the Marmite factory site. Absolutely bizarre choice and certainly not an upgrade. I can still smell the brewers yeast in the air if I think about it. By the end of the week nobody was talking to anyone else.

Not to be pedantic, but there isn’t a Marmite factory in Stoke on Trent. That’s in Burton on Trent.

Gall10 · 18/01/2025 19:23

Pigeonqueen · 18/01/2025 16:55

Lefkada with my now ex dh in 2000 ish.

We hadn’t been dating long and we pooled our spending money, splitting it half and half between us for safe keeping, which I thought we’d use for meals out, activities etc. The second day we were there he went out very early and got himself a very fancy watch with his half of the spending money (!) leaving us with just my half for everything else. I should have dumped him after that to be honest, so selfish.

I tried to make the best of the rest of the holiday but he was just so moody and deleted any photos of us together that I took as he didn’t like the way he looked in any of the photos (he was incredibly vain, not secretly married or anything, just vain) and then the icing on the cake was he didn’t like any of the food so he sat there every night with a beer while I ate and then he made plain pasta and cheese back at the apartment.

Never been so home sick.

I had a similar experience….girlies holiday (club 18-30!) The 6 of us pooled most of our money, 2 of the girls who were friends of friends went out by themselves and spent it!

TheAirfryerQueen · 18/01/2025 19:24

Late 90s. Dickhead bf of the time agreed to go on a cottage holiday with me to Cornwall. We were there only one night when he said he needed to go home for some work thing. I was only a student at the time, a lot of money and time into trying to make this holiday nice, and he couldn't even make the time for me, work was too important. We broke up shortly after.

Bob02 · 18/01/2025 19:24

I went to mykonos with my, very attractive, flatmate. It was horrific. She ditched me every night to spend time with different men. I woke up in our twin room to her shagging a random guy. Every night was a different bloke. I spend all my time alone reading books. I moved out when we got back to the UK.

Hoppinggreen · 18/01/2025 19:27

WellsAndThistles · 18/01/2025 18:04

Tunisia, hated the people constantly trying to scam money out of you. Genuinely not one single person spoke to us without an ulterior motive.

We found this too.
We are pretty well travelled and have always managed to chat to locals/hotel staff etc all over the world but we geniunely found not 1 person in Tunisia who was even civil to us.
It was pre "Arab Spring" so they probably had a lot going on but Tunisia was the one country I have visited I didn't like and wouldn't go back to.

mollymazda · 18/01/2025 19:28

we went to salou in spain a couple of years ago. its was a walking disaster from the minute we stepped off the plane!

day 1.. the coach transfer for whatever reason to not drop us outside the hotel and dropped us 1 mile away at the bottom of a hill with suitcase and a wheelchair to navigate too the hotel. day 2.. a dead body washed up on the beach right in front of us... day 3 armed police arresting a shop lifter again right in front of us... day 4 food poisoning! day 5, 6 ruined by illness...

day 7 came home!

Twixtmasjigsaw · 18/01/2025 19:28

Family holiday in 2020. Covid precautions were still going on so virtual nothing was open. It poured it down half the week so we couldn't get out for walks. The accommodation had a leak and smelled of damp. The people in the cottage next to us had 3 yappy dogs that woke us up at 6am every morning. Arrived on Saturday, by Tuesday I was begging to come home. .