Page 6 | What is the worst holiday you have had?

TwinklyFawn · 2025-01-18T16:33:14+00:00

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.

Shoezembagsforever · 18/01/2025 21:50

Game0fCrones · 18/01/2025 17:15

About 20 years ago, my partner and i went to Spain with his best friend and his new girlfriend who we'd only met a couple of times. The friend was very outgoing and great company but his new girlfriend was practically mute and liked to go to bed at 9pm. It was the longest, dullest holiday Ive ever been on. She insisted that we eat at 6pm every night and be back at the apartment by 8pm. She didnt drink and looked down on those who did. Every attempt at conversation failed. She took a book to the restaurant with her. Amazingly, they are STILL together. I've no idea what he sees in her.

Wow! Are you still friends with them?

That she brought a book to the restaurant!

JulesJules · 18/01/2025 21:51

Malbecfan · 18/01/2025 17:44

Holiday of a lifetime to the W Coast of the USA in 2007. 5 nights in San Francisco visiting our best man & his new wife then flight to Vegas, collected RV then touring round N Arizona, helicopter flight at the Grand Canyon, then dropping off RV, collecting a car, driving to LA so DDs could visit Disneyland. Well that was the idea.

On the flight out DH felt sick and really not himself. Struggled on in SF but I did all the driving. Friends were worried but he was not too bad. Flew to Vegas. It was 40 degrees plus. DD2 then aged 6 was sick with the heat. We got in the RV and had a couple of nights but then near Flagstaff DH's appendix ruptured. I drove the bloody RV to the nearest hospital, DH was admitted & they started him on antibiotics but couldn't treat him as they didn't have the facilities. DH was airlifted to Tucson late at night. DDs and I slept in the RV on the hospital car park. Next day the social workers helped us to plan how to get rid of the RV and to Tucson - they were the most lovely, kind people. I drove the RV to Phoenix with DD1 aged 8 reading out directions to me. Swapped to a car and we drove to Tuscon. DH was in an induced coma in ICU. He almost died but expert medical care and 4 surgeries saved him. We flew home a week later than planned having missed loads of our dream holiday.

However, the £52 insurance policy covered almost everything. The MedEvac was $39k, the ICU bed was $2.5k per day and he was there for a week before transferring to a normal ward. We met the most lovely medical people and my daughters became experts at reading ICU monitors - "Mummy, is 98% oxygen saturation good?" We missed our original flights so the fabulous head of social work at the hospital in Tucson helped us book alternatives, despite the bastard insurers doing everything they could to scupper things. BA were simply amazing with all of us and spoilt the DDs rotten - when I wrote to them to thank them for helping to make a really stressful situation just a bit easier, they sent us a hamper to say thanks.

We still haven't been back to Tucson, but had a fab trip to Washington State 15 months ago. Maybe in a year or two...

Omg Malbec

MermaidMummy06 · 18/01/2025 21:51

Gold coast (Queensland - Tweed Heads). It's only a few hours drive, but we can only afford one week away on holiday a year. September school hols, so expensive. Booked an Airbnb unit under someone's house, it had a private pool, about 200m from the beach.

As we were driving in, a huge, ferocious weather system followed. We went straight to the beach before it hit, then spent the rest of the week inside a tiny unit, which looked at the back of other buildings, and the pool we couldn't use. It poured all week. Roads were cut, everything is outdoors there. We even had to book a bowling lane two days in advance as everyone was looking for indoor activities. Not great with two active DC.

To top it off, there was a horrible wet rag stink in the unit. It was only on day 5 we found the offending item - a mop shoved into a tiny alcove.

If course, the rain system cleared up the afternoon before we left.

Arraminta · 18/01/2025 21:52

Two days in some Godforsaken 3* hotel Hellhole in Tenerife, having been diverted there as winds were too strong to land in Madeira (which was our destination).

I knew we were in for a rough time on the first night, when the woman ahead of me, in the queue for the Buffet a la Beige, was sporting a large cobweb tattoo on her throat. Later we looked on in horror as two separate fights broke out in the hotel bar between middle aged women FFS. We went up to our room and our ensuite suite was 2" deep in water from a leaking loo and the shower curtain hem was 3" deep in mould. Poor DD1 then started with one of her migraines, at this point I might have cried a bit.

The next morning we also witnessed a mass scuffle over sunbeds and someone's mobility scooter ended up in the pool. Honestly it was like the Wild West and one of the very few places where I've felt physically wary.

I swear if we hadn't been given the all clear to fly the next day I would have fucking swum to Madeira rather than spend another night in Tenerife.

Katemax82 · 18/01/2025 21:54

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.

Pontins? I went there age 11. It's notorious for being the worst

MermaidMummy06 · 18/01/2025 21:58

Oh, another one. Went to Fiji for a week with toddler DS. Resort failed to tell us there was another resort being built right behind our room. The day we arrived they started pile driving. With a young child we spent more time in than usual, and listened to thump thump & our unit shaking for the entire week.

It's the first holiday I cried & wanted to come home early from. I was desperate for the break, too. Our (nice weather !) beach holiday closer to home had been crashed by first my parents, then as they left, a friend - who then decided to come home with us & we had to host her as we walked in the door. She left the day we went back to work.

WashYourDamnRice · 18/01/2025 22:03

Pontins brean sands. Stayed 2 nights and came home 5 days early. Took a week of hot showers to feel fully clean again.

Frightenedbunny · 18/01/2025 22:04

Egypt!!!

Airline was apparently overweight to fly, so removed half of the passengers luggage at Manchester. Both my husband and I were unlucky ones. We were advised it would arrive the day later. We were given the equivalent of £20 to buy some articles to keep us going. Our hotel was in the middle of nowhere! Thankfully I’d bought some new knickers in Manchester airport.

Day 2, no sign of luggage and I contracted food poisoning. I had to go to the health centre 3 days on the trott for vaccinations in my arse to help with the food poisoning.

luggage eventually arrived in sharm el shite 4 days after landing. They wouldn’t allow my husband to pick my luggage up on my behalf, so I had no other option but to travel an hour in a taxi hoping I never shat myself in a pair of (and the only) white trousers.

We were only there for a week. I couldn’t wait to get home. I’ve never returned !!

Stuffedasasausage · 18/01/2025 22:05

Nothing as bad as most of the examples I’m reading but I have the worst weather curse. Some examples;
11 days of torrential rain in Costa Rica. Tsunami alert, had to move to the other coast.
48 hours of torrential rain in Barcelona in May. Guide book disintegrated it was so wet.
11 days of constant rain in Brazil (in the dry season) to the point where the TV exploded (we were on an island with basic accommodation).
A/B for 48 hours in Sardinia. The hotel rep said she’d never seen it in her lifetime and the year before they’d been shipping in water because it was so dry.
Comedy black clouds and constant rain and wind on an island in Malaysia, where I had gone to dive. My friends a few hours away had bright blue sky.
Tip of the ice berg, don’t get me started on experiences in the UK!

ElsaLion · 18/01/2025 22:07

@mistymorning12 That is a strange coincidence indeed. Were you also staying in the South of France?

Unfortunately for us, it transpired that we barely knew any of the couples when we arrived. Added to that, what was meant to be a fifth bedroom was actually a corridor with bunk beds in, leading to another bedroom. As we were one of only two families with two children, it had been agreed prior to the trip that we would have one of the larger rooms, yet when we arrived it was hinted that we should take the corridor 'room'...how they expected the four of us to fit into two single beds for a week will forever be a mystery!

dizzydizzydizzy · 18/01/2025 22:12

Avimore for 2 weeks in August when I was 12. It rained nearly all day every single day of our holiday.

Shoezembagsforever · 18/01/2025 22:12

Malbecfan · 18/01/2025 17:44

Holiday of a lifetime to the W Coast of the USA in 2007. 5 nights in San Francisco visiting our best man & his new wife then flight to Vegas, collected RV then touring round N Arizona, helicopter flight at the Grand Canyon, then dropping off RV, collecting a car, driving to LA so DDs could visit Disneyland. Well that was the idea.

On the flight out DH felt sick and really not himself. Struggled on in SF but I did all the driving. Friends were worried but he was not too bad. Flew to Vegas. It was 40 degrees plus. DD2 then aged 6 was sick with the heat. We got in the RV and had a couple of nights but then near Flagstaff DH's appendix ruptured. I drove the bloody RV to the nearest hospital, DH was admitted & they started him on antibiotics but couldn't treat him as they didn't have the facilities. DH was airlifted to Tucson late at night. DDs and I slept in the RV on the hospital car park. Next day the social workers helped us to plan how to get rid of the RV and to Tucson - they were the most lovely, kind people. I drove the RV to Phoenix with DD1 aged 8 reading out directions to me. Swapped to a car and we drove to Tuscon. DH was in an induced coma in ICU. He almost died but expert medical care and 4 surgeries saved him. We flew home a week later than planned having missed loads of our dream holiday.

However, the £52 insurance policy covered almost everything. The MedEvac was $39k, the ICU bed was $2.5k per day and he was there for a week before transferring to a normal ward. We met the most lovely medical people and my daughters became experts at reading ICU monitors - "Mummy, is 98% oxygen saturation good?" We missed our original flights so the fabulous head of social work at the hospital in Tucson helped us book alternatives, despite the bastard insurers doing everything they could to scupper things. BA were simply amazing with all of us and spoilt the DDs rotten - when I wrote to them to thank them for helping to make a really stressful situation just a bit easier, they sent us a hamper to say thanks.

We still haven't been back to Tucson, but had a fab trip to Washington State 15 months ago. Maybe in a year or two...

I'm so sorry you went through this, but that is actually an incredibly positive story at the end of the day.

How lovely of BA and can I ask who your insurers were?

Calling · 18/01/2025 22:18

Beaverbridge · 18/01/2025 18:38

Lake Como. Never again even for free!!!!.

Oh no, it is supposed to be lovely there (I have never been). What happened?

Candlebook · 18/01/2025 22:24

God my story now doesn’t sound that bad compared to lots of these, but at the time it felt like the longest week of my life.
Portugal, back when you could only book holidays from brochures. Booked a villa holiday with (then)boyfriend and his parents. The parents really weren’t ones for going abroad but we’d persuaded them that it would be fab. Sold it to them based on how lovely the weather would be, how nice it would be to bbq at our own villa etc. Arrived and it was apparent that the photos of the villa were somewhat out of date, it was a bit tatty. And it rained every.single.day. Proper biblical, stair-rod rain from the moment we got there, to the moment we left. There was nothing to do except meander aimlessly around shops. My boyfriend’s dad just sat on the sofa watching Portuguese tv all week. It was dreadful and honestly, the best part was the last day as at least I knew we were travelling home!

Cismyfatarse · 18/01/2025 22:26

Not me, but someone I know. Booked and paid for the whole holiday, including his share. Flying for Christmas and New Year in the Maldives. He didn't turn up at the airport so she went alone to a honeymoon type island. All couples.

Resort got destroyed by the Boxing Day tsunami and, although they were all fine, they waited 3 days to get rescued and moved to safety.

Utterly shit holiday. Thankfully nobody in their resort was hurt. But, with no connection to the outside world they did not really know what had happened.

The3rdWatermelon · 18/01/2025 22:28

Not as bad as some, but a boat holiday on the Norfolk broads with my boyfriend (now DH), his parents, and their dog.
Everyone got the runs a couple of days in. The toilet stopped working, and remained unreliable for the rest of the trip despite several mechanic visits.
Finally, the boat’s engine set on fire in Great Yarmouth harbour and MIL and I had to beat the flames out with a wet mop.

TwistedWonder · 18/01/2025 22:40

Not me but a friend and her partner went to Rome for 2 nights - just as the volcano erupted in Iceland and grounded all flights for several weeks.

They only took hand luggage (she said she had 4 pairs of knickers) and they ended up stranded for 11 days and had to get a coach all the way back home. They were moved from their hotel and the airline stuck them in the Italian equivalent of a Travelodge on the side of a motorway, gave them €30 a day allowance and basically left them to fend for themselves.

Gingerbreadhouse1 · 18/01/2025 22:41

Oh my goodness that is traumatising!

Motnight · 18/01/2025 22:51

ginasevern · 18/01/2025 18:21

I have posted this before some time ago but here goes.

Torremolinos 1982 with my mum, my then 6 year old son, aunty Gladys and very dear family friend and widower Derek. We arrived to a building site, although our hotel was thankfully complete. The first thing we noticed when disembarking the coach was something that looked like a dead body covered in a blanket on the scrubland in front of the hotel. We were right, it was a dead body. It was a waiter who had apparently been shot and had been there for 2 days.

On the second day Derek went out to buy some ciggies and was mugged, sustaining 2 black eyes and endless curiousity for the rest of the holiday.

The food in the hotel consisted of the same dish every day which was effectively a grey stew with undeterminable bits in it. It smelt as bad as it looked and my mother christened it "donkey stew". The staff served this concoction from a great big soup tureen on a table in the middle of the restaurant, with bowls ready to receive it stacked high on either side. On the fourth evening my mother decided to complain. She raised herself, all dignified like, from her chair and said "watch this Gladys". She marched across the floor but her foot caught a patch of grease and she proceeded to sail across the dining room with arms outstretched and mouth wide open, wherepon she landed head first in the donkey stew. The stacked plates leapt in the air and crashed all over the floor with an ear shattering sound.

On the final night we were treated to a fire eater. I should say that the "entertainment" had been so bad it was actually good, especially after several bottles of Cava. The fire eater was roughly 80 years old and clearly drunk as he alarmingly staggered around with various things on fire. He managed to set fire to the curtains behind him and we were all evacuated from the hotel, which pretty much burnt down.

This has made me laugh a lot 🤣

BitterTits · 18/01/2025 22:58

Just a big thank you for helping me to put things into perspective. We can't afford anything more than a week at the seaside and now I see that could be a blessing!

caffelattetogo · 18/01/2025 23:43

So much D&V. You poor things. This has confirmed my concerns about AI.

Givemestrength1000 · 19/01/2025 00:03

ElsaLion · 18/01/2025 20:37

France last year, it was our first holiday abroad as a family (with DS3 and DS1), with us driving all the way to a remote villa near Avignon, with an overnight stay at a hotel just outside Paris. We were to spend the week with four other couples and their children.

By the first evening there, it became apparent we barely knew the other couples (they were more friends or acquaintances of friends). The following three days saw an increasing tension in the house, unpleasant comments being made about our children, the other couples arranging things together and excluding us etc. by the Wednesday, it was very apparent that we were overstaying our welcome. This culminated in overhearing some absolutely horrendous things being said about us in the early hours of the morning when the other couples were drinking downstairs. We decided there and then to pack our bags and make the 1000km journey home, stopping over near Calais on the way home. 24 hours later, both children and ourselves were utterly exhausted after a hellish journey, and almost £1000 worse off, but relieved to be home by 3am and resolved never to holiday with several other couples again!

What did you do to cause them to dislike you so much?

destiel00 · 19/01/2025 00:05

Arran2024 · 18/01/2025 17:59

A cottage in Sherringham in Norfolk. It was so windy, and it was the week before Easter and everything was closed. My husband got something in his eye from the wind and we had to go to hospital in Norwich. We usually went to Cornwall or Scotland, thought we would try something different - we haven't been back!

Worst holiday ever in norfolk circa 2006
Where we were was the only place in the whole of the UK that had rain that week
It rained the whole time, and the wind was howling
Dreadful cottage, damp and smelly
Then the exhaust on the car fell off just outside Sheringham
We left a day early it was so bad
Never again!

montelbano · 19/01/2025 00:06

NeedToChangeName · 18/01/2025 19:06

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

Show quote history

So did I. Spent several weeks touring the archaelogical sites around the whole of Tunisia and found most of the people friendly and helpful, especially in the smaller towns and villages. Amazing hotels in the desert areas with helpful staff. Yes, they were persistent in the souks but that is true of all of North Africa, Never stayed in any of the coastal holiday complexes.

MoonWoman69 · 19/01/2025 00:10

Not so much the actual place, the friends we'd gone with. And we'd been with them before, with no issue. Went to the Algarve, we'd booked an apartment, hire car etc. We'd agreed before the holiday that we'd take turns with the car and have days doing our own thing for the week. They wanted to look for property while they were there. They didn't do that, instead, every day was spent all together.
The last evening out at a bar with live music, was horrific. One awful thing after another, embarrassing, crass behaviour from them, to the point that I downed my drink and headed off back to the apartment, my husband running to catch me up. We both said never again. And we didn't.
They have now moved to Portugal and despite countless offers to go and stay, I point blank refuse.
I honestly hadn't actually ever realised how rude, ignorant and shallow they both are. It was a real eye opener. And my time in their company will never be wasted again!