To ask for your worst holiday ever?

[5amisthenew7am]

We’ve just got back from what I think was our worst holiday ever.

It rained heavily for 6 days out of 7
The kids fought all day, every day
I had to keep logging on for work because of a crisis situation
We went with my parents who made every excuse not to spend time with us and basically just took themselves off for lovely day trips without us. They didn’t lift a finger to help
Me and one DC both got D&V
The pool at the villa was absolutely freezing with giant bugs in it so nobody wanted to do any swimming
Our flights were delayed there and back

We actually went somewhere really beautiful and I’d been looking forward to it for months. The trip cost so much money and I honestly have never been so happy to get home.

I would love to hear others stories to make me feel better!

Touched down in Cuba to learn that Castro had just died during my flight. Everything shut down for 9 days of national mourning. Every bar, restaurant, public transport, and even music, was shuttered. It was considered disrespectful to be outside doing anything at all. Tourism operators were arrested and beaten for defying these rules.

We managed to get a flight home early after not having anything except bottled water and vending machine snacks for 3 days.

Thanks Fidel!

First holiday abroad, I was 18. My friend was 17 . She needed to go with me as I was the adult on the booking form. She had been to the same holiday with her parents the year before.

I was lonely, often bored and got diarrhoea for 3 days of 14. We were not compatible at all. She didn’t want to do the trips because she had done them all with parents the previous year. She stayed out at nightclubs until the small hours. Sometimes not getting back to hotel room at all. On one occasion she brought a guy back to our room. I didn’t feel safe.

The food was awful chips and tomato every meal. We had to share a table with other people. Had to sit at same table for whole holiday, don’t think that happens now. . It was the only time I got to talk to anyone .
Equally for her I was a wet wipe. I couldn’t stay up anywhere as late as her.

Miraculously we stay friends after but we did meet up after and clear the air. Never went on holiday with her again and today’s have never been back to mainland Spain. It’s been 41 years!

Went away with in-laws to a euro camp type place. Thought they might take our toddler so we could get our first ever hour child free in over a year. They just went out drinking instead all day and didn't even want to take dc while I had a shower. DH and I got a d&v bug there. I moved into the spare room of the apartment to reduce the spread of it. MIL just stood outside loudly complaining as I was literally being sick in a bucket "when will SHE get out of there I want the full length mirror". When we were better then family would arrange to meet for 'lunch' which I read as 12/1 but they took as 4pm..I do not do well out of routine and had DC to feed so this just caused so many issues. If we said we would eat earlier then, in-laws would brand us rude and disrespectful. They thought I was rude because I went out to the supermarket to buy a few bits of veg for DC instead of letting her eat pizza and salty chips all week. It was awful.

That would be the holiday in Portugal when my husband behaved so badly he ruined it for everyone. He argued constantly and was horrible to the children. Of course, he was having an affair and missed his 'chum' and took it out on us. Ex husband now

Gran Canarnia, puerto rica to be precise, god what a dump, full of English bars, serving John Smiths and hourly bingo games, lucky lucky men accosting everyone. Hotel which was self catering apartments and supposedly 4 star, you couldn’t plug in more than one appliance or the electric blew, no hot water and it stunk of damp and mould everywhere. Tui rep came out and agreed with every word l said, but denied it later. Tui were really bad at handling the complaint and I was sent a bunch of flowers. I said I’d never book with Tui again and I haven’t, their 4 star and my 4 star don’t match up.

DH and I like outdoorsy holidays and we’ve had a few holidays where things haven’t gone to plan, (bad weather, landslides, wildfires), but we’ve managed to change plans last minute and find something a bit different to do. It probably helps that it’s just been the two of us, on each occasion we were able to book an alternative on a mobile phone quickly and jump on a train in a different direction, knowing our travel insurance would reimburse us.

The only bad holiday I’ve had was when DH and I decided to try an all inclusive in Tenerife. There was nothing wrong with it, per se, it just wasn’t for us. We thought we’d enjoy ten days lying by a pool, but we were both bored within hours. I felt trapped and didn’t want to eat from a buffet every day. Someone trying to take a studio style photo of us as we headed down for dinner nearly finished me off. We didn’t want to stay on site, didn’t want to go on group excursions, and we didn’t want to engage with the evening entertainment. We didn’t fancy sitting in a pub and spent most of the holiday wandering around barren coastline looking for something to do. It was my own fault really, I’m not really sure what we were thinking.

I find it a bit strange to ask for rubbish holiday locations but not say where you went. Europe is rather unspecific

Trip to mount Teide?

Cuba, even without a period of national mourning.

@theninnyAsking for experiences, not locations

Not sure why it makes any difference but we went to rural France. I love France and have had some great holidays there. We were just unlucky with the weather this time (and the rest).

So sorry for everyone’s holiday nightmares! Although am laughing sympathetically at quite a few of these!

We went with my parents who made every excuse not to spend time with us and basically just took themselves off for lovely day trips without us. They didn’t lift a finger to help

Was there a reason you went with parents? My friend will go with hers as it saves money (as in her parents usually pay for the trip and unlike you she manages to get at least a few hours of babysitting out of them). You post elsewhere they aren't usually hands on, so wonder why you chose to go with them?

My worst holiday. Isle of White as a child. None of us could see the appeal of the place. Wasn't much to do and I believe it was quite expensive (or we didn't have much money so couldn't afford to do much there).

The Lake District. Dog had diarrhoea, garden wasn't fenced so I spent all my time watching him shit himself. Traffic everywhere, crap pubs, tourists (yes including us) everywhere. I couldn't wait to get home and cried with relief driving down the M6.

and basically just took themselves off for lovely day trips without us.

they specifically said “you can’t join us”?
presuming they didn’t, why didn’t you pack up car and go with them on these “lovely day trips”? Or indeed.. plan your own?

Hilariously both of mine were what we had deemed ‘holidays of a lifetime!’ which really means you’ve spent your life’s savings and are starting off panicking that you’ve spent too much money. Every time I think of them I think of how our crappy en-suite wouldn’t be falling down around us and we’d have an amazing bathroom!!

The actual holiday was ok (though the place is seriously boring) but trying to come back from the Bahamas a tropical storm
kicked off, all flights cancelled, we were told “all the hotels are full” (this was way before smartphones) and so we and many many thousands of others waited in the airport all day. Food and drink ran out quickly, no extra provisions were made. Then at 10 pm we were hearded out because “the terminal shuts overnight” and had to walk across the taxis away in the storm to some hangar where we then spent the night looking at the palm trees blowing horizontally through tiny windows. Eventually about 11am an American Airlines flight crew took the loudspeaker and said “it’s just a bit of weather, we’re going to take a jet back to Miami shortly, who’s comin?” And we were at the front of the queue. Take off was hairy!

PMSL at “pass the stick in the pool”!

Worst holiday ever:
Went on holiday with friends, one of them drowned. Absolutely horrendous. This was before smart phones/internet, making arrangements for his body to be repatriated was unbelievably difficult. As was having to call his parents to tell them, although thank God it wasn't me who made that call.

Second worst holiday was a few years ago in Greece where we had our passports, credit cards, DHs mobile phone etc stolen. DH was distraught, I was ok about it as I just kept thinking "well, nobody's died, we can get this sorted".

Puts it all in perspective

I went on holiday with my boyfriend when I was about 21. His grandparents has bought it for him as a birthday present so he decided on everything as it was 'his' holiday. He just wanted to drink a lot of beer really.

He was horrible to me the whole time, picking at everything I said, criticising my outfits, moaning about me, culminating in him screaming that I was a stupid fucking bitch.

After that I just sat by the pool by myself.

I should have just left early or moved to another hotel but I was young, didn't really have any money and this was in 1998 so before easy online booking of flights and hotels.

It was just awful. I was so glad to get home and away from him. Tosser.

We hiked up Mount Teide, but that only filled one of the ten days. We also took the public buses everywhere looking for something to do. Ended up in a field of banana plants, went on a boat trip, went to Santa Cruz and spent a few hours in a Spanish-only museum, and we went to some guinea pig zoo as well. But overall, we were pretty bored half the time.

I get up at 5am on holiday because I’m excited to squeeze in as much as possible, so it really wasn’t my best move to book an AI.

My then boyfriend told me to book a cheap holiday somewhere hot, he was paying. I booked a self catering apartment in Rhodes. When we got there the first thing he said was "this is shit I want to go home" which put me in a mood.

The place was a few miles from Faliraki. It was blisteringly hot and the sound of the crickets was deafening. The self catering facilities were poor and the on site shop was rubbish and you had to put toilet paper in the bin which I know is normal for Greece. Anthony Quinn Bay was a half a mile walk which although had lovely views was small and dirty. The site owner ran a minibus drop off to Faliraki at 9pm each night which not being clubbers we didn't use. The hotel entertainment was dire and I realised my boyfriend was an annoying, tightfisted dickhead.

Honeymoon. This was pre-internet days when you had to go to a travel agent and book everything.

We were supposed to fly a couple of days after the wedding. We got a phone call from the travel agent two days before the wedding saying that we'd been double booked and we couldn't go. We were supposed to be going to Jamaica but the tour operator offered us Dubai instead. Didn't fancy Dubai at all, especially in the August heat.

Ended up wasting time sitting in the travel agents while they went through everything trying to find something. In the end we ended up moving the Jamaica holiday to three weeks later. That meant we had to get married, go back to work for three weeks and then go on honeymoon.

The flight was an early morning one from Manchester. The travel agent had booked us a rail package that included train tickets and an overnight stay in Manchester.

Got to the hotel and it was awful! Britannia hotel. We'd asked for a double room and they'd given us a twin room. The room had no external windows and some lights didn't work so it was dark. We had to ask for more light bulbs which they begrudgingly gave us. The beds were uncomfortable with old mattresses.The room was dirty and run down but they said they couldn't move us to another room, so we just had to make do.

Decided to go and use the hotel pool. That was also grubby and run down. I was using the pool ladder when it came away from wall and I fell banging both my knees on the side of the pool. The pool attendant couldn't have cared less and said he was sick of asking for it to be fixed.

Gave up on that and went back to the room and decided to go for dinner. The hotel had a main restaurant and a pizza restaurant. We to the pizza one but it was closed. Went to the main restaurant and they were fully booked. They said they might be able to squeeze us in if we only ordered a main course and ate fast! Went to reception and asked if they could recommend anywhere else nearby to eat and she said they didn't know of anywhere. Luckily a taxi driver waiting to pick someone else up overheard and gave us directions to a restaurant a couple of streets away. That was really nice.

Barely slept as the room was very hot with no ventilation and the toilet had a leak so the noisy cistern kept refilling all night.

We had to leave before breakfast in the restaurant opened, but they had offered us an early continental breakfast in the room when we checked in and we had requested a time for it to arrive. It never came. Rang down twice chasing it while we were getting ready but it never came.

The flight was uncomfortable as I had two swollen and bruised knees from my fall the day before and I could hardly walk by the time we landed as they were so stiff.

Actual holiday was fine apart from the local flasher who kept sneaking into the hotel and exposing himself in the pool!

On the way back, we were supposed to be collected at the hotel along with a couple and their little boy. The transfer bus never showed up. We waited ages and the hotel kept ringing for us. Turns out the bus was on a day trip and should have dropped the last people off at our hotel and then picked us up and taken us to the airport but it had been delayed by latecomers back to the bus.

By the time it arrived and collected us, we were the last people to check in just minutes before the flight closed. It was when you got allocated plane seats on arrival. We were all split up around the plane. Husband was in the main cabin and I ended up in the smoking section. I don't smoke so found it unpleasant.

I was sitting in a row with a couple who both were wearing contact lenses on a night flight. Barely got any sleep as they both kept waking me up to go to the toilet all during the night as they were both struggling with their lenses and the smoke.

We had an open train ticket home with no seat reservations. The aircon had broken so the train was extremely hot and it was full so we couldn't find a seat. Had to stand all the way home. I was absolutely shattered and stinking by the time we got home.

The neighbours had put a welcome home Mr and Mrs banner on our front door and several came out to greet us when we got home. I had to make small talk in the street when really I was just desperate for a shower and bed!

Oh dear I went to tenereife with my parents many years ago as a child I remember going ti the banana plantation I think it an actual trip ?

Went to "cute" cottage in Wales for husband's birthday in Jan (yes, stupid idea). Everywhere frozen solid, pavements like slippery ice rink. Terrified of falling over and breaking limbs. "Cute" cottage in reality poky freezing little hovel, what looked like cosy logburner on photos was in fact a fake electric heater that didn't work. Bedroom so tiny you had to "shimmy" past the bed to try and get into the miniscule en suite. Worst thing was we had the dog with us. The cottage was supposed to have outside courtyard where dog could go out for wee but in reality it was tiny, the final insult being that the patio doors to get out there were frozen shut so you couldn't open them. Called owner who sent someone, he agreed they were frozen shut and couldn't do anything about it. Had to keep taking dog out on lead, on skating rink pavements, risking life and limb. Frozen, miserable and downright rip off cottage, left early and they had the cheek to keep pestering for a review afterwards. Not only that but in haste to leave, left amazon prime logged in and only noticed months later that people had been renting videos on my login.... never again.

My friend and I used to book very last minute holidays where we only knew which resort we were going to . We got some great deals . We booked Cyprus and we were a bit shocked when we pulled up outside an 18-30 type hotel in Aya Napa . We were in our 40s at the time . Some of the guests refused to stop there but we are quite easy going so we stayed. The hotel was awful. Cockroaches, broken furniture, poor food , scum on the pool. Drunken people shouting every night and the most expensive drinks on the island . We decided to take ourselves on a mini cruise to Egypt . I went to tel the rep ( about 18) in case they missed us and he couldn’t have been less bothered. The cruise to Egypt was like a holiday camp on the water . We had an armed guard through Port Said . I made the mistake of paying to go inside a pyramid then realised I was claustrophobic. I had visions of Indiana Jones and the walls closing in! I felt so sorry for the youngsters who had paid hundreds to stop at our hotel. It was featured on Hotels from Hell some years later . We still laugh about it now but it was awful .