Cancelled next years holiday abroad

[YellowphantGrey]

And feel awful about it.

Trying to convince myself a UK holiday will be ok bur I know it won't.

We've just returned from disaster holiday after two horrific flights. Holiday itself was fine but the flights were absolutely horrific. People in tears, screaming, crying, my kindle screen broken, DH hurt his back, people throwing up, all from 2 hours worth of severe turbulence on a 4 hour flight and Pilot had to speak several times. It was a night flight and all lights went out and emergency floor strip lights came on. He ended up having to fly lower to try and avoid and was prepared to divert when it started becoming clearer.

On the way over, it was an hours worth of turbulence and not as bad but still took some quite big drops, everyone lifted out of their seats on each drop. Couldn't land and had to retry which was successful second time round.

We decided today after we are all bruised and shaken that we don't really want to fly again but I'm also worried my DS will now be restricted in life and we should be forcing ourselves back on a plane.

Any ideas what to do? I don't think any sort of scared of flying course would help as even the cabin crew were crying yesterday! Apparently turbulence is set to become more frequent, common and extreme.

Cruises are a definitive no as well.

I suppose we could train or drive?

We just flew to Greece and back and the flights were absolutely fine 👍

Gosh that sounds awful and I’m really sorry you went through that. I’ve just flown to Egypt and we had a very smooth flight indeed but I can understand why you would be put off.

I agree, I/we(as a family), have had some blissful, magical holidays in the UK but have also travelled by Eurostar to France, Belgium and Germany.

Despite how frightening your recent flight was, you landed safely. The pilot and crew no doubt knew there was no danger. Such things cannot be helped. If you've flown before you will know that it usually goes smoothly, apart from sometimes having to wait hours at the airport in busy times.

My late husband was scared of flying. We started off by going to Jersey which took no time at all. Jersey is a lovely place to go on holiday, the beaches are gorgeous.

Don't make a big thing out of the flying experience in front of your son, in fact don't talk about it. If he mentions it, laugh and make light of it, tell him you were safe, it was just weather. He will be OK. Parents have great influence on children when it comes to such things. My mother in law, who never flew in her life, used to go on about it in front of my husband which contributed to his phobia. My mum was also like that but I never took much notice of her opinions anyway so it didn't bother me.

I only have one child, 45 next month, who flies all over the world for work. It doesn't bother him at all, thankfully.

Good luck. The North Norfolk coast and villages are wonderful, most relatively unspoilt, and of course Devon and Cornwall are lovely.; another place I enjoyed was Pembrokeshire The only possible problem is bad weather but we had many sunny holidays in Britain.

Good luck.

Next year the EU visa scheme will be introduced and you can imagine it will not go smoothly. A mix of not enough border officials and people not being prepared with anything required before they travel.

So giving it a miss specifically in 2025 may be a good idea. See how you feel the following year.

You’ve done hundreds of flights and one experience has put you off? Surely if so experienced and being such a regular flyer you should realise that statistically (and from your own travel history) there’s very little to worry about? 100s of good flights verses one bumpy one?

Get back on that plane

Hi OP, I'm not a frequent flyer but I loathe air travel, I do it because of the perfect Greek village I eventually arrive in.
I'm so old I remember taking the ferry then driving to Spain from Calais. Gorgeous way to travel.
I don't know if they still do it but I got the Eurostar to Avignon a couple of times from London. That was also a wonderful journey. There were lots of kids of all ages and most seemed to enjoy it.
My favourite experience was eavesdropping on a group of teenagers who were playing a game where they tried to pick an actor to play the part of their parents or grandparents in a film of their lives.
Their actual parents were sitting away from them getting drunk I seem to remember.
Samuel L Jackson was most popular dad and Judi Dench most popular mum. You don't get that on planes with ot without turbulence!

I was put off flying after a bad flight. We drive to France or even Spain and one time took the ferry to Santander and drove to Portugal. Plenty of options out there.

I haven’t flown for coming up to 20 years and rarely before that. We have had brilliant holidays in the UK. Apart from maybe a couple of instances, the weather has been lovely and warm. My kids have not been damaged by this in any way at all.

"bizarre" that someone would be scared of flying again after a traumatic experience? Is this your first time among humans, or something?

I’ve never been on a flight where the emergency steps were reviewed with passengers mid-flight, so yes, this would have really frightened me too!

Why is everyone being so obtuse about this? If someone has a scary experience, it's understandably going to put them off doing it again even if it's statistically unlikely. It's normal human behaviour?

People on this thread are being so weird. There were newspaper reports of really bad turbulence on another easyjet flight the other day with an investigation into it and passengers saying they were traumatised, so it does happen. I'm not sure why people are minimising the OPs experience.

For me, it's the lack of control when things start going weird on a flight. Having had a diversion due to a major malfunction (which I noticed happening before an announcement was made) and also lightening strike and severe turbulence , I've developed a fear of flying having never been scared before. On the basis there's no way I'm not going to go on hols to hot places, I now take beta blockers before all flights which takes the heart-pounding panic fear away. Not ideal but does the job.

I don't think you need to make a decision about next year's holiday for a while yet - I'd wait until this year's experience has faded a little if I were you.

I used to be a slightly nervous flier and got much worse after one particularly turbulent flight. It took a fear of flying course for me to get back onto flights.

As far as turbulence is concerned, in my experience if you're on a bigger plane flying long-haul, it's not as bad. And while I'm not dismissing your experience at all, I have flown 4 times this summer and 2 times earlier in the year and haven't had a bad experience at all although the landing on one of the last flights was particularly bumpy and made me feel really ill.

OP if you’re happy to drive in Europe, the ferry is a great way to start a holiday - Portsmouth -St Malo is great!

what about the Channel Islands for a holiday? Definitely better weather than here!

This has made me scared to fly again 😢

Hi OP, that sounds awful

i fly to Amsterdam for work about once a month, and things have definitely been getting worse. The bad landing thing where you land briefly to immediately take off again has never happened to me in ten years then twice this year!

Also more turbulence

as to holidays abroad, we holidayed in the UK a lot with our kids as they get very travel sick, and we have had really good holidays. If you allocate the same budget, and just eat out and stay in a nice hotel for example you can still get that relaxed holiday feeling!

Flying didn't used to bother me, even with turbulence, however since moving where I live now we have to fly here in small turboprops - never have I been thrown around so much, felt sick, or heard folk screaming like that before! It put me off flying for 10 odd years (there are other ways to get off the island), I did fly again a few times but do not enjoy it at all and opt for boat then car/train.
We all react differently - perhaps a nervous fliers course, perhaps time, perhaps use the train etc. Good luck.

Sounds absolutely terrifying. My suggestions: overnight boat to Santander and holiday in Basque Country/ Asturias. Train to Avignon and south of France- although it can get as hot as 40C in summer which is too much for most people. This year it’s been topping out at 34C which isn’t so bad. I’m there now it’s gorgeous. If your child is in primary ( sorry can’t remember) you could go in the last week of august/ 1st week of September . Or consider Wales . I know there are no weather guarantees but it’s beautiful.

Trains! We interrailed a few years ago to southern Italy by train and it was great!

Early Eurostar, Lunch in Paris, train to Turin, Sleeper south.

Coming back we went to Tirano in the north and went on a scenic railway.

Under 12s are free on inter-rail.

It was a great trip!

I'd recommend it as an option.

Agree.
Empathy seems amiss here.

But your first post suggested that the cabin crew were crying in fright due to the severity of the turbulence and that there were lots of injuries even in seated, belted passengers.

Then your other posts clarified that neither of these were true.

If you want a resort type holiday, you can go by train to some of the European centre parcs places. I've had friends say they're nicer than UK centre parcs (and cheaper!) with better weather.

We've just flown to and from Ibiza and after last year's horrendous landing in a storm in Montenegro it was a piece of cake. Flying is extremely safe.

Unfortunately OP your post that "cabin crew were crying" completely over-dramatised what actually happened. It made it sound as though the whole crew was sobbing rather than one woman hurt herself in the turbulence.

Even more so if you're not near London so you can 'just hop on the Eurostar'.

I can fly to southern Spain for similar time and money as it costs to get to London, let alone onward overseas travel.