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?

Motorail from Calais ceased around 2010. The Man in Seat 61 says they're an endangered species with very few left in Western Europe.

Not read the entire thread but enough. I'm not surprised at you being put off flying but I think you'll get over it.

Our first cruise was in the Med in July and we hit what the captain called a hurricane. It was rough. All activities cancelled, rolling seas so you couldn't stand up straight, spectacular breakages in the restaurant. The restaurant was empty apart from a handful of hardy souls including my DS. Vomit everywhere. We laid in bed wondering what would happen. Next day veteran cruisers were all saying they had experienced nothing like it before. I've still never met anyone else who had a similar experience.
Believe it or not we went on another the following year, mainly because it seemed so rare.

When I first met DH we had a fortnight in Cornwall in 1977. It rained for 14 solid days and we have been abroad every year since for our main holidays apart from a couple of odd years. Really just for guaranteed sunshine. UK short breaks are fine but not enough. If you have a year off I think you'll go back on a plane. I also agree that you don't want DC to fear flying again.

Aw that’s sad. Either way OP can get to the south by car or by train.

I don't travel well on boats but plenty say you can't feel the rocking movement.

This was an option as we know we.can sail from Southampton but it's the fear/worry of being on a ship in the middle of the completely black ocean and not being able to get anywhere in an emergency!

Obviously unlikely I know

@YellowphantGrey I wasn't particularly advocating a cruise just trying to illustrate that we did another after a very bad first experience. I wouldn't do one now but it was brilliant for teenagers. I absolutely get that existential dread in the dark of night in the middle of the ocean!

That's really rude. Don't dismiss the OP's experience.

Virtually all of them stopped in 2020 and haven't restarted. There are a few short-distance routes and mail packets, but none of the cross-ocean ones.

Really? You actually said it. You wouldn't be restricting your child by holidaying in the UK - you would be showing them the huge variation we have

Yes sadly the trans oceanic have stopped since Covid but still short haul ones around Europe available which might suit OP. Shane really it was an interesting way to travel.

Though I have now seen other updates saying she doesn’t like boats.

All your doing now is showing me you've still not read my subsequent posts as I answered your first post before you even posted it.

And we've plenty of holidays in the UK and for our lives right now, it's not the type of holiday we need.

We've done most of Scotland, Northumberland, Sunderland, Yorkshire, Newcastle area, about half of the Welsh coast and the obvious Devon/Cornwall

Done the lakes, live near the peaks, done the new forest too.

Bournemouth, Brighton, Dorset and Sommerset too.

We do these breaks at weekends or long weekends. It's rare we can all sit down by a pool and read and listen to music and podcasts in the sun for the whole day which is what we all do on a main holiday.

The three of us are non stop for the rest of the year. I run two businesses, DH works 60 hours a week we then have DS going into sixth form, his football club, his work, squirrels and scouts that we run, day trips and football training at weekends.

Honestly this thread has been exhausting because some people decided to turn it into a ridiculous pile on because they couldn't even make the effort to read it wasn't posted on aibu and that in turn attracted the troll hunters.

Absolutely ridiculous that I've had to literally declare everything and it STILL doesn't satisfy some people.

Huge lesson learned here.

@YellowphantGrey, from your last post it sounds like you are really struggling with not being able to fly abroad again. You know Holidays in Britain will be fine and pleasant but you don’t want to restrict yourself to it.

Likely you will be able to fly again once you move past what happened.

Sorry it happened to you though, sounds terrible x

Were you anywhere near France when that happened? We had a similar experience on a cruise ship 10+ years ago. Thankfully I have sea legs, so not only didn't I get sick, I literally carried on as normal and had second helpings in the restaurant as they hadn't been expecting the rough seas and had way too much food, considering how few people were eating.

Force 11 winds and the ship was rocking all over the place. They kept the entertainment on and the singer performed bare foot on the stage and the drummer was visibly holding onto his drums at one point. Think they were tied down, but his stool wasn't!

All outside decks were closed off and they locked all the balcony doors so you couldn't even try and go out. We were on deck 6 and our balcony chairs were knocked over and there was water spray all over the windows the next morning.

I have done a lot of cruises since and always end up disappointed if we don't get at least one rough day!

I am struggling with the thought of it? Not sure why so many on here are attempting to minimise it and berate me and accused me of lying.

I'm not sure why being scared of something after an upsetting experience is being sneered at though?

Holidays here wouldn't be anything special and wouldn't give the rest we all need. I won't apologise for our life and how we choose to holiday.

A UK break for us isn't worth the money it costs.

@PfishFood we were near Sicily. It was 2016 I think so could have been the same storm.
DS2 (16 at the time) ate his way through the buffet and went to the theatre with DH while DS1 and I went to bed.
They love to tell the story. Apparently the dancing was cancelled as the dancers obviously couldn't stand up never mind dance. Instead a comedian came on wearing a lifebelt to the theme tune of Titanic. I'm guessing the handful of passengers who made it to the theatre saw the funny side.

@YellowphantGrey are you feeling any better now you've had a few days home? Do you think you might change your mind after time passes?
I thoroughly agree that a UK holiday alone is second best. Fine as a second holiday or short break.

This is quite an extreme reaction to what was meant to be a supportive response. I certainly wasn’t sneering or berating you and I have my own fears.

Genuinely wishing you the best with this.

I do feel a bit better, thank you.

We had next years holiday booked prior to this year's holiday and 2026 was planned on paper and will be booked beginning of next year.

It's been cancelled but DH has booked a different one with a shorter flight time and we have till July 2025 to cancel with only losing deposit.

I still feel sick when I think about what happened but I've taken every bit of advice on here where people said it was just unlucky and not unusual and I'm desperately trying to ignore the parts where it says its only going to get worse.

It's responses like yours that haven't really helped though? I've typed a perfectly normal reply to receive responses of "wow dramatic" "that's an extreme reaction" etc.

I think the whole post turned into a farce because people actually said on here I shouldn't have posted in aibu if I didn't want harsh replies, despite me actually posting in holidays. The pile on got worse and every post accused me of lying then saying I was dramatic then using my replies defending myself as "evidence" of this.

It's been gaslighting at its finest with people goading me to then hold their hands up and insist it's my behaviour not theirs.

@YellowphantGrey

I still feel sick when I think about what happened but I've taken every bit of advice on here where people said it was just unlucky and not unusual and I'm desperately trying to ignore the parts where it says its only going to get worse.

There’s lots of opinions and reports of modeling saying it should get worse…I’ve yet to see (or hear from those still flying around for a living) that it actually is getting noticeably worse.

It’s possible improvements in forecasting are making anticipating or avoiding most turbulence more straightforward, so now flights are avoiding or crews are better prepared…but as one of your pilots pointed out sometimes the bumps simply aren’t in the forecast.

I think as far as your OP goes it does sound like you were to some extent unlucky/in an unusual situation, and I do know flying around in moderate turbulence for a long period of time is sometimes unavoidable, which can be a real PITA for all involved.

Not so easy if you want to go further afield though. My usual trips are to Asia. Others go to Australia or America

The flight sounds unpleasant but I think you son only bruised as you said had returned from bathroom and hadn't been sitting with seatbelt securely fastened. It's like a bike though, best to get back on asap. I do think cancelling NEXT YEARS holiday as soon as you got home is a bit premature though

So if you had received even half the responses I've had on here, you wouldn't be defensive?

How about if something had scared you and you received hundreds of replies saying that you were being dramatic about, calling you a liar, insisting it didn't happened and asking for evidence to continually use against you? You wouldn't even be bothered?

Defending myself doesn't mean I'm any of the things you choose to describe me either.

Using words and sentences like "on the attack" and "not a very nice person" are utterly bizarre. How can you conclude I'm not a nice person yet the people who have been abusive are justified?

None of your comments or user name stand out and I'm not about to trawl back through multiple pages of abuse because I don't need to read those hurtful things again

Good for you though if you don't get defensive when multiple people verbally abuse you because they misread the forum it was posted on.

I did update earlier in another reply. We cancelled the holiday but DH has gone ahead and booked a shorter distance flight next year. Himself and DS will be flying before I can so they are fine and ready to go. I won't get chance now till next August.

How about if something had scared you and you received hundreds of replies saying that you were being dramatic about, calling you a liar, insisting it didn't happened and asking for evidence to continually use against you? You wouldn't even be bothered?

This proves to me I was right in thinking you exaggerated a lot in your OP.

You've had a lot of supportive and helpful replies on here, yet you've come back a day later to reignite it all again for some reason. I assume you like the drama.

I've acknowledged and responded to the helpful ones and made notes of what has been said on there. I've defended myself against the nasty comments.

I've replied to every single comment, there's over 400 of them. I didn't come back and ignite anything, I have responded to people who have come on and left a reply to me.

I assumed as its my post, I could reply to responses? I wasn't aware that I couldn't reply to people after 24 hours, why isn't this made clearer?

Should I get the mods to close the thread to stop replies?