What's the worst start to a holiday you have had?

[OneFancyTealQuail]

Having to call maintenance out within 10 minutes of arriving due to no electricity

Falling down a wet flight of marble stairs in Turkey which put me in hospital. Also a gall stone attack in Greece which also required a hospital stay. Both on days 1 and 2 of holidays.

Slipped on the footwash on open air pool at French campsite looking for my kids whod ran to pool as soon as we arrived.Gashed my elbow, blood everywhere, holding my t shirt over it then took wrong turn and got completely lost for what seemed like hours trying to find our rented caravan in massive camp site. Eventually found by tour rep on a golf buggy who took me back, to annoyed DP who wanted to know where the hell I'd been. I should have had stitches really but taped it up.

Flight delayed - arrived in Marrakech at 11pm - got to hotel who told us we had no booking !! Love holidays said wait 2 hours and they would resolve the issue. Single adult female with 3 female children out on the streets in a foreign country, where we don't speak the language. In the end I booked and paid a hotel for that night , didn't sleep due to the stress and called again in the morning.
despite the scary rocky start it was one the best places i have ever visited.

Nowhere near as dramatic, but turning up at a garden apartment in a gorgeous village after a family wedding and finding it thick with dead flies. There were other issues so we left the following morning.

Slept in and missed the flight

Flight Heathrow to Sydney cancelled, told it would leave the same time next day when a spare part had arrived. I actually wailed thinking that I'd miss the one day my best friend had off work to spend with me.

Ended up on a replacement flight and arrived the morning of her day off so it all worked out brilliantly.

Son vomiting all over tent and bedding on first night, laundry room locked.

Nightmare.

Driving to Butlins bognor ,about 4 hour drive with kids aged 6 and 8 ISH .

All of us came down with Nora virus either immediately before we left or during the journey 🤮

DFiance didn’t turn up at the airport, left a message on the check in desk (before mobiles) that he couldn’t come for a couple of days but would arrive ‘later’.

When he did ‘ arrive’ he got a very frosty reception and his ring back….

no running water in the lodge for 12 hours and son got the shits had to keep going outside to an outdoor shower to fill buckets to flush the toilet.

God I slipped on a marbley path in Spain 2 days after I arrived broke my elbow

Broke my coccyx falling down stone steps 3 hours after arriving for a skiing holiday. No skiing was done by me on that holiday!

Missed the flight and had to pay £1700 for the next one 🥴

First night of a fortnight's holiday in France and 10 yr old DS crying and saying he wanted to go home. And he meant it. We survived - just.

Son got sick on a boating holiday on the Broads. First night, threw up spag bol everywhere. The toilet (with the narrowest pipe I have ever seen) got blocked, the promised washing up liquid and cleaning equipment was literally a drop in the bottom of the bottle, and the shops were all closed until the next day. We had to use all our towels to mop it all up, and binned the lot. It stunk the boat out.
Luckily he was fine the next day!

First mishap was on the way to Gatwick, going to Amsterdam and just got on the M27 when a stone chipping shattered our windscreen. Husband stopped and pushed in the windscreen enough to see out and due to the rainy weather, put a jacket on back to front and his work eye-protection goggles to drive us back home to pick up our other car.

Barely made it to the airport and had to run like the clappers as they were about to board. Made it ... just.

Second was on way to ferry port. Badger ran out in front of the car, hit it with a massive thump and it lumbered off into the field we were driving past. Left a huge V-shaped dent in the underside at the front.

Got to the car hire desk after an 9 hour long haul flight, and my DH hadn't brought his U.K. driving licence with him. We had to spend an extra £300 pounds on 'insurance'.
We did have a fabulous holiday on a road trip in the Deep South though, bad start, good finish!

Unable to check in at the airport due to 18 month old ESTA not matching 9 month old passport. Had to reapply in the terminal, took 36 hours to be approved.

That was an expensive start to our holiday, had to buy new flight for dh to join us.

Arrived alone in Agadir last year and TUI hadn’t sent the transport. )Probably because it was ‘included’ so not their overpriced private transfer.)
Chaotic there , no phone signal numerous men pestering me and trying to grab my bags to get into their ‘taxi’ -managed eventually to WhatsApp TUI who were useless and told me to look for the (non existent) rep or the (non existent) EasyJet rep.
Officual taxi rank said no drivers available as sunset (Ramadan). Luckily one of the drivers (praise Allah!!) was standing next to the guy and said he would take me! No idea what I would have done otherwise —airport was closing after last flight. Would have had to take one of the dodgy chancers.
The taxi driver got a very big tip and I booked him for the return journey as and TUI were completely dismissive and unhelpful /won’t be using them again!

Ferry delayed 12 hours due to bad weather so we had to park up with hundreds of other cars in a damp field overnight. Unable to sleep in the car and not enough toilets provided for the number of people - think Glastonbury loos, only worse.

Weather cleared and we started to move very slowly onto the ferry. Car broke down on the ramp up to the ferry. DH and ferry workers pushed us on.

When we arrived the car started a dream and the rest of the holiday was great.

Taking 5 tear old twins to French Alps, seven hour flight delay in Gatwick, arrived in Grenoble airport at midnight and had to wait 2 hours for baggage handlers to he called in. Arrived 0400hrs to find we were on the wrong side of the valley for DTwins' ski school booked for 0900hrs. Had to ask for different accommodation due to a safety issue and ended up with children in the king-size bed and DH & me in the kids' bunks as not permitted for under-6s...
To be fair the whole holiday was a stress fest- it didn't ever get better

Years ago we had to go back home from the airport as we had forgotten the travellers cheques, luckily Dh is one of those people who like to be there ridiculously early so we made it just though!

I can’t choose between:

-rain so torrential the first night camping the tent was in a six inches of water

-caught in such long security queues at the airport we missed the flight

-arriving at our vllla to find people already staying there, it had been double booked

Woke up at Hilton Gatwick to snow. In April. Rapidly settling snow. Took kids outside to build a snowman. Told to check in for flight as normal. Got though security and flight delayed an hour, then 2, then 4, then 6... airport was filling up with people, we were all sitting on the floor cheesed off... then flight delayed to next day. This was then 7pm. Took one flight at a time to collect luggage and get on coaches... ours went to Brighton and we stayed there overnight. Flew out next day. Kids slept for the first 2 days of the trip.

Got off the train in Rome, my husband had really painful cramps and was desperate to get to our hotel to use the toilet. Was approached by a taxi driver which normally we’d be savvy enough to fob off and look for the official taxi rank, but in my husbands desperation he agreed to go with this guy, who massively ripped us off. Didn’t have the Italian or the time to argue with him when we got to our hotel so we angrily paid up. Later, after husband felt a bit better, we were walking to dinner when my period very suddenly and heavily started. Had to run into the nearest pharmacy to grab what ended up being the most expensive tampons in all of Europe. First day of honeymoon going really well! 😄 Then while we were eating some very average pasta (in a restaurant that had been recommended to us by a Roman colleague so thought it would be amazing) my husband started to feel sick again. Hurried up the meal, no time for dessert, but when we left the restaurant there was torrential rain. Had to just run all the way back to our hotel, but on the way home one of my sandals snapped so i ran in a very strange, awkward way. Got to our fancy hotel looking like two drowned rats. The rest of the holiday was amazing, but the first day was a complete and utter disaster from start to finish. It’s funny to talk about now though but on the actual day my husband was miserable!