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

Mine was before we even left the country!

DH got held up at security (DS had left water in his bag!) and we were very tight for time so we ran off to grab some sandwiches and then we ran to gate to meet DH there. He wasn't there! We waited for ages. In fact they closed the gate while we were waiting for him and they said they were getting our luggage off the plane. 5 of us. I couldn't get on the plane with the kids as I had DH's passport and the gate staff wouldn't take his passport until he arrived. They wouldn't let the kids on the plane even though my parents and my sister were on that plane as they 'needed an adult'. All 3 kids were crying. I thought security had detained him for some reason. Eventually DH turned up with a cup of coffee - he'd had to queue ages for it apparently!!! We were gobsmacked. DS1 (ages 10) fell down on his knees with tears rolling down his cheeks and literally begged the staff to let us on... eventually they relented. I'm still not sure if we delayed the plane - I was too shaken up.

Arrived at an hotel on a Greek island. Turned on the bedside light, and got an electric shock.

We drove early morning from London to Poole to catch a ferry to Cherbourg but missed it ...saw the ferry sailing away from the harbour as we drove up. They kindly transferred us on to another ferry leaving from Portsmouth at midday, so drove back there. After 5 or 6 hours in the car the children (about 7 and 9 at the time) were starving so we bought sandwiches and juice as soon as we boarded. Unfortunately it was one of the high speed ferries known as the vomit comet and DS threw up all over dh (they were up on deck thank God) and I was holding a sick bag for DD. People were puking all around. I am fairly severely emetophobic ...

My parents were flying out to visit my sister in New York on 9/11, they got diverted to Newfoundland for about a week and then flown back to Dublin before eventually flying on to New York! That’s the worst holiday start in my family!

You must have had more sympathetic gate staff than when the same thing happened to us! Despite arriving only just after they closed the gate they insisted they’d rather take our bags off the flight than let us on.

i think we would have made it of DH hasnt insisted of grabbing a bottle of gin at duty free, which we then had to return because weren’t eligible as we weren’t leaving the country!

There's a book and a musical about this. Have you seen it or read it?

My Mum and Dad went and quite enjoyed it.

Well, our first 'holiday' abroad post Covid started with us getting to the airport to find our evening flight was delayed by about 40 minutes, which became and hour, which became two. Finally we were called to the gate at about 10pm... only to hear an announcement the flight had been cancelled.

Cue literally running from one end of Luton airport to another after being told we need to go to one desk then another, dragging two exhausted, crying and desperately disappointed children behind us, then a huge queue while I frantically looked up alternative flights. But it was half term and there wasn't anything available in the next few days with 4 seats (despite there being a number of alternative airports we might have flown to and taken a train) , which made it not worth it. We gave up, went home and found an airbnb in Brighton a few days later to at least use the holiday time.

Luckily we were staying at my parents' holiday home where we were going so at least we didn't have accommodation costs to deal with and at least it was somewhere we go regularly and not some one off holiday of a lifetime, but still. Took best part of a year for airline to refund me.

I'm never booking late evening short-haul flights again after that.

Driving Midlands to Scotland for camping get together with ILs. Late leaving, realised we would miss the campsite gate being locked at 11pm, so stopped in a Premier inn, expensively booked 2 double rooms, DC at each others throats and wouldnt share, DH had to sleep with dog in car. Got to holiday, DS got sunburnt (in Scotland what are the chances?) massive autistic meltdown, wouldn't sleep in tent. Following day I had to bail out and take DS home on train ruinously expensive first class due to COVID distancing. PILs had already booked holiday to clash with their own sons (DHs) 50th birthday so we were apart for that. After that FIL got ill and had to have several days in hospital and SIL/BILs car broke down on the way home so they had to pay hotel and train too.

Took a couple of years to risk going on holiday again.

Edited: MIL talked for ages afterwards what a lovely holiday it was!

Going abroad I think Madeira,was just ironing clothes, going off for a 12.5 hour night nursing shift.. flying the following morning. Call from DH work colleague,was he at home,no I replied he's at work,oh no he isn't,he collapsed was taken to hospital! He was working in a garage, plastic roof, got heat stroke..put on a drip, we had to wait for Dr to say if he was fit to fly. I was going to cancel my shift. DH was produced fit to fly, adult ds happy to keep an eye.i stopped ironing, collected DH, went to work, went on holiday and realised I hadn't packed any clothes for me. We drove to Spain,via Dover Calais. I had never driven on the right. Really bad crossing, vomit everywhere and blood where people had fallen.dh can't drive,I'm terrified.he ended up laying on the younger kids laps in the back. Oldest ds in the front with me,he had just passed his test DH suggested he drives. I got to Barcelona at midnight, asked taxi drivers for directions to salou,all claimed not to speak English,yet they do when you want a taxi!

Arriving and putting our freezer food in the freezer. To wake up the next day and discover freezer has broken and all food wasted.

Actually it wouldn’t have been so bad if the caravan park had shown some care in response without us having to push.

Arrived at lovely French hotel in little town, perfect dinner, bit of how’s your father, threw back the sheets to find I’d flooded. It looked like we’d slaughtered a pig, bathroom took forever to clean up, had to go downstairs when flooding had subsided to explain in schoolgirls french that I needed new sheets and towels while DH was dispatched to the shop to try and buy sanitary towels….he came back with French tena lady pads. When I got back home went on hrt.

Flew with them German boyfriend to Düsseldorf on a Friday evening. Had to run all the way across the terminal at Heathrow to just make the flight (horrendous traffic).
Arrived in Düsseldorf and managed to just get to Hertz before they closed for the evening. Hire car had a somewhat convoluted sat nav system in the centre console, meaning my ex spent more time looking at that and not the road. We then crashed into the back of a van while on the autobahn. Airbags went off and we both emerged dazed. Waited several hours for pickup truck to collect us and the car. The pickup truck very kindly dropped us off at ex’s parents around 4am (my first time meeting them).
The red flags were there all along!

An accident in the tunnel of Heathrow meant we made our flight seconds to spare.

Flight was then aborted on the runway because of fog.

The news was breaking about Covid and I just wanted to go home. My sil was on a cruise in the Caribbean at the time, she texted me to say don’t fly anywhere the world is infested, and the entire cruise was extremely ill with coronavirus and they had been refused entry into the scheduled port. I wanted to get off the flight there and then, but no, we took off eventually and had the best week as it was so quiet. It was to be our last holiday for two years.

Handing our tickets over at Gatwick and seeing the check in lady's face fall. Her supervisor then told us our flight to the Maldives had left two hours before, and that our tickets were printed wrong

That started two days of hell, as our holiday of a lifetime collapsed. After a night at Gatwick, we flew Gatwick, Vienna, Dubai, Columbo, Malé.

Oh well. Sometimes things just don't work. 🙁

Getting fogged in to my offshore island home at the start of a holiday to South Africa. Missed my connecting direct flight to Cape Town from Gatwick, ended up getting there 24 hours late after a 40 hour journey that included a 12 hour overnight ferry, a coach trip and indirect flights via the Middle East.

Less than ideal but that’s the price of island life!

Flew on holiday but my bag stayed in Heathrow for a couple.of days (along with about ⅓ of the aircraft, so it had company ). Tweeted BA and was in conversation with them to only have the tweets hijacked and, stupidly, fell for a con. Had to cancel mine and my husbands cards and I had only taken one with me. BA were next to useless in finding my bag and it was a lovely lady at the airport who told me my bag was being delivered 2 days before BA deigned to reply and say my bag was on its way. I spent the first two days in my husbands shorts after making a dash to a shop for some knickers, vest tops and a bikini.

Arranged to meet my cousin from Florida in Edinburgh. Arrived at our hostel in to discover the room was just two sets of bunk beds which no one could use due to them being so cramped. Had to book another hotel which cost mega bucks 😕. Lesson to self don't let anyone else book a hotel room!! When we tried to book into the new hotel turned out it was the wrong one.....😕😂

Missing the flight due to traffic!!

Flight to US delayed about 8h which meant we arrived in early hours of the morning then had to pick up hire car and get to accommodation, where we found that the code to the key safe had timed out as it reset itself at midnight- had to be calling the accommodation company at like 3am to try and get someone to let us in

Realising as we were checking in at the airport that we didn't have a visa...
Missed our flight as no where was open in the airport to buy a visa until later
Got booked on a later flight but to a completely different part of the country
As we were waiting for the flight we booked accommodation in that part of the country for when we arrive
Got to accommodation and we'd booked it for the wrong year...

Left half my money in the car before flying, in the days with no phones or contactless or internet banking or any way of getting any more money!

Travelling half way across the world to go on hols with my sister. Except she brought her new boyfriend. I suspected when I arrived at her house that she was bringing him. He was sitting beside us on the plane & she was still swearing he wasn’t coming! They spent the days mostly in their room.

First night in an apartment, just me and ds, woke in the night and went for a drink to find the biggest cockroach I've ever seen in my life scuttling across the worktop, and it flew, it had wings!
I have a real fear so sat up all night, not dealing with it and just freaking out as it ran off somewhere. Eventually found it again in the morning and got ds to kill it, and believe me it took a few dozen whacks. I then bought a massive can of cockroach spray and fumigated the place.
I no longer enjoy hot weather so hopefully won't have to deal with that again, although with the heat we've had this summer I wouldn't be surprised if they become more commonplace in the UK 😱

Were any of the Come From Away characters based on them?