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

I doubt it, my parents are very low profile quiet people. I still have a souvenir tea towel they bought me in Gander!

Realised had booked the wrong hotel. It was a chain, and booked it for the wrong town, located in the cloudy chilly part of the island. Only lasted a few days before we paid to go back to the sunny side!!

DS3 projectile vomiting in a taxi on the way to Heathrow, then having explosive diarrhea as I lifted his front end out of the taxi to puke copiously on the pavement next to the A420, like a tiny Mr. Creosote. Taxi would only agree to take me back home after I paid the soiling charge… I cried buckets, because I was washing vomit off the entire contents of my handbag when I should have been halfway to California. DS’ passport had a sicky whiff for years.

My first and only skiing holiday in Austria, and I managed to fall over getting on the ski lift, which cracked me on the head and needed stitching. I still fucking hate getting on stuff that is moving - it’s a totally unreasonable expectation (for me anyway!)

Most of mine are vomiting related. Dd1 spewed all over me on the plane in bad turbulence which had a domino effect and about 5 others started vomiting. They’d stuck all the people with kids in close proximity so that was a long and very smelly flight. We then got delayed at the airport as the transfer was late. When we arrived at the villa I put all the vomit covered clothes in the washing machine and it flooded the kitchen. Dd2 also went through a spell of vomiting on the first night of three different holidays. Sprayed it up the walls of a caravan.

An extreme air rage incident mid Atlantic ocean by a man who was high on drugs. Assaulted his girlfriend then cabin crew. Took four of the crew to apprehend him and tie his hands and feet together with cable ties whilst other passengers sat on him for two hours until we could land safely in Maine on the East Coast of America. FBI got on the plane and arrested him. We went to take off again and the engines failed just as we were about to lift into the air. Everybody screaming hysterically etc. All got off and were eventually found a hotel for the night (it was Prom time and no local hotels to be had so we were ferried hours away) The airport was crawling with TV cameras following us and interviewing us live on the news channels. They had to get school bus drivers to take us to our hotel late at night and their kids were asleep on the back seats of the buses.

Got driven back to the airport the next morning and boarded the plane, but loads of passengers got cold feet and asked to get off one by one (along with lengthy baggage reterival). They seemed to think the flight was doomed.

Eventually landed in Mexico almost two days late. This was in 2001 and it's been featured in 'Flights from Hell' style documentaries a few times. I still have a diary from the time where I wrote down everything that happened as it unfolded.

Felt pretty unwell before going on holiday by train to Switzerland but really, really needed a holiday.

Both eardrums burst shortly after checking in to the very unfriendly hotel that would not deign to adapt a menu to 3/5 year olds. They didn’t want much, only not to have their steak covered in wild fungus sauce or juniper jus.

I then got viral meningitis and didn’t leave the hotel room for 6 days.

That was fun!

@RainbowZebraWarrior I think you win the internet tonight. That sounds horrendous!

Fainted and face planted a marble floor day 2. I broke my front teeth. Black eye and swollen face, bust lip. Was our dream luxury holiday we had saved for years. No photos that holiday.

spent the next 12 days wearing only sunglasses. I had a choice of hiding or accepting I looked beaten up. DP spent rest of holiday being stared at. I had the air hostess and some guests taking me aside and checking I was ok.

Touch wood, I've always been extremely lucky... The worst I've probably had was arriving at Addis Ababa (alone) late evening and discovering the hotel didn't seem to have booked my transfer, as requested. Luckily there was a shuttle to a neighbouring hotel who a) spoke English and b) offered to drop me off. Unpleasant in Cairo too when I knew there was a shuttle, but the hordes of bloody taxi drivers kept swarming at me and assuring me it had closed for the day. Just as I was about to give in and agree to a cab, my lovely shuttle hove into view...

Couple of friends had a pretty crappy time leaving US last year though (not together). One was stuck on a grounded plane with no aircon for over 6 hours, and another had some guy die on her flight and the plane diverted to Russia. She was pretty nervous, being an American in Moscow at the height of the war... Luckily they didn't make her get off, they just removed the casualty and she reached her destination a day late - which wasn't ideal as it was a tour!

Ds tripping and knocking a tooth out on the first day
ds tripping and hitting his head against a stone wall on the first day
Horrific traffic jam taking 11 hours to do a 6 hour journey
losing the car keys and not being able to go
missing the train stop and ending up 30 minutes away
putting the holiday companies address in the sat nav instead of the cottage address and being 90 minutes away.

We finally got to the apartment we’d booked in Lanzarote after a long delay, we put passports and money (it was the early 90s) in the room safe, stacked the suitcases out of the way for unpacking the following day but just left our cabin bags on the floor in between the beds while we had a nap before going out to find food.

Neither of us woke until morning, my boyfriend went into the bathroom, came back to get his medication from his cabin bag and it was then that we noticed that neither were there. The patio door, the only door to get in, had been forced open in the night as had several others nearby and the thief had come into the bedroom while we were sleeping and taken our bags.

We lost our cameras, Walkmans and tapes, books, things like aftershave, perfume, make up and medication and spent the first day of our holiday in a long queue at the dark and dingy police station along with a huge number of holidaymakers who’d also been victims of crime.

Arriving at the villa in lanzarote with DH, DD (3) and DD (1) and my parents. Unloading the bags and everything out of the taxi. 5 mins later I ask DH were DD (1) is. He said I thought you got her out. We run outside and taxi is gone. Then we spot him up the street outside another villa. He hadn’t even notice DD asleep in the back. I was the talk of Costa del Carmen as the woman who left her baby in a taxi.

toddler vomiting on arrival over our open suitcase

different toddler having profuse diarrhoea suddenly (wearing a swimming nappy) in a jacuzzi

Oh my god, thank goodness the taxi hadn’t gone far!

OMG

Oh yes forgot - an internal flight Delhi-Kashmir in 1990 when the plane dropped 300 feet suddenly mid air- people were screaming

My SIL had bought an apartment in Sunny beach Bulgaria and very kindly let us use it for two weeks. We turned up in the middle of the night only to find that whoever was in charge of the apartment blocks had been sub letting it and there was a whole family sleeping in her apartment! I don't know who was more shocked then or us!

DS coming down with ear infection the night before we went on holiday to Center Parcs and advised by doctor he couldn’t go in the water

Going to a beautiful gulf coast beach resort in Florida with dh and ds aged 12 months. Dh put his back out a bit the day we were leaving - I made him be ultra careful - I loaded and unloaded all the luggage/ds etc. We got to the apartment and popped ds into the crib. 2 minutes later he had managed to split himself open on a clasp - crib obviously substandard. We both leaped for him etc. Ended up driving to emergency room for him to be stitched up. DH well and truly put his back out during all of this. So he spent the rest of the week flat on his back in bed, high on muscle relaxants and tranquilisers while I entertained ds 24/7... who hated the beach. I actually think he was afraid of it. We'd go down and he'd turn around immediately. Longest week ever - and I had to delay our flights because dh wasn't fit to fly. When I called my boss to tell him I had to take another day off I burst into tears.

you win!!

My dd was one, and we were at a business conference in Florida when she started being sick.

DD was sick for days eventually ending up in hospital. There were no chairs left, so patients were sitting on the floor which seemed barbaric to me, and the dr wouldn’t even see dd without going through reams of insurance papers and forms - it that took nearly 45 mins!

Managed to get dd some meds. However she started being sick again on the flight. 8 hours she projectile vomited all over me. Using up the entire collection of blankets on the plane (given to me by aghast cabin crew) every last napkin. Two emergency outfits and I sat with sick in my hair and clothes until we finally arrived home at 1am. We have never stepped foot in Florida again. It was the worst flight we have ever taken by far!

There was another I had forgotten,in my teens, went camping with boyfriend. You had to pay at the site office as soon as you entered the camp site. Very basic in the 60s. Paid set up camp. When we went to bed I put my bag with our money under my pillow, something my late DM always did. In the morning it's gone! Every penny we had. Went to the office to report it, they claimed we had parked without paying and were calling the Police,we said go ahead, they didn't. We actually went to the police station, they said my empty bag would probably be found in a field. They lent us some money. We went to another campsite, pitched up, torrential rain in the night,no built in ground sheets in the tents in those days.

Arrived for a 1 week stay in a very nice resort in Greece, very unusual for us we usually are at the budget end. Arrived about 12, room not ready til 3. Hotel kindly offered us lunch, discussed allergens at length and ended up blue lighted to hospital with anaphylaxis before I even checked in. Ended up moving to a self catering apartment and stocking up on groceries as I felt I couldn't trust the hotel food wise after that.

I once went camping in March with my lovely nephews. It was freezing and I had a horrible cold.

Had a huge argument with my sister when I went to collect them.

We put up the tent, my ex boyfriend managed to melt one of nephews’ Star Wars sleeping bags with a camping stove. Then he jumped on my air bed and popped it.

These posts are quite funny! Very cheering 😂