Mumsnet users share their holiday nightmares with Admiral Travel Insurance

[EllieMumsnet]

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We can all laugh about our nightmare holiday moments when we are back in the comfort of our own home, but at the time they can often seem like the end of the world! The team at Admiral Travel Insurance have asked us to find out what holiday nightmares, however big or small, made you wish you’d stayed at home at the time.

So what's the worst holiday mishap you’ve had to deal with? Did you have a suncream explosion in your suitcase? Or realise you didn’t actually book the hotel you thought you did? Perhaps you planned a beach holiday and it rained every day? Or you discovered the major mistake of not practising putting up your new tent before you went camping?

Whatever your holiday nightmare moment, please share it below and you will be entered into a prize draw to win a £300 voucher of your choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

Saved up and stayed in a really fancy log cabin in Turkey with exDP. Dream holiday, until I woke up covered head to toe in gnat bites. They were even in-between my fingers it was awful! The hotel had to fumigate our room.

It totally ruined my holiday as I was constantly crying as the itching was so bad I couldn't keep still or sleep.

It was only day 2 of a 14 day holiday!

On a trip to Italy, told dh about the dangers of pickpockets etc, but he laughed and said it wouldn't happen to him, he isn't stupid... 600 euros stolen, not covered by our insurance either as we could not produce receipts for changing it.

N

P leaving laptop at security. In all the hoo ha retrieving it we missed our plane. We were THOSE people who delayed flight and had bags removed from plane . Horrendous.

Had to spend night in airport hotel. Didn't even get a lie in as our replacement flight was so early.

First time in Venice I felt ill after landing. By the time I got to hotel I was very ill - 2 days full on D&V.

Luckily we were there for 4 days so still had a gorgeous time once I recovered.

Having serious stomach upset and not being able to get my hotel room key card to work luckily a member of staff helped me just in time but I was mortified

Went to Barcelona with my daughter on a mini break. Got the return dates wrong and missed the flight home. Had to pay for an extra night in the hotel and new flights but we had a great extra day!

Name changed for this!

Being ultra polite, I stepped off a kerb in Lisbon to let someone pass, caught my feet in a pothole and broke both ankles and a couple of bones in my feet.

Portuguese A&E bandaged me up (no plaster because they assumed my insurer would fly me home ASAP) and discharged me to my hotel room.

Travel insurers (I won’t name names but their call centre was in Barcelona and let’s just say their grasp of English was no better than my Spanish) weren’t very helpful and left me stranded on my bed in the Portuguese hotel for five days. I couldn’t get off the bed, let alone get to the loo and had to manoeuvre myself to the edge of the bed and wee into a tin tray from the hotel kitchen.

Luckily for DH who had to empty said tin tray, the painkillers made me extremely constipated .

Eventually the insurers got their act together and got me semi-plastered, into an ambulance and wheeled through the airport and home to a UK hospital where I spent the next two weeks.

DS and DH were absolute stars throughout I must say. Easily the worst foreign holiday we’ve had. And yes, we do laugh about it now.

Not mine, but someone I saw on a beach today (holidaying in US).
A woman was wearing a bikini, but had the knickers on inside out - bright blue bikini with a flesh coloured gusset on show😲.
Poor lady, I wasn't brave enough to point it out to her, I hope someone in her family/party did.

Not sure if it's really a disaster but we had a UK break completely ruined by the weather - it rained all day every day for a week - the sort of rain that even with good waterproofs was just miserable to be out in.

DC was tiny and we'd thought this would be easier than going abroad . Despite being fairly resourceful there was only so much we could do out and about so we spent a lot of time in our cottage doing all the same things that we would have done at home.

We applied for DC's passport shortly afterwards.

Went on a last minute 18-30s holiday to Ibiza. Got off the coach from the airport, threw our things in the room
and went out.

At about 4am decided we wanted to go back and couldn't remember where the hotel was, or what's it was called. Walked around for 5 hours looking for it without luck. Finally found a rep at 10am who helped us.

Never knew their were so many 2 star hotels in San Antonio.

Worst by a long stretch was last year in Fuerteventura, beautiful country but horrid hotel. Thy had been told of my severe food intolerances and said they could cater, only the first day I had an awful reactive within minutes of eating. Was screaming from the stomach pain, passed which wasn't helped my no air con which had been advertised.

Room had a broken lock, broken tiles, 1 glass in a family room which was disgusting. We eventually got ,over to another room. Much better but beds were hard, very bright rooms due to near on see through curtains so awake very early.

Then to top it of there was a sewage leak outside our room. Rep walked out on complaint customers saying her shift was over so couldn't do anything. Uk emergency call centre just hung up on everyone. Hotel was full so no moving and wouldn't contact other hotels, neither would tour company, requested earlier flight home, no was the answer, my mum has severe breathing issue as does my son so the sewage wasn't helping. We have in and booked flights home at our own cost. The our operator denied any wrong doings during complaint. Save to say I will never book with them again, I will visit the island again though. So surprised as they are a huge tour operator!

As a teenager I went camping with a friend. We took tent and lots of gear. Didn't take any tent poles 😀

Once on the train I demanded someone vacate the seat I had reserved, brandishing my reservation tickets. I then very very graciously backed down (when I remembered that I was booked in that seat, but not on that train)

I've lost my passport twice while on holidays, in two different countries. One of those times I knew I wasn't going to be reunited with it in time for the flight home, because a kind stranger had located my passport, messaged a friend of mine on Facebook (but not me??) for an address for me, and posted it home. My passport was in the letterbox waiting for me when I got home.

Caravan holiday~ rained the whole time, windows leaked water, place in the middle of nowhere.
It was like a father ted sketch.
Mould all over the caravan curtains. Toaster didn’t work and there was a really weird smell in the bedroom...
not helped by my toddler taking sickness and diarrhoea and pooping on the carpet .
Should have stayed at home.
Highlight of the holiday was feeding the seagulls out the window, with the bread we couldn’t toast.

Having d&v on a sleeper train in India. There was a hole in the floor as a toilet. It wasn’t fun.

We were due to leave to Ibiza from Leeds/Bradford airport, we had picked (and paid extra) for a good flight 1 pm, so setting off for the airport and arriving at our destination before evening meal. The departure board simply showed our flight as 'delayed'....all other flights after ours went. SEVEN hours later our flight showed as CANCELLED. Good news for us. we had another flight waiting for us at MANCHESTER airport. So with tired children we had to retrieve luggage, board a coach, travel to Manchester, check in AGAIN. We got to our destination in the early hours exhausted and very very stressed.

On the way home from holiday last year the car exhaust system failed and we had to wait 5 hours for it to be replaced - not a fun time with a tired 7 year old.

DH took his old passport instead of the new one, missed the flight to Sri Lanka

Booked a cute little apartment on a a family resort - only my eldest came out in terrible chicken pox the day before, the place had no bath to soothe her, and was full of mould everywhere! We lasted 2 days and packed up and came home......our 9 month old baby then came out in the pox just as we got back, so bad she had an a bacterial infection from them that needed strong antibiotics and many visits to the docs to check it was healing and not turning into something far more sinister! I'm scarred from it!

Took my daughter on her 1st holiday to Majorca when she was 4 months old.When we got to Palma airport out of our 3 cases,mine didn't turn up.It was left at Manchester airport.Luckily I had divided my daughters stuff up between the 3 cases,but I only had the clothes I was stood up in,plus a spare top in my hand luggage,until my case arrived at the hotel the next evening.
Then the baby took poorly with a high temp in the middle of the week,but luckily was better the next day,after I,d given her Calpol.
And to top the holiday off we had a delay of 6 1/2 hours at Palma airport.Luckily its a great airport for baby facilities,they even have a changing room with cots in & supplied spare nappies if needed.
Didn't stop us taking her away though,made the most of it before she started school & had to go when its more expensive.God I miss my cheap holidays.

We got to the Green Park resort in Tenerife to find that we would be awake all night with low-flying aircraft . The beach was reached after an hours walk through an abandoned town like ghost town. The sunbeds were all broken and there was only one place to eat. There was one bus there and back to the nearest village. On the second night we were faced with aggressive teenagers running around the place Lovely!

Horrible, horrible food poisoning and only one bathroom was not how we wanted to spend our first holiday together!