Mumsnet users share their best and worst travel stories with Arla BIG Milk

[JustineBMumsnet]

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Whether you’re going on a day out or on holiday, the journeys to your destination and back can make or break the entire trip. They help to determine if you have memories of a BIG adventure or a disappointing day. Arla would like to hear about your best and worst travel stories.

Here’s what Arla Big Milk has to say: “We know how important it is to get your little explorers out in the world around them, so we’ve partnered with Magic Light to bring you yearlong BIG Adventures. We’re also running an on pack monthly prize draw, available across UK grocery retailers, to give you the chance to win an amazing trip to Chessington World of Adventures Resort. Helping to fuel these BIG Adventures, Arla Big Milk is simply fresh whole milk that’s enriched with essential nutrients. So, if you want to join in on the adventure, come visit our site to explore activities for your Easter holidays.”

Do you have any travel stories that were memorable for all the wrong reasons? Perhaps you’ve experienced the misfortune of a child vomiting all over the back seats of the car or all over you following too many sweets? Perhaps you checked into your hotel and found that you’d got the date wrong? Have you had to fill time after your flight was delayed playing a dreaded game of eye-spy for hours on end?

Or, maybe you’ve been lucky in your travels and you managed to sleep throughout an entire journey, arriving bright eyed and bushy tailed at your destination? Perhaps you remember a journey where your children gave up bickering and actually liked each other for once? Perhaps you’ve been unexpectedly upgraded to first class or premium service and lapped up the free luxury?

Share either your best or your worst travel story on the thread below to be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £300 voucher for the store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

Insight Terms and Conditions apply

We have a few family disasters from travel sickness in a hot car, hot day! (Not a nice smell left!) To getting somewhere and realising you forgot the baby essentials!! to our son vomiting on a stranger on a escalator and nearly dropping the pram down them as a result (I was holding him)

We didnt have our first proper family holiday until a few years ago and it was fab! I think those little mishaps made sure we planned for this and apart from a few delays at airports everything went fab and we loved our first proper family getaway

Lovely family game of football on a group holiday, one player got hit in the arm with the ball.

7 hours later in A and E of hospital in small French town, slightly tipsy, translating situation between doctor and my friend (childs mum). He'd broken his arm and spent the rest of the holiday in a cast and sling.

We went on a day out to Liverpool for my birthday, my daughter was sick all over me in a museum and i had to be escorted up in the delivery lift to the staff toilet and then she was sick again in the mersey tunnel so we couldn't stop and i for some reason caught it all in my hands!!!

We had a two hour journey to my parents. My 2 and 4 year old made up their own game.... counting the number of cars they spotted of each colour. Obviously the youngest wasn't that great at it but my 4 year old thought it was great fun. It kept them entertained the whole journey and Nanny and Grandad were informed exactly how many cars of each colour they spotted when we arrived at theirs.

When we got off the ferry in Calais, just as we were getting through the terminal, there was a bomb scare. We were escorted by the French police out of the teminal and we had left our passports on the ferry booking desk. We almost caught a train to Lyon before we remembered our passports and had to go back and get them. All turned out well in the end.

Turned up to the wrong hotel!

Right name, wrong hotel (think Hilton Park West, rather than Hilton Park Lane).

Made me feel slightly better that apparently it happened "all the time" and they were only a 20min walk away... so not too bad!

i did spend ages insisting that i was right at the desk though... got out all my confirmations and was in a panic... they knew immediately what the problem might be!

Just after our mum died I took my younger sisters aged 10 + 11 on holiday as a treat , I didn't live with them so didnt think to check their suitcases, forgetting that mum used to pack for them and dad had probably let them choose their own clothes. We got on a very rainy holiday to find my 10 yr old sister had left all her knickers and socks, towel and face cloth at home ! She'd repacked about 10 times trying to fit everything in and hadn't put them back in, We were in the middle of the countryside and I don't drive so I spent the week hand washing the one pair each night and drying them with a hair dryer !! My hands were killing from wringing them out by the end of the week.

Worst travel experience. I'm from the UK and my husband is from South Africa. So we travel back and forth each year.
One year, we left Jo'burg on the night flight. Our girls were about 4 and 1, and our youngest was too big for the bassinet. So we got on board and started our evening routine. We cleaned teeth, and got them into pyjamas, laid them out on our blow up cushions between the seats. Then they started kicking off. They were SO loud when everyone was all calm. My youngest would not settle and screamed and screamed. Meanwhile, we had a family behind us whose children were angelic- plugged into the films, calm and easy. They were three kids, parents, and a nanny...!
My kids were being vile, and I was busy dreaming of pre kids holidays/gin/how to drug children etc. I was tempted to plug them into screens, but at that point it used to make them insane.. so we stuck at it.
Anyway. Finally, after about an hour the girls went to sleep, and we could chill out.
Then, at about 11 pm, the row behind attempted to calm their kids down. Unbeknownst to us, they had each had their own packet of sweets. Like a BIG one. So when they attempted to get them to go to sleep, they were literally climbing the chairs. Suddenly, we had moved from family with vile children to having the most amazing children in the plane, as ours slept through. The airline staff had to get involved, as these sugar high kids and their poor nanny attempted to get these manic kids to stay in their seats. I got no sleep, as they literally didn't sleep and kicked our chairs through the night. But we did get free champagne as an apology from the airline, as they were so difficult and noisy!

Best was our baby moon - we drove to Ireland and did lots of driving, lots of chatting, lots of radio 4 comedy on, lots of laughing.

The worst - when I left DH to book the hotel when we travelled to Italy for a friend's wedding. The hotel was on the grotty side, miles from the town and only accessible by infrequent and unreliable buses. The only redeeming feature of the hotel was that it was above a supermarket, so the supply of exciting (I'm easily pleased) continental snacks was plentiful.

Gosh! We have had a few, Ummm, eventful journeys, the latest was a day trip to a local beach less than half an hour from home.

After a bit of discussion we took Dsd’s dh’s car, as it’s bigger than mine, with my tween and her six year old who is diabetic. It was a really hot day which affects her son’s blood sugars so he had a snack just before we set off. We were just approaching the track down to the beach when his alarm sounded to let us know that his levels were too low and at the same time became aware of a flashing blue light behind us. We pulled in expecting the police to race past us but they pulled in behind. I told dsd to see to the police and I’d see to her ds only to discover that he’d got a fancy new testing kit a few days before that I didn’t know how to use. We had to ask the police to wait whilst we sorted him out.

It turned out that dsd’s dh had forgotten to MOT the car and the police advised us to go straight home. So, £100 fine and no beach trip for us and a little boy who keeps telling everyone we meet that we were arrested.