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

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We ended up having no luggage for the first few days of our hoilday after it got lost at the airport, it made for a very stressful start to the hoilday.

My other half in Egypt getting D and V. We had to call the doctor out and was very scary how I’ll he was. Beautiful country though💕💕💕

I took a joy rides travel sickness tablet before a trip to Alton towers, it turns out I don't metabolise the active ingredient correctly and I spent the entire day in a daze. My friend leaned over to check if I was OK at one point and I bit her.
I have very little memory of the trip.

Our family trip to the Santa sleepover in Alton Towers, we have the time of our lives! I never tell the children we are going,I just make it up. Last year I told the eldest He had a dentist appointment. When he stated that this wasn't the way to the dentist, I had to change tactics and say he had to go to the dental hospital to take out his wobbly tooth. He was thrilled when he saw the Welcome to Alton Towers signpost. Don't know if I will get away with the trickery next year!!

The worst time was many years ago having an 11.30 pm flight home but having to be out of accommodation by 11am and spending all
Day walking round with luggage and hardly any money left, only to get to airport to be told hourly that flight delayed, no other information and no facilities put on, eventually got flight some 16 hours later.

Last year, on a long haul trip both my kids and wife got nausea (being polite) one after the other. Meant spending pretty much the whole of the last week in our room.

Oh the nightmare of a 12 hour drive back from Cornwall with cystitis. Stuck in motorway traffic wriggling with discomfort and nearly crying. It was horrific.

I'm no longer able to travel abroad due to my health & disability but thankfully I achieved one of my lifelong dreams of going on safari thanks to winning a holiday to Kenya. It was amazing. I was concerned because of my mobility problems but we had our own driver & guide who even carried me in my wheelchair at the elephant orphanage we visited as the terrain was too rough to wheel me. I was allowed to cuddle one of the baby elephants who tickled my toes, he was so cute. I got a kiss off a giraffe & also off Olly Murs & Dermot O'Leary who I met at a VIP reception after their trek across the desert for Comic Relief. It was my birthday that day so it was the best birthday & best holiday ever

Driving off to the airport on my way to Spain l realised l had left my passport behind so had to go back home to get it, then got caught in traffic and missed my flight. Very costly mistake as l had to pay for another one

Driving back from Devon with two very young boys and playing Queen's Bicycle Race, the words weren't to hard to join in and they both started miming ringing a bicyle bell with both hands. The picture is imprinted on my mind and I always think of them when I hear the track.

Best was when we recently made a trip to Birmingham as i had a conference to attend. After i'd finished up i'd join my OH and our DS to go to the local museums. Really proud of him a he was little trouble on the way up, there and back.

The worst has to be when we returned home on a flight with our first DS who was around 1 at the time. As soon as we were ready for take off, you guessed it, a full nappy was produced - and wow it smelt and you could smell it permeating the whole plane. Of course we couldn't change him until the seat belt lights went off 15 mins later at which point we must have been the most unpopular people on the flight!

A week in cornwall. It rained all the time. Our daughter got whooping cough. My hubby's eczema flared up and got badly infected. And the caravan was slimy and mouldy. We didn't last the week.

Being incredibly seasick on a long rough ferry crossing to France - it was the worst feeling and thought the journey would never end

My worst travel story was driving to Megeve in the Alps with our two very young children (Marc's potty on the rear ledge of our estate car is prominent in all the photographs). We drove all the way through France in our not-so elderly buy very high mileage Montego estate, and all was fine until we reached the foothills. We had to stop frequently in the dark with a boiling radiator. We had to clamber down a slippery slope a number of times to get water to top up the radiator from a mountain stream. Finally seeing the sign for our destination was the most heavenly moment!

Plymouth to Roscoff overnight ferry in roughish weather. Our allocated seats were in the middle of the cinema and the lights were off. Daughter chucked, I caught what I could and we proceeded to shuffle our way unsteadily along the row to get out to the toilet (for the clean up operation), scattering vomit as we went.

Worst - nearly missing a flight after being stuck in horrendous traffic in London after the M25 was shut - never ran so far through an airport!

Best - After booking a very basic car hire for a week away in the USA, we got an amazing upgrade to a car about 7 classes higher. The kids were in heaven with all the space and gadgets that the car had (made our quite large estate car look tiny when we returned home!)

Every car journey was a nightmare with our son because he was always car sick. There was no way of telling when it would occur...it could be within a few minutes or just as we reached the end of a 3 hour trip down to my mums!

Having food poisoning on a plane back from America, and being in the middle of 4 seats, and one of the toilets was broken.

My partner and I went on our first holiday to Greece, when we arrived the hotel room was filthy, the bed was broken and there was a minor flood coming from the bathroom shower! We spoke to the rep first thing in the morning who informed us that all of the other hotels were fully booked!! We then spent 2 hours dragging our cases around in the midday sun from hotel to hotel in the hope of finding a room somewhere. Thankfully we did eventually find somewhere even if it was a basement room with no windows at least it was clean and dry lol

Worst was over gale force 8 travelling home from university to Belgium where my parents lived. Best was driving through the Swiss alps on a quiet spring morning with beautiful weather and lighting and stunning views.

Worst holidays were when we used to visit relative- in Ireland every year = car sick on the way to Holyhead to catch ferry - and then even worse sickness no matter how calm the sea.

We bought tv head rests for the car when the kids were little as they were terrible in the car and we had to drive to cornwall. We thought if they could watch peppa pig on the way it would keep them quiet. Worked an absolute treat.....although my husband hadnt realised the sound to the films would be played through the speakers of the car, so we also had to listen to peppa pig all the way there and back, 7 hours of wall to wall episodes of peppa pig. Even now years on the sound of peppa pig huts my ears.

When I was little we had to go on a 2 hour train ride but the only seats they had were facing backwards. I cannot travel backwards and spent the whole journey being sick in the toilets. It was horrible.

Worst travel story was being stuck on the motorway for 8 hours due to snow.