Competition: win over £450 of brilliant summer reads

Well, there was the time we went to France for a few days. This was years ago - no mobile phone. Carefully marked up a map of where we were going, together with the address of the place we were staying. Carefully left it on the table at home and left without it!! Picked up the hire car and - shockingly - the French car had French sat nav. Who could have predicted that?!

I was desperately trying to remember my 30-year old French lessons from school. The other half was desperately trying to remember the details of the B&B he had booked. It was evening, we were in a rural area where most people didn't speak English. We thought we were going to have to sleep in the car at one point! Then we came upon a late night pharmacy. Lovely gentleman took sympathy on us and let us use his internet to look up the hotel, then he helped us with the directions and printed off a Google map for us.

Phew - I was so relieved when we drove up outside that B&B.

I look back on it now and can see how naive and daft we were!

Would have to be our trip to a Christmas Market in Frankfurt, we missed our flight from Bristol by 3 minutes due to roadworks. Staff assured us we would make the flight from Heathrow 4 hours later so we paid to fly from Heathrow, unfortunately traffic was at a standstill on the M4 so we also missed that flight. We eventually flew the following morning and had a great time, on returning to UK we were unable to get back into Wales, as Fathers For Justice were protesting on the bridge so we had to sit in the car for several hours!

When I was a young 'ish' single mum, having recently divorced my first husband, I saved up for ages to get the £300 so that we could go 'all in' and took my three offspring to a holiday camp (which shall remain nameless!) near Blackpool. It was a real route march getting there on the train, in 1985, three trains and then a bus, with luggage and everything but the kitchen sink! Upon arrival we were directed to our 'chalet' which turned out to be a really grim first floor apartment, up rusty outside 'fire escape type' steps. There was an electric fire hanging off the wall above the main bed, the windows had mould all around the inside and I could have wept. The only redeeming feature in the flat was a huge bath, which all the kids could fit into. It rained all week but fortuntely there was a wonderful indoor swimming pool which the kids were happy to almost live in, whilst I nearly expired from humidity and the ever presetn smell of chlorine!

The food was 'buffet style' but almost inedible as other guests seemed to have no thought for niceties and frankly you wouldnt want to touch what was on offer unless it was in a sealed packet which most of it wasn't. Towards the end of the week there was a terrible, tragic accident involving a young person on a scooter, near the resort reception and at that point I threw in the towel and we checked out two days early.

I wrote to the the holiday camp chain and expressed my disappointment, horror and disbelief at the conditions there and assured them that never in a million years would I use them again. Their response? £30 of holiday vouchers to enable us to go there at discouunt the following year!! Never!! I didnt even try to give them away to my worst enemy!

Caught German measles while on holiday - in Germany! Surprisingly, they don't call it German Measles, but 'die Roteln' - or something like that (the German equivalent of Rubella)

My holiday disaster was when I went to Spain with my friends and my suitcase had been lost, had to wait nearly a week for it to turn up

I have four holiday disasters! 1. In 1982 I went to Holland in a camper van and tent with husband, 2 year old son, my parents, sister and her two children. My son developed severe tonsilitis (finally removed age 21), it was boiling hot and we missed the ferry home resulting in a long drive to another ferry port. 2. Later in the 80s on the way to Gatwick for a holiday in Spain we were in a motorway accident. I was sat in the back and saw a lorry heading straight for us. My brother in the passenger seat managed to reach the excelerator (automatic car) and we zoomed backwards out of the way. He undoubtedly saved our lives. Spent the holiday bruised down one side. 3. Late nineties decided to walk 50 miles of the Cornish coast with husband and daughter to raise money for the RSPCA. Camping on the beach campsite at Par there was a storm and we were all relocated to a local community hall for safety after the tents were washed away. 4. Spent a camping holiday in France in 1979 stopping all the time to be sick - turned out I was pregnant!

When our daughter was 16 we decided to take a holiday to Butlins Holiday camp, at Minehead.

The holiday was a disaster from start to finish! The accommodation was very cramped and basic, the weather freezing cold and pouring with rain, and our teenage daughter was bored with everything we tried to do.

She just wanted to do her own thing, which was to be as far away from her parents as possible. She and her dad were at loggerheads throughout the holiday. Everything we asked her to do, she pushed her luck causing more arguments.

With rain pouring down the windows, we were all ready for the journey home, knowing that our dog Sam who we had left in kennels, would be so happy and excited to welcome us home.

However, when we reached the kennels, we were devastated to hear that our wonderful, much-loved pet had died that morning.

We were devastated!

A few years back we were going on holiday to Spain. I had a cup of hot chocolate on the flight there and promptly spilled it down my white top and burnt my boobs. The next day in Spain I bit into crusty bread at breakfast and broke the crown on my front tooth and had to visit a dentist who didn't speak English,I was terrified. The day after that I received a phone call to say a very dear uncle had died very suddenly. It had taken my cousins a few days to find my phone number and the funeral was the next day so I couldn't attend. What a first few days of a holiday.

Really stressed out so booked a week in Lanzarote. Went on a Thomson flight =, first time we had ever travelled with Thomson. Had children sitting in front who thought it a game to keep putting the headrest down and peering at us through the gap pulling faces. Had children sitting at the back kicking the seats all the time - believe me we were stressed out by the time we got there. Yes they had parents with them who did nothing!!

The time my family went on holiday to France, and the satnav said "you have reached your destination" in front of a run down shack with boards put up where the windows had been smashed...

The time we took our boys to Spain and our youngest cried all night,
I was terrified he was going to fall off the balcony and then I came down with a tummy bug!

Ours would have to be the one we just got back from down in Newquay! If you used the shower in one of the bedrooms it leaked into the living room, the electricity kept blowing out, the beds were rock hard so every one kept waking up with bad backs. Then there was the actual park we stayed in, everything was closed (amusements etc) and the kids play park had even been cordoned off!

I haven't had any (touch wood) as an adult most memorable was as a child going on a family holiday to Guernsey we arrived late in the evening. My mum absolutely hated the holiday cottage we had booked and refused to stay. The only place available was the most expensive hotel on the island! Turned into a very expensive but nice (for us kids) holiday!

Which one?

There are so many to choose from, and we are staying at home this year you may be relieved to hear.

(We can laugh now though, but most of them were at the time)

I think it all started when I was a teenager and went on holiday to a caravan in Cornwall with my DP.
The site was fairly new but the caravan was what you could call 're-conditioned' - in fact so newly re-conditioned that all the paint inside was still wet and we got it all over our clothes.

There have been so many holiday mishaps since then, far too many to list!!

Bad weather on holiday and had to spend most of the time indoors -.-

On a recent cruise we were struck down with a noro virus and were confined to our cabin for all but 2 days of the cruise..... Due to so many people being struck down with it there was security in the corridor making sure we did not leave our cabin! It was like being struck down with the plague.

Years ago I took my young daughters to Spain, my eldest sat on the plug hole in the shower blocking it and flooded the apartment below!

I don't go on holidays abroad (aeroplanes aren't my friend...), but I get into enough trouble just travelling around the UK! I was visiting Newcastle, and somehow managed to forget some VERY important medicine. Silly old me had to phone bout hospitals, NHS24, chemists etc etc. Ended up me having to pay cash for medicine I normally get on prescription. Now I make sure to always quadruple check and take twice as much as I need!

you don't have to fly to go abroad

We once completely missed a holiday to Portugal as we lost my husbands passport. We tore the house apart trying to find it only to find it a couple of years later in a bag of Lego!!!

Nearly missing a plane home because we didn't realise the clocks went forward in Spain!

We camped on a campsite on the top of a cliff at Lowestoft. it was a very windy night and one side of our tent lifted, leaving it flapping in the wind!I tried to wake my hisband up but the best I could get ouit of him was "go to sleep, it's just a bit of wind". He jumped out of bed very quickly when he finally opened his eyes and could see the stars!!

In Majorca, a few years ago, we hired a villa with private pool. I went out in the morning for an early swim before the others woke up, and was horrified to find a stark-naked, extremely drunk middle-aged German man, crashed out on one of the sun-loungers! He'd stumbled into our place by mistake, thinking he'd got back to his own villa!

our Holiday disaster happened back in 1993 when I went to Ibiza with my then boyfriend (now Husband) We had 2 days there and my Mum and Dad were meeting us there 2 days later. We'd hired a scooter and had a great couple of days on it. When my parents arrived they wanted one too, so we went straight to the hire shop. My Dad was used to riding big heavy motorbikes, but the scooters were cheaper so they hired one. We decided to go on a journey straight away. As we approached a left hand turn, we heard a skid behind us, it was my parents with the scooter on top of them!! My Dad had leaned to the left and told my Mum to do the same (as you would on a big bike) and obviously it tipped over. Well as you can imagine, they were in a right mess!! My Mum had ripped the top off her new sandals, hurt her shoulder and cut her face on the dry gravel and my Dad had ripped the knees out of his new trousers and gauged a big hole into his elbow!! We ended up all day in the hospital having them bandaged up and given pain killers and we'd only been there an hour.