You worst holiday ever

We booked a fortnight's mystery holiday with our 2 kids in an effort to get away from my Mum who was causing big problems between us and my daughter. We arrived in Fuengirola which we had heard was the jewel in the Costa Del Sol's crown so were really excited. Our first stop was at Burger King (not my choice!) to feed hungry kids. Who should come walking around the corner but my Mother. It turned out she had been booked into the same hotel after she had also booked a mystery holiday.
Mum thought it was wonderful, we didn't and she never stopped going on about us going all the way to Spain to eat in Burger King. It has become a standing joke between my husband and I whenever we go on holiday.
To make matters worse, we were on the edge of a weather cyclone so we spent 1 day with drizzle, the next with heavy rain and then 1 day of weak sun. This went on for the entire fortnight so we spent most of the time in our apartment with a fractious daughter and an interfering mother.
The one highlight was the Australian Ice Cream booth over the road from the hotel and the Calamari bar under it.

I've gradually gone off holidays over the years; had a few good, some bad and one or two disastrous. Now living in a beautiful part of the UK, I have everything I want on my doorstep (I know I am very lucky indeed) The hassle of planning and packing, an OH who wants to organise everything and everyone but does nothing to help, and the hours waiting around in airports make me want to stay where I am!

South Africa. It is a lovely place and all of our booked accommodation was brilliant but I caught shingles on day 2 of a 3 week holiday resulting in horrendous looking sores down the right side of my face. The receptionist got me a doctors appointment who prescribed drugs (of which there were many) and phoned an eye consultant to say he must see me the next day as my sight was compromised. My DH had to drive 4 hours in the wrong direction to get me to the hospital. Luckily my eyesight was ok but I had to return to the doctor the day after to get more meds. Both doctor and consultant were amazing I was so lucky in that respect. I was in constant pain for the remainder of the holiday and looked like something out of a horror movie. I couldn’t wait to get home.

Where to start? My husband once described holidays as “two weeks of hell away from home” - some have been great though.

A week in Butlins on Barry Island about 1977. My sister and I took my 6 year old son as we thought it would be good for him as he would have other kids to play with and there would be babysitting facilities. It was a nightmare. Our "chalet" was like a prison cell and the bathroom was down the hall. If we wanted a bath we had to pay a deposit for a plug! The food was atrocious, soup as a starter each day and at the beginning of the week it was a bright green colour that got lighter as the week went on. One night, after my son was asleep we went to the bar and told the Red Coats that my son was in his chalet. They were supposed to check each half hour. When we came back he was crying and the man in the chalet next door was talking to him through the door. He said the Red Coats had not passed by once! And it rained every day! It is the only holiday where I was pleased to head home!

Just remembered something else I’d like to share. Probably more suited to a different thread, but here goes. DD2 and her then fiancé are New York nuts and go 2 or 3 times a year.

One year BA (who I’ve actually praised on an earlier thread) but not on this, FORGOT to put her wheelchair on the flight!! Obviously only realized when it didn’t appear at JFK!
She uses a self propelled. The only available were the attendant variety but it was something - until she asked if she could hire/borrow it until the wheelchair arrived on the next flight. That would be a ‘no’ but she said she needed it and they could call the police if necessary and left the name of her Hotel, she was going to ‘borrow’ it. They dumped their bags at the hotel and started their holiday, knowing the next flight would get in with her chair late evening. The Consierge took their number in case it arrived earlier, as the chairs had to be swapped at the same time. The chair wasn’t on that night’s flight and didn’t arrive til the following lunchtime.

On another occasion they arrived back at a snowbound Heathrow from New York, to be told there was no flight to Newcastle and her chair had been put on a coach for her. She can’t walk - let alone access a bus, so she was left sitting in the middle of the baggage hall on her own, while her DH managed to get her chair off the coach before it departed. BA were worse than useless - a representative actually uttered the word ‘tough’ when they asked how they were to get home. No cars available to rent so in the end my DH and I had to drive down from Durham to Heathrow to collect them!

BA did not cover themselves in glory on those occasions.

Rented a caravan with an older friend
(passed for my mum - 68) for a long weekend in Devon one year and we had a marvelous time. Decided to go back again following year but we invited her youngest daughter (same age as my son - 29) to come along as we regularly went on day trips together and her friends had let her down on a holiday they'd been planning. Then the daughter asked if she could bring a friend so we said yes because they could go off and do their own thing if they wanted whilst my friend and I did ours.
I'm the only one who has a car and drives, which I don't mind but it was understood that the friend who lived 35 miles north of us would meet us at my friend's house and we'd go south from there. All fuel was to be paid for between the 3 of them as a way of saying thank you for me doing all the work and providing the car, the cost of the caravan and food would be shared equally 4 ways.
Then the day before we were going she insisted we pick her up from home and drop her back there on the way home (140 miles added to my total journey).
Arrived at the caravan, 2 bedrooms and a pull out sofa bed, the girls grabbed the room with the 2 single beds and my friend insisted on taking the double in the other room leaving me (disabled and absolutely done in from all the driving) with the pull out which had a 2inch thick mattress.
No-one offered for me to have a proper bed the whole time we were away, I couldn't sleep on that awful thing that was also only 6inches off the floor, the daughter's friend snored like a warthog, they insisted that we all did exactly the same things together everywhere we went despite my friend and I having already said we wanted to do other stuff/go other places.
The night before we were coming home everyone but me was sitting around the lounge laughing and drinking into the wee small hours, I wanted them to go to bed so that I could 'try'to get an hour or two sleep (bearing in mind that I'd last sleep 2hrs the night before driving down there and was facing a very long day on the road getting everyone home).
We Wendy up in a huge row because the girls said they'd pay me their share of the caravan, petrol and food on the last night and they handed over £20 each (should have been almost £100 each but they argued about the mileage we'd done and would do going home, they didn't want to pay for the caravan saying they thought it was 'my great' despite me never having set eyes on the warthog before picking her up on the morning we set out, didn't want to pay for food or parking charges etc).
They even said that they didn't want to go home in the car with me because I was being 'horrid to them over money' and that they'd get the train home (fine by me, I didn't want to drive them back at that point). That was until they realised a one way ticket to Birmingham was £140 each and the friends had another £25 ticket to pay for for her onward journey! So 'they' decided to bite the bullet and we'd drive back together. Eventually they went to bed at 4am and I'd already told them that we needed to be on the road by 8 because it was a long drive and I'd like to get back to my own bed for some well deserved sleep.
No-one emerged until almost 10, the girls took 2hrs to put their makeup on and changed their outfits 3 times (no-one was going to see them, they were only going to sit in the car all day), we eventually left at 1.30pm.
My friend said that she would to up some of what the girls had paid and not to worry but when I dropped her and her daughter home, she only gave me £60 to cover her share and to up theirs!
By the time I'd dropped everyone home and crawled through my own front door it was 1am!
All in all, the weekend had cost over £700, after their total contribution of £100, I was left to fork out the other £600.
Needless to say, they're no longer friends and I'll never, ever, agree to do anything like that with someone else again unless I've got the bulk of their share of the cost up front!

Without a doubt, when dds were very small, a hotel in a Portuguese resort near the Spanish border. We went because a BiL and SiL with their dcs and extended family were there.

Arrived to a very glum face on BiL. Water was off a lot of the time and nearly all of their party were ill. Not long afterwards I found dd1 (then 4) trying to brush her hair with the loo brush in our room! ?

Thankfully we didn’t become ill, but I found the staff so unhelpful and surly. Dd2 was only about 15 months and still wanted a bottle a couple of times a day - trying to get them to bring me boiled water, or anything like a plain boiled egg or toast for dds, was a major battle every time.,

After 4 or 5 days, with the water situation not much better, I’d had enough, and dh went to the tourist office to ask for a better hotel. (We weren’t on a package holiday.)

There was a large, locked cupboard thing in our room, which, having never seen such a thing before, I’d assumed contained linen or cleaning things for the staff.

However, shortly before we actually left, I saw one open in another room that was being cleaned - a mini kitchenette!! I was flabbergasted - went straightaway and asked reception why, when I’d been battling to get boiled water and toast etc., for dds, nobody had told me that there was a mini kitchen in the room.

Surly, unhelpful cow on the desk just said, ‘You didn’t ask.’ Well, that was because I’d never known such a thing before.

We moved to a nicer (more expensive) hotel, with considerably nicer staff, but the sea was rough and bloody freezing.
I dare say it’s unfair of me, but I was put right off Portugal and 40 years later we’ve never been back. Or rather I haven’t -dh and a dd did visit a nephew who’s doing a PhD in Lisbon recently. (Pre COVID of course.)

Tenerife (Los Christianos) in the early 1990s on a self-catering family holiday. Our apartment wasn't cheap but it was very damp, wires hanging off the wall etc and a warped front door that only opened when it felt like it.

The flat above us was being renovated and debris sailed past hitting our balcony at intervals! Worst of all were the cockroaches, they were everywhere. One even travelled home with us in somebody's slipper. The body of the offending creature was sent to the travel company's office wrapped in cling film. We got our money back!

Hubbie's friends wanted to go to a remote Scottish island, and invited us. The place they rented was ok but miles from anywhere and nothing to do except walk - which is fine and I like walking but only so far you can go on a day and still get back. They seemed to prefer just sitting in the lounge chatting looking out at the view. I'd taken a Kindle planning to read a lot, but it went wrong and no phone signal so I had absolutely nothing to do except read the books in the place and none were on a subject that interested me. I made a little calendar in a notebook and each night ticked off the day to cheer myself up - longest week ever.

Our worse holiday was back in 1972 - the year of the miners/railway strikes, power cuts etc. DH and I worked in central London. Trains, when they were running, were packed solid and some nights we returned home to find no heating and could not cook anything. To cheer ourselves up we booked a two centre holiday to Istanbul and Sunny Beach, Bulgaria.
Walking across the tarmac in Istanbul I got bitten by something. I spent the first few days with a painful swollen leg and the local chemist could only offer calamine lotion!
We arrived in Sunny Beach to discover it was full of British mining and railway officials who had been given a free holiday by the Russian Communist party for the part they had played in helping the British workers. We also discovered that any trip outside the resort needed at least a week to organise travel permits. We were only there for a week!
Friends of our were also staying there for the same week. The first night we all had prawns at a local restaurant. DH was so ill that night. After 24 hours I had to get the hotel to call a Doctor. I told him, through an interpreter, that DH must have food poisoning and was told one did not get food poisoning in Bulgaria - it was probably cholera as we had been in Istanbul. The Doctor was all for sending DH off to an isolation hospital but I persuaded him to wait another 24 hours.
At that time we were given 'meal' vouchers. DH barely ate a thing for the remainder of the holiday so our friends and I ended up paying for the wine with his vouchers.

My mistake - the thread’s very much active.

These anecdotes have made me laugh!

Makes me realise in the words of Dorothy,

“There’s no place like home”.

I found this ‘dormant thread and thought I’d revive it.

The holidays haven’t been bad but the travelling another story.

Trip to London, many years ago - the train caught fire. We’d gone 1st class, then ended up herded like cattle onto the following train in York. I was wearing a coat dress and lost a button from an important place in the crush! Luckily the Hotel had a sewing kit, so I could take a lower button off and close the gap! The wine waiter in The Ritz took pity on us and constantly refilled our glasses - we were the worse for wear! Lunch turned out to be a few canapés, so we had to find a restaurant to mop up the excesses! On the return journey, we found the train had no heating, no restaurant car and no hot water - fresh orange juice and a packet of biscuits wasn’t a good breakfast.

Flight from Newcastle to Heathrow delayed by fog - we missed the connection to New York, so first night spent in Heathrow Hotel, but well done BA.

Another flight to New York turned back 4 hours out - returned to Ireland. (sick man). He was taken off then Ground Crew broke the bolt on the door trying to close it! Sat 4 hours on the plane in sweltering heat, then allowed off into a quarantined area, all back on again, then eventually deplaned to spend first night in local hotel. Next morning back on the flight and another delay as the passenger list had gone missing and some passengers objected to taking the ‘sick man’ as he had been drunk! (The pilot made the decision that he couldn’t fly). No compensation as the ‘original flight had left on time’.

Nile cruise with friends. Bit of a rickety flight out but a lovely holiday until the night before we were due home! The Cruise company had gone bankrupt! We were bussed back to the airport- took hours as there was only one bus. It was explained on the flight that if the plane landed in London it would be impounded, so it would land in Manchester first and we could get off there, then it would carry on to Gatwick. We and several others chose to get off in Manchester and we had to hire a car to get home as DH was supposed to fly out to Paris a few hours later.

Sashabel - I think that ‘toilet arrangement’ was common on Greek Islands years ago.

A girls 18-30 hol in the late 80s. I had been to my GP with a rash to be told I'd psoriasis just before I went on the holiday. I bathed in the emollient while I was away, but started to get really sick and lost a lot of weight as I didn't feel like eating. I fainted one morning and fell down stairs splitting my lip open. I was a mess by the time I got home, my parents were shocked when they saw me and took me back to the doctors. Was then told by a different GP I had chicken pox, not psoriasis and shouldn't of even been on a plane never mind the holiday!

We rented a detached bungalow in Wales in a little hamlet which looked lovely from the outside. When we got inside it was a wreck, it had no central heating, a one bar electric fire and the place was freezing. Half way through the week we had heavy rain fall and the water came in through the ceiling all over my daughter's bed so she had to sleep with us. We couldn't dry the bedding or get warm so in revenge we put the electric cooker hob on full blast to at least warm the place up, we couldn't wait to leave.

Mine are tame compared to these. A self catering cottage in the West Country had a damp bedroom complete with lumpy mattress, no TV. It overlooked a 'private garden' which we thought (stupidly) would mean that it was secluded. No - it was meant 'out of bounds' for visitors. If we wanted to sit outside we could do so by the front door, we were informed. It was semi-detached - peeking though their windows we saw that their furniture was top notch but in the cottage ours looked like cast offs you'd take to the tip. We came home a day early as we couldn't stick it a moment longer.

Way back in the early seventies we went for 2 weeks to Romania, not long after it had become a tourist destination. The water in the swimming pool was dark green, the food served to the British (stale bread that a friend broke her teeth on, no meat, loads of cabbage) was different from that served to other nationalities, makeup, tights, etc were stolen from our room, because the chambermaids were so poor they couldn’t resist some ‘luxury’, and when using buses we were charged when we got on, then an inspector would check our tickets and tell us they weren’t valid and charge us double. The reps hated the place so much they tried to get flights with us on returning planes.

A holiday to remember for all the wrong reasons.

Our worst family holiday was in August 2000. It was a coach trip around Italy with Cosmos starting in Venice and finishing in Rome.

Our flight from Manchester to Venice was delayed for 5 hours and by the time we arrived it was 3:20 am and we were all exhausted. The beds were so small, not even standard single size, so that only our 12 year old could lie down flat. Three hours later we had an early morning call and were told the coach would be leaving at 7:00am to take us into Venice. By 8:30 am we were standing in St Mark's Square, but nothing was open, so we found a small park and the children slept on a park bench! The food at the hotel was awful that night - a greasy stew with unidentified bits of gristle and what might have once been vegetables and stale bread - luckily we had had pizzas at lunchtime!

The rest of the tour was OK, the sights were awesome and the weather hot and sunny, but there were a lot of early starts and suspect hotels.

The last stop was Montecatini Terme, so we could visit Florence, we had been infomed of the change of hotel (never a good sign), but they had saved the worst til last. The one lift was tiny and being monopolized by the porter shifting luggage, so we tried the stairs - dark and dingy with filthy carpet that was ripped. The rooms were dreadful - torn wallpaper, broken furniture and the most peculiar musty, dank smell. The air conditioning came for about an hour and then was switched off. We tried to sleep with the windows open but the noise from the bar opposite was so loud and raucous that it became impossible!

The evening meal was inedible - raw chicken, instant mash and frozen mixed veg - we walked out along with most of our fellow travellers and found a restaurant. Our tour director had disappeared as usual. When we returned to the hotel at 10:00 pm, the front doors were wide open, the reception area was deserted and the room keys were left on the desk for anyone to take.

Oh and the management refused to let our coach leave in the morning as someone had not paid their bar bill - the room had been occupied by eight year old twins and there was no mini-bar in the room! Unbelievable!

We have avoided coach tours ever since!

Mine was a cruise, always referred to as the Cruise from Hell. My mother loved the sun but in her late 80s had trouble flying. Our last holiday to Cyprus the plane was freezing cold she was ill with a UTI and spent a week in a clinic, but the cruise beat that.
We left North Shields bound for the Canary Islands and mum was looking forward to a stop in Lisbon because she had never been there.
First night out I was woken when the boat shifted and she fell trying to get to the loo. Luckily she wasn't badly hurt just bruised but I had to get a crew member to help me get her up. She had lost all confidence walking and not unreasonably I thought I asked if they could loan us a wheelchair. What followed was a cross examination by two senior crew members, an accusation that we had conned our way on board and mum was a wheelchair user really, (she wasn't) and a threat that we would be disembarked at the next port as they were up to their limit on disbled passengers. We were questioned about our story had to pay to have mum questioned by the doctor and eventually after much persistence (I don't give in easily) were told we could have a wheelchair to take mum to meals in the restaurant but a crew member would have to push her. So we rang for a crew member very mealtime. We did have a few nice days and when the ship was in port mum liked to sit in the viewing lounge- she would walk when it was still and I had a few hours free to see the town.
Then just before we were due to reach Lisbon we woke one night to find all the stuff on our dressing able flying off and almost hitting mum's bed. We were stuck for three days in a force 9 gale and never went into Lisbon. I had some seasick tablets and took to my bed. I did one walk round and found the ship virtually deserted. We stayed in our cabin existing on soup and sandwiches when we could face food.
Finally we reached the North Sea where one day we slowed to a stop. The swimming pool deck was roped off and an AirSea Rescue helicopter evacuated a passenger who had suffered a heart attack.
To add to our disgust when we disembarked I saw one passenger who must have been injured in the gale being pushed off in a ship's wheelchair. She was younger than mum.
So I really don't fancy another cruise.

Awful Mollygo Yet we have also stayed in some beautiful gites in rural France.

To Italy. Plane went technical so 8 hour wait at the airport. Arrived at destination, one bag arrived then nothing else! Called to customer services as no bag. Not helped as after I had packed spreading things between 2 bags DH decided to change a bag so I had thrown all his into the now missing bag. Eventually got on the bus for transfer and we were the last stop. Second bag now missing! It was found on the pavement at a previous stop. No change of clothes for DH so decided to visit the Vatican as you had to wear long trousers - all he had.. Within 10 mins arriving I came down with a sick bug. Back to the hotel and air conditioning had broken. Missing bag turned up 2hrs before we left Rome. I was ill the whole time. On moving onto Sorento DH hated the hotel and sulked plus mice were running round the dining room. The return flight was delayed 4hrs and the airport was heaving with queues out of the door. The rep lied about the delay and ran away.

Worst holiday of all was Zakynthos. I was travelling with my two children aged 1 and 8, and my sister with her son who was 10. It was booked as a late deal staying in a hotel of the holiday company's choice but "guaranteed" as a minimum of 3 star accommodation. What we actually got was a rather grotty guest house that was absolutely filthy. I had booked a cot for my son and was given a travel cot that looked like it had come out of a rat infested war zone. Breakfast was a stale lump of bread with butter (no jam) and coffee. But the worst aspect was the toilet arrangement. You were instructed not to flush toilet paper down the loo in any circumstances. There was a small bin by the side of the toilet to put your used paper in and then you were expected to empty this bin into a skip at the side of the hotel. Our room was above the skip and the smell was dreadful, even with the windows closed. We approached our rep to see if we could moved at this was obviously not a 3 star establishment, but he was most unhelpful and basically said we had to stick it out for the full week. We asked to fly home early, but he said all flights were full which was a lie. Luckily, my husband (who was working off-shore at the time) contacted the CEO of the travel company and lo and behold we were flown home on day 4. I was never so glad to get home. I think that is the last time I ever booked a package holiday.

Bulgaria for me. We were told by someone on Reception our room was ‘over there’ we had to try to find the room number in the dark. When we went out for a meal we were served up with flies! We did discover a place run by English who served cheese on toast so we lived on that fir most of our stay. We came across an accident on the way back to the airport and the police pulled the dead out of the car and pushed it over the hill. Those that weren’t dead probably ended up that way as a nurse on the coach was told to mind her own business and get back in the coach.

Worst holiday was when I went back to Mauritus. My sister + her DH was already there from Oz, and insisted that I should accompany Mother, who was deemed at 78 "incapable of travelling alone".

My goodness what a mistake!!! EVERYTHING I did was wrong, whatever I said was wrong, it was a complete nightmare - it culminated when I was having a shower and Mother and Sister were under the window talking loudly, demolishing me and my family! I suspect sister knew I could hear every word, mother was oblivious; she never was that devious.... I have not cried [in complete privacy] so much in a long time. I wasn't going to let sister know what she had done to me.

I never told them I had heard them as it would have upset Mother too much, but relations with both went south after that. In I haven't voluntarily spoken to said sister since then, 22 years ago!!!