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Never had a vacation from Hell, although I've had more than my share of moments, even a day, from Hell during a vacation.
I think my last moments from Hell was when we visited my family in midst of a vacation. When we go to California we usually try to fit in a few days of visiting. I have no patience with a brother that has no filter before he says something. He said some very offensive things this last time and it made me mad enough that I'm not going there next time.
A day from Hell: Back in the 90's I scheduled 5 days in Palm Springs by myself. Lost a whole day at LAX airport. The connection time between flights was too narrow as it was, but the plane arrived too late. Missed the connection. The lady at the desk was stressed and put me on standby for another flight. Standby did me no good.
Went back to another desk - another standby. Standby did me no good. A few hours had already passed.
The poor young girl at the third desk felt my wrath when I showed her my tickets and explained what happened. Her eyes got big as eggs and she wondered why the FIRST desk person did not just put me on another alirlines. (Actually, the same thought occurred to me at the time, and I should have said something, but perhaps I was intimidating by her stress.) She excused herself and went to see her manager. Manager came out and said that I should have been transferred to another airline and, aside from booking me on an available flight, also gave me a good voucher and a few $25 coupons towards future flights. I know they felt bad.
After that the anger went away because it was too late in the day. Ended up just laughing off at how ridiculous it all was. Bu it didn't end there. In Palm Springs I had to wait around and find out where in the Hell my check-in bags were. So I was also late getting into the room. The nice thing that happened is that the owner of the little B&B picked me up himself.
My vacation dwindled to only four days and it went fast.
I did write a letter to the airlines giving glowing compliments on the young girl responsibile for getting something done. I had her name and made sure that they knew who she was. She was a jewel and I'm just glad that I didn't unload on her worse than I did.
For me it was when I was in college and decided to go home for the Thanksgiving break. the plan was to take the train from Bozeman, MT to Spokane, WA on Tuesday evening and then catch an early Wednesday morning commuter flight to Pasco, WA. Due to bad weather the train was going to be 6 hours late getting into Bozeman. When the train was about an hour away my roommate gave me a ride to the train station. As soon as he left they announced that the train had broke down about 40 miles form Bozeman. The train finally showed up 12 hours late. We lost more time due to weather and did not get into Spokane until Wednesday night. Trying to catch the last commuter flight for the day I ended up being on hold for 30 minutes without ever talking to a live person. I gave up and went to the bus station where there would be a 2 am bus to Pasco on Thursday. Only problem was the highway was closed due to freezing rain.
At this point I gave up and decided to go back to Bozeman. The 5 am bus heading East was cancelled due to freezing rain. I called Northwest Airlines to see if they had a seats on their Thursday flight to Bozeman. Lots of seats. Only problem was I was 5 dollars short of being able to pay cash and they would not take a check not written on a Washington state bank. So I had to have my parents go to the airport in Pasco and pay for a ticket and have it transferred to me in Spokane. Finally at 1pm on Thursday I arrived back into Bozeman. By the time I got back to the dorm I had been traveling for 45 hours and got nowhere.
When was there train service between Bozeman and Spokane? Just curious as I lived in the area and there never was a train station.
My vacation from hell that my dad, brother, and I always reminisce about is a family trip to the West Coast, which was 20 years ago this summer. My mom had this very full itinerary where we would start in Seattle visiting my aunt and uncle and then end the trip in Redding, CA.
The Seattle portion of the trip was pretty nice. We went to a Mariners game, the Pacific Science Center, Pike's Place Market, and the Point Defiance Zoo (which is a sucky zoo I don't recommend, but still, the visit was nice overall). However, the trip went downhill after we left Seattle. We collected sand dollars on a beach one day. This will come into play later. We went to Mt. Rainier National Park for a few hours after leaving. It was a cloudy day and we saw little scenery and the only animal we saw was a black-tailed doe. After leaving Mt. Rainier we made our way to Oregon. We stayed in Portland and the only thing we did there was go to Niketown and visit a family friend. I should also mention that my parents really couldn't afford the trip and so lunch from here on out was McDonald's cheeseburgers or hamburgers and chips and pop we had purchased in grocery stores. While I don't mind saving money on food when I travel, I do like to have some variety. We then proceeded down the Oregon coast. While that was beautiful, we did not do much except drive from Point A to Point B and not really spend much time in any destination. We went to Sea Lion Caves in Florence. This was very interesting and what I would call the highlight of Oregon for me as it was amazing to see the sea lions in their natural habitat. We stayed the night in Florence. We then drove down the coast some more and honestly I can't remember all the stops now but by this point the car stunk from the sand dollars and we were arguing as we spent many hours in the car with few stops. At one point in Oregon my dad wanted to go home, however my brother and I argued to go on to California since we had never been there. We did and went through Redwood National Park. While I have been to Redwood National Park, I can say I haven't really seen the park. We were told we were in the park and fell asleep, thinking we would see the park more. We got woken up to be informed that we had left the park. By this point everyone was sick of each other and we stopped at the hotel in Redding, CA and barely said a word to each other. We left Redding and spent a very short time in Crater Lake National Park before hightailing it back to Montana to get home. I think we practically kissed the ground when we got home from that hellish trip.
Oddly enough, this summer vacation came after a Christmas vacation from hell. We had gone to visit family 18 hours away and drove. My parents couldn't really afford the trip so instead of stopping to eat we had junk food like candy to eat for meals for the entire 18 hour ride. They had also gotten a new and smaller car (the same one we took on the previously described trip) that had no legroom in the back. Because this was the newest vehicle they had owned, we had to have a blanket over the seat and if your ass touched the actual seat itself it was as if you had taken a knife and cut a slit the entire length of the seat.
My vacation experience from Hell was last time I went to England. dh and I couldn't get flights together but we got flights out of Boston to Manchester due to arrive at the same time. HA!
I got stuck in Newark with a few gate changes that they didn't tell us about until the last minute and went running to get onto the plane. Landed in Manchester, got through customs, ready to relax, but no husband.
His friend's brother was supposed to pick us up so I sort of pulled my suitcase to a wide open area where I could be seen. Nothing happened. No one came. I sat there like an idiot next to some Burger King type place, looking around for either this unknown friend's brother or my husband. I sat there for hours.
Finally I started fishing around for the phone number of a distant cousin who might be able to get there in a few hours and pick me up when my husband appeared out of nowhere. The brother of his friend never did show up--turns out he was in JAIL for slapping his mother around. It was Sunday and the trains weren't running. Husband had a temper tantrum. I think we took a series of buses and then had to walk from the village center, dragging our suitcases, exhausted.
Got stuck in that England during that Iceland volcano in 2010. Flights delayed for days. After staying five days longer then planned and jumping around to different hotels we got train tickets to Paris. We ended up missing the train but they fortunately got us on the next one. Layover in Paris for a day where we bought the wrong ticket for the train to CDG (and didn't know until we got to the airport) so had to go back to the city to buy the right ticket. Finally got our flight to Madrid to return home about a week later then planned.
Back in the late 90's we planned to attend the first night race in July at Daytona. They were in a drought and were having some wild fires. Wasn't bad, but when we arrived, winds had picked up, sparks were being carried, and wildfires were exploding across the middle of Florida, thousands of acres affected, homes threatened. The smoke was so thick we couldn't see the ocean from our windows overlooking Daytona Beach. Couldn't see across the racetrack. They closed the track, and started using it as a staging area for volunteer firefighters. When we finally left, had to take a narrow back road to get north to Jacksonville, had fires roaring on both sides of the road, barely see the road due to the fires.
The only vacation from hell I can remember is when my son was 2 months old, and we took the kids to Disneyworld (kids were 7, 5, 3, and 2 months). We drove from NC and my son screamed the entire trip. Then he did nothing but cry the whole time we were there. One night when he was crying (again) I had to hand him off to my husband because I was concerned I was going to have a legit breakdown. It was also unseasonably warm. I had to carry my son everywhere or else he'd scream. I was so sweaty and miserable, it took 2 hours to even get out of our room every morning (bathing and dressing 4 kids). When I got back I hopped on the scale and saw I had lost 10 lbs from the stress and heat. It was a totally miserable vacation. One of those where I wish I could have saved my money, because it was not worth it.
We also went to Myrtle Beach last summer, and I had the worst vertigo attack. I had to be taken to the ER for Zofran and Meclizine, and basically slept for the vacation. Another one where I wish I could have saved my money
The only vacation from hell I can remember is when my son was 2 months old, and we took the kids to Disneyworld (kids were 7, 5, 3, and 2 months). We drove from NC and my son screamed the entire trip. Then he did nothing but cry the whole time we were there. One night when he was crying (again) I had to hand him off to my husband because I was concerned I was going to have a legit breakdown. It was also unseasonably warm. I had to carry my son everywhere or else he'd scream. I was so sweaty and miserable, it took 2 hours to even get out of our room every morning (bathing and dressing 4 kids). When I got back I hopped on the scale and saw I had lost 10 lbs from the stress and heat. It was a totally miserable vacation. One of those where I wish I could have saved my money, because it was not worth it.
We also went to Myrtle Beach last summer, and I had the worst vertigo attack. I had to be taken to the ER for Zofran and Meclizine, and basically slept for the vacation. Another one where I wish I could have saved my money
I've never understood taking kids that age to Disney World. I can't imagine how hellish that was.
I've never understood taking kids that age to Disney World. I can't imagine how hellish that was.
Not all families have that experience, my parents took me around that age almost 40 years ago and the only bad thing that seemed to happen was they forgot where they parked and had to wait until the the park closed and people cleared out to find their car.
Yes, Shelly - there are special staff at Disney World who drive lost travelers around in the evening, looking for their lost car. Some of the lost travelers have RENTAL cars and don't even remember the tag # or description (and sometimes their keys are wrongly labeled by the rental company). The staff often ask the CHILDREN for hints, as they will remember which cartoon character they were parked at, better than the parents remember.
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