Just for fun - share your vacation horror stories

[Anonymous]

My worst was in Puerto Rico at the El Con resort with our then-four-year-old.
DH and I ate seafood at a resort restaurant; four-year-old ate off the kids menu (not seafood).
At 2 a.m. I awoke to piercing stomach pains and the worst diarrhea I'd ever experienced. Then DH got sick but we only had one bathroom in the hotel room. He began projectile vomiting around 4am. I finally got so sick I just let it run out of me while lying on the floor. To say it was miserable would be an understatement, and our son needed us! We tried to drag ourselves to the pool and he begged DH to take him down the slides....obviously we did NOT want to go into a pool. It was just truly horrid.

[Anonymous]

I got hit by a motor scooter in Turkey, and almost hit by a horse and carriage in Bruges when the horse skidded and couldn't stop. I got chased by a bull in Arles when horsemen were escorting them down the main street to the arena and a bull went into the crowd instead (I wasn't even trying to watch; I was just crossing to the other side of town). Our tour group was attacked by bees in rural India, leading to mass vomiting and people on drips. I got locked down in a curfew in Nepal when there were Maoist riots - we could hear the shooting happening on the main road. I had men expose themselves to me in four different European cities. All this happened before the mobile phones and the internet and my mother had no idea.

[Anonymous]

Daughter blew out a week’s worth of poop while on a ride at Busch Gardens. Gross but true. Had to buy her new outfit at souvenir shop.

[Anonymous]

Was flying from Brussels to Valencia with my two kids at 18 weeks pregnant. Got bumped from our flight, their immediate solution was to take us - by bus - to Amsterdam and fly out first thing (it was already after 9 pm at this point and we’d been in the airport for six hours). I had to raise hell to get replacement seats on the same flight the next day, raise hell to get hotel/food. Luckily in the EU you do get €250 per passenger when you’re bumped, but getting that wasn’t easy either.

[Anonymous]

I got a UTI en route home from Barcelona. I felt "off" that morning but thought I was just dehydrated but by the time we boarded I was a mess. I was running to the tiny airport stall every 5 min, nothing coming out, began to feel faint and feverish - finally just began wetting my pants in tiny dribbles (luckily DH and I were the only ones in our row). Guess that isn't a vacation story but an airline story - I got off the plane and went right to urgent care for ABX. I practically kissed the ground when we landed.

[Anonymous]

Ended up in the middle of a shooting in Israel and had to stay in lockdown in a random place until it was safe to go back to the road. Ended ip in a very crappy motel in a beach town in Italy with people sleeping in the hallways behind a curtain, night prostitution running nearby and our room was rummaged

[Anonymous]

Wow some of these are….something. Our worst experience was blowing out a tire on the way to the airport (BWI) east of DC early morning. We couldn’t get a larger Uber to accommodate our stuff plus two kids at that hour, so had to get two Ubers. We had to throw our giant car seats into the Uber (we weren’t going to take car seats on the plane, and didn’t feel safe going that far in an Uber without car seats) and then had to lug them onto the plane. They were those big Britax convertibles and each weighed like 25# plus. We waited as long as we could for roadside assistance and eventually gave up and drove our limping car to the nearest Chrysler dealership and called them to replace our tire while we were gone. They were really nice about the whole situation. (And before you ask, we have an electric hybrid van that doesn’t have a spare tire, and the damage to the tire was too bad to be repaired with the can of sealant included in the repair kit…we tried). I don’t know how we made our flight on time. It seemed time was standing still.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow some of these are….something. Our worst experience was blowing out a tire on the way to the airport (BWI) east of DC early morning. We couldn’t get a larger Uber to accommodate our stuff plus two kids at that hour, so had to get two Ubers. We had to throw our giant car seats into the Uber (we weren’t going to take car seats on the plane, and didn’t feel safe going that far in an Uber without car seats) and then had to lug them onto the plane. They were those big Britax convertibles and each weighed like 25# plus. We waited as long as we could for roadside assistance and eventually gave up and drove our limping car to the nearest Chrysler dealership and called them to replace our tire while we were gone. They were really nice about the whole situation. (And before you ask, we have an electric hybrid van that doesn’t have a spare tire, and the damage to the tire was too bad to be repaired with the can of sealant included in the repair kit…we tried). I don’t know how we made our flight on time. It seemed time was standing still.

What a long boring story. I hope you don’t tell this at parties.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow some of these are….something. Our worst experience was blowing out a tire on the way to the airport (BWI) east of DC early morning. We couldn’t get a larger Uber to accommodate our stuff plus two kids at that hour, so had to get two Ubers. We had to throw our giant car seats into the Uber (we weren’t going to take car seats on the plane, and didn’t feel safe going that far in an Uber without car seats) and then had to lug them onto the plane. They were those big Britax convertibles and each weighed like 25# plus. We waited as long as we could for roadside assistance and eventually gave up and drove our limping car to the nearest Chrysler dealership and called them to replace our tire while we were gone. They were really nice about the whole situation. (And before you ask, we have an electric hybrid van that doesn’t have a spare tire, and the damage to the tire was too bad to be repaired with the can of sealant included in the repair kit…we tried). I don’t know how we made our flight on time. It seemed time was standing still.

What a long boring story. I hope you don’t tell this at parties.

I have several vomiting and diarrhea stories from Central America and Mexico,, too, but those felt pretty well covered already.

[Anonymous]

Our rental car was broken into in Belize, and because we were coming from the airport, they got all our stuff - including passports. Skipped the first night at a resort and instead diverted to the capital city, which is soulless AF. Had the most godawful Chinese food ever, including shrimp that looked like it had been flattened by a steamroller, then spent the next day going back and forth and back and forth between the embassy and town to get the things we needed. They would only tell us one thing at a time: “Pictures! Take them in town.” “$200 cash! Get it in town.”

The rest of the trip was terrific, but sweet Jesus, did that suck.

[Anonymous]

Entire family got hand foot and mouth on vacation. We had 2 under 2 and it was miserable.

[Anonymous]

Hired a driver to take us from Accra to Cape Coast Castle. The road was nothing but potholes and on the way back, he blew a tire.

He called someone and about 20 minutes later another car pulls up. It's getting dark now. Our driver climbs into the passenger seat of the other car and shuts the door.

My wife practically threw herself on top of the hood screaming "You are NOT leaving us here by the side of the road!"

We ended up driving with them back to Accra with the blown tire in our laps.

[Anonymous]

Took my DD to NYC when she was eight. This is a highly anxious kid. We had a great weekend doing all the touristy stuff and she lugged her beloved AG doll (Isabel) with her everywhere. As we were getting ready to walk into Penn Station a wall of people were running toward us shouting “gun” “shooter” etc. We dropped our bags, ran with everyone and hid in a Rite Aid. When it seemed safe to go back we headed back towards Penn Station and the same thing happened again.

Turns out the police has tasered someone inside Penn Station and everyone thought it was a gun.

A nice person called me and was keeping our luggage from being confiscated by the cops but Isabel the AG doll had fallen out of the backpack and DD was basically catatonic the whole the way home. She is 15 now and has no desire to return to NYC.

https://youtu.be/8AxO-xB2vUU

[Anonymous]

DH and I headed to Paris with our 1 yo. He was on a business trip and suppose to meet me at JFK for the second leg (NY to Paris). I boarded, he missed the flight. I had to take a redeye with a one-year-old on my lap. They resold his ticket so I was crammed in a middle seat. This was the days before cell phones, and I didn't have any of our travel info. So I just arrived in Paris with a very cranky baby, and checked into a random hotel to try to sleep, as I was awake on the whole overnight flight. Baby didn't want to sleep, of course. DH arrived the next evening. Good times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Took my DD to NYC when she was eight. This is a highly anxious kid. We had a great weekend doing all the touristy stuff and she lugged her beloved AG doll (Isabel) with her everywhere. As we were getting ready to walk into Penn Station a wall of people were running toward us shouting “gun” “shooter” etc. We dropped our bags, ran with everyone and hid in a Rite Aid. When it seemed safe to go back we headed back towards Penn Station and the same thing happened again.

Turns out the police has tasered someone inside Penn Station and everyone thought it was a gun.

A nice person called me and was keeping our luggage from being confiscated by the cops but Isabel the AG doll had fallen out of the backpack and DD was basically catatonic the whole the way home. She is 15 now and has no desire to return to NYC.

https://youtu.be/8AxO-xB2vUU

I was in Penn Station that day. It was quite intense to put it mildly.