Dealing with sadness over disappointing vacation?

[Anonymous]

Pretty sure OP went on one of those dreadful cruises.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need some perspective. Some people never get to take vacation. Some people are dealing with truly terrible things in their lives. In the grand scheme of things, you should consider yourself lucky that a disappointing vacation is the cause of your sadness.

Here we go with the ol' FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS bs. Just because there are starving people in Africa doesn't mean OP can't feel sadness over a vacation. Sheesh. Go put up more "all are welcome" and "we believe in science" signs in your yard.

[Anonymous]

We had one recently. Gigantically expensive, but the planning was just off. Too much of one thing, not enough variety, too long. Also, just after the best season (work issues so couldn't go before) and plenty of things weren't available to do, which didn't help. We couldn't pivot to a new plan.

[Anonymous]

I got food poisoning once on day 1 and spent the entire expensive vacation in an expensive hotel room bathroom floor while my DH did a few of the expensive excursions by himself and we let the other ones go to waste. It was awful, and frankly 8 years later it still is to remember. I always plan for bad weather wherever we go and my expectations there are always low, but you can’t plan for debilitating illness.

[Anonymous]

We’ve cut way back on travel for this reason.

DH and I both work and when we take time off work, it just means working harder in the week leading up to the trip and then the week after.

Then it costs all this money that we don’t really have.

It just makes the stakes too high. I find it easier to just take days off and chill at home or see friends rather than traveling.

If we had more money or less stressful jobs maybe it would be different

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I got food poisoning once on day 1 and spent the entire expensive vacation in an expensive hotel room bathroom floor while my DH did a few of the expensive excursions by himself and we let the other ones go to waste. It was awful, and frankly 8 years later it still is to remember. I always plan for bad weather wherever we go and my expectations there are always low, but you can’t plan for debilitating illness.

Food poisoning is not a debilitating illness. Try an auto-immune disease on for size. Or maybe threw in a few brain tumors.

[Anonymous]

OP, know that you aren't alone. Plenty of us have been there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Expectations are always greater than reality. Lower your expectations; also sounds like you need to do some work with a therapist. I predict you are a firstborn high-functioning perfectionist with latent ADHD.

RUDE! What did I do to you?!

OP, I have this experience sometimes and I think it's a function of not having enough to look forward to in my daily life, plus anxiety. I used to be in academia so I was used to a lot more work travel plus flexible time off; now that I have more typical PTO, vacation time and travel feel so scarce and precious, there's almost too much anticipation.


I deal with it by...planning the next trip. I try to set up some shorter weekend trips so it's not just one big trip a year that I have to look forward to. Like we're renting cabins and yurts in state parks on lakes for the Labor Day and Columbus Day weekends, and we'll probably do a winter or spring trip to Philadelphia or NYC for museums. Keeps me going.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got food poisoning once on day 1 and spent the entire expensive vacation in an expensive hotel room bathroom floor while my DH did a few of the expensive excursions by himself and we let the other ones go to waste. It was awful, and frankly 8 years later it still is to remember. I always plan for bad weather wherever we go and my expectations there are always low, but you can’t plan for debilitating illness.

Food poisoning is not a debilitating illness. Try an auto-immune disease on for size. Or maybe threw in a few brain tumors.

DP — Oh come on. I have a brain tumor and it has never ruined my vacation. It’s plenty inconvenient but not more than usual. On the other hand, my mom once got salmonella poisoning in Hawaii and it was horrible for all of us!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need some perspective. Some people never get to take vacation. Some people are dealing with truly terrible things in their lives. In the grand scheme of things, you should consider yourself lucky that a disappointing vacation is the cause of your sadness.

Here we go with the ol' FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS bs. Just because there are starving people in Africa doesn't mean OP can't feel sadness over a vacation. Sheesh. Go put up more "all are welcome" and "we believe in science" signs in your yard.

Except the OP is super dramatic and said she doesn’t know how she will ever get over this. Honestly, if this is your worst problem in life, you’re very lucky but to have the audacity to treat this like a horrible trauma is tone deaf and ungrateful.

[Anonymous]

When I was just out of college I once got the flu over Christmas and spent the holiday quarantined. I was so sick I could barely get out of bed, and I was too sick to eat much of the food I was brought. I did feel like I missed Christmas that year. I think you just have to mentally move on a bit. Can't dwell, just do the next thing.

[Anonymous]

OP, where did you go? Did you have teenagers with you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I was just out of college I once got the flu over Christmas and spent the holiday quarantined. I was so sick I could barely get out of bed, and I was too sick to eat much of the food I was brought. I did feel like I missed Christmas that year. I think you just have to mentally move on a bit. Can't dwell, just do the next thing.

This was our last Christmas! One of my kids got covid and we had to cancel all the family travel plans. The thing that made it merely disappointing was that we had a trip to Puerto Rico planned for the week of MLK Day, so we had something else to look forward to before summer. (I'm the "plan your next trip!" poster above.)

[Anonymous]

Low expectations are the key to happiness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need some perspective. Some people never get to take vacation. Some people are dealing with truly terrible things in their lives. In the grand scheme of things, you should consider yourself lucky that a disappointing vacation is the cause of your sadness.

Here we go with the ol' FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS bs. Just because there are starving people in Africa doesn't mean OP can't feel sadness over a vacation. Sheesh. Go put up more "all are welcome" and "we believe in science" signs in your yard.

Except the OP is super dramatic and said she doesn’t know how she will ever get over this. Honestly, if this is your worst problem in life, you’re very lucky but to have the audacity to treat this like a horrible trauma is tone deaf and ungrateful.

Oh stop. Yes she’s dramatic but you assumed lots of things. For all you know, someone in her family has a serious illness or situation and this was supposed to be a breath of air from the difficulty. She didn’t say it was her worst problem in life, maybe she has many. Her post was not tone deaf (to whom?) or ungrateful (who the heck do you feel is she supposed to be thanking?). Maybe she spent a fortune to take her kids to Disney one time in their childhood and all the negatives (long lines, lots of competition, hot) made it lots of work, not magical and just a giant expense.