Anyone else ever have a "vacation from hell" ?

[Anonymous]

Everyone in my family got traveler's diarrhea while in Punta Cana. I also got the stomach flu at the same time (brother had it the week prior). We hardly ate anything because the food at our resort was terrible. It was rainy most of the time we were there. We left early to get out of there.

[Anonymous]

When I was a child I went to VA beach with my aunt and uncle. My cousin developed pink eye and I got swimmer's ear, so one of us could swim in the pool but not the ocean, and the other in the ocean and not the pool. I recall that we stayed in the hotel room playing Super Mario Brothers.

[Anonymous]

Two summers ago I went to the US to visit my grandfather. I ate a wrap at the airport, and I KNOW this was the culprit, but...late the night I arrived, I woke up with horrible diarrhea. It was like nothing I've ever experienced in my life. I was sick all night and all the next day, and my 86 year old grandfather had to go out and get me some kind of tablets. I was still sick for 3 days and couldn't eat anything or drink anything (even a sip of water) without running to the bathroom. I only visit the US once every two years or so, so other family members and friends knew I was in and my grandfather had to tell them about my malady, so they ended up hanging out at the house while I alternated lounging on the porch swing, feeling sick and trying to chat, and bolting to the bathroom. At one point I pleaded to go to the hospital because I thought I was going to die (friends and grandfather laughed at this and ignored my plea). My family has never let me forget this. I've never been so sick. Worst vacation ever.

[Anonymous]

In Panama, thought it was a good idea to spend the night before we left in a small, scenic town about 2 hours from the Panama City airport. Walking by the market in the morning, I was investigating a fruit I'd never seen. The seller handed me one and told me to take it. I took a bite; it was vile and waxy but I swallowed it and tried to smile. A short while later, we were having coffee waiting for the bus and a bunch of kids sat down with us and offered me one of the small, round, green sour fruits they were all eating. I ate some, like an idiot. The bus ride was uneventful until the bridge over the canal was closed for construction. With less than an hour before our flight, we got off the bus at a random stop before we went into the city and begged a taxi driver, who was working on his car with some friends, to take us to the airport. He didn't want to; they insisted. We got a flat tire halfway to the airport. Another taxi appeared out of nowhere and got us there. Turned out our flight was delayed, so we made the plane. But then I ate BBQ on our layover in either DFW or Houston. I spent the entire flight from Texas to DC in the bathroom. This was back when the 30-minute rule was in effect for flights going into DCA and I seriously thought I was either going to shit myself or cause a national security incident.

[Anonymous]

These are great - my theory is that if you travel enough, some of the trips are just bound to go wrong. DH and I had a horrible trip to Paris once. I can't even remember now all of what was bad about it but the main thing was that the trip coincided with my first ever real bout of anxiety and I had a couple of panic attacks while there. Panic attacks on vacation! Ridiculous but it is not logical and I didn't know enough about it then to handle it.

The upside is that some vacations just go perfectly and are still magical in my memory for no good reason. We had a perfect trip to Bar Harbour, ME almost 10 years ago (funnily enough, only a few months after the bad one in Paris) and a perfect trip to San Fran/Napa about 5 years ago. You win some, you lose some. Don't sweat it, OP. And my expectations of vacation are much lower now with kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We went to Fiji on our honeymoon in 2002. Stayed at a really nice place but I hated the food. DH was fine with it. I ate mostly fruit and bread and potatoes.

We had to spend most of the day in a hotel by the airport before flying back. We went to a Japanese steakhouse for dinner. I was so hungry after not eating any protein for 10 days that I chowed down.

As we were getting ready to board the 10 hour flight to LA I got horribly sick. I spent the entire flight visiting the various bathrooms. It was so bad.

Then, the flight home from LA to Dulles was filled with teens from China. They were horribly behaved. They were sitting in aisles, loud, obnoxious and rude. The pilot had to yell at them it was so bad. For the kicker, one of them stood up in the last 30 min of the flight and we almost were diverted.

I spent the next three days in bed after we got home. I ended up losing 10 pounds. Who comes home from their honeymoon having lost weight? Only me.

DH made up for it with a trip to Nevis that spring break. Now that was an awesome trip.

This sounds so bad! I'm so sorry it was your honeymoon. And I'm sure it was expensive too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We went to Fiji on our honeymoon in 2002. Stayed at a really nice place but I hated the food. DH was fine with it. I ate mostly fruit and bread and potatoes.

We had to spend most of the day in a hotel by the airport before flying back. We went to a Japanese steakhouse for dinner. I was so hungry after not eating any protein for 10 days that I chowed down.

As we were getting ready to board the 10 hour flight to LA I got horribly sick. I spent the entire flight visiting the various bathrooms. It was so bad.

Then, the flight home from LA to Dulles was filled with teens from China. They were horribly behaved. They were sitting in aisles, loud, obnoxious and rude. The pilot had to yell at them it was so bad. For the kicker, one of them stood up in the last 30 min of the flight and we almost were diverted.

I spent the next three days in bed after we got home. I ended up losing 10 pounds. Who comes home from their honeymoon having lost weight? Only me.

DH made up for it with a trip to Nevis that spring break. Now that was an awesome trip.

This sounds so bad! I'm so sorry it was your honeymoon. And I'm sure it was expensive too.

It's ok! Everything since then has been wonderful. We look back now and laugh.

?

[Anonymous]

^^ that was supposed to be a smiley face.

[Anonymous]

We stayed with family in Maine for two weeks with our one year old twins. We go to Maine every year and love it. We usually stay at our own place. They offered to let us stay and we took them up on it--mistake. The rest of the family, also visiting for the week, used that house as the hub of activities. Our daughter developed stranger anxiety on teh trip and we never got any relief as the constant stream of family coming to visit upset her, and therefore, upset them. As much as our family seemed to want us to stay, we, with all our things and young kids, did annoy them. They and are their teenagers were sleeping, at least someone, in their bed or on the couch all day. There was no way to keep teh kids quiet all day and we couldn't think of enough activities to be busy all the time. (Hard to push a double stroller around quaint Maine streets. We did have some nice beach days, but couldn't do that every day.) It was so much more work than home because we didn't have all our usual things around us. Our sister in law stated to make comments to us, sort of nitpicky like we were talking up too much room in the fridge, or didn't know how to throw things away properly--ie not pushing down the trash. OUr kids were just too little for us to worry about these kinds of things. We wanted to leave early but the drive home was so daunting we needed more time to recover before doing it again. When we finally got home we couldn't even talk about the trip or Maine for a really long time. Oh, and our daughter got a fever towards the end of the trip.