Anonymous wrote:I went to New Orleans for a one night work trip. Had a massive allergic reaction to something in my hotel room, went to the ER in the middle of the night, then upon my release from the hospital had to march through the hotel lobby the next morning in urine-soaked clothes and a bathrobe, while dozens of well-heeled hotel guests dressed for Sunday brunch looked on.

Oh, nbd in NOLA. They just thought lassiez bon temps rouler!

I was studying abroad and had time off during spring break to travel with my friends.

This was before you booked things online, and it was a mess.

We stayed in a sketchy hostel with many questionable characters.

We were pickpocketed and had our passports stolen and plane tickets, which definitely made our trip difficult.

It took days to replace the passports, and one leg of the trip had the ferry go on strike which derailed plans.

On the way home, it took the airline so long to replace our tickets and process them that we missed our flight home, we didn't have cell phones back then to communicate with another friend who was already on the flight so they were very worried about us.

Girls trip with high school friends and the first issues was the destination. One friend vetoed New Orleans because the food was "too spicy" and we ended up in Celebration, Florida, Disney's planned community is suburban Orlando. Same anti-spice friend unilaterally cancelled one hotel room so it was five or six grown women in their late 20s in one room with two beds and a pullout couch. We went to a mall one day because one friend was from Morgantown, West Virginia and there wasn't shopping there. The whole thing was a disaster and friend group is no more.

My DD and I also got sick in the Dominican Republic at an all inclusive and ended up at a local hospital. The 9 month fight with blue shield to pay for it may have been worse than the vomiting and diarhea. Also my husband read yelp reviews of the hospital and they said they will insist you stay overnight and it's a scam so he was like whatever you do, don't let them check you in.

Most of our trips have been super fun so we were due for a few bumps in the road!

Anonymous wrote:As a child, my parents took us on a trip to Colombia, South America where my American grandfather was living with his second wife. At some point after dinner there was a big family dispute when my mom found out her dad had been shacking up with the girlfriend (now wife) while her parents were married. I cowered in the corner as voices were raised. Eventually, everyone went to bed very, very late so that we missed our outbound plane the next morning. That plane took off and crashed into mountains. Everyone at home who had our itinerary thought we had died. It was quite a trip.

Now that is quite the story! Was it this flight?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_410

Anonymous wrote:I am so sorry for everyone with food poisoning, GI, etc. It's horrible and undignified and just sucks. My greatest fear is that on the airplane. Like WTF do you do at that point?

Oh I’ve got you covered! Food poisoning in the first two hours of a flight from Dallas to Tokyo. Thank god I was in business class so I didn’t have to walk far or wait in line for a lavatory. I used up all of the airsickness bags in the entire cabin and then things moved to a need-the-lavatory situation. The flight attendants eventually let me just sit on the floor outside the lav so I could get there on time.

I was so sick with the chills and cold sweat that I sweated through all of my clothing and was soaked. In my hazy state I overheard two of them speculating about how much wine I’d had (none), and remember being outraged by the accusation but too weak to say anything. I don’t remember how I got through immigration or to my hotel. I do remember being grateful to end up in a city with easy access to rice, broth and tea, which is all I could keep down afterwards.

After that trip I always keep a ziploc with multiple pairs of clean underwear and a packable fresh outfit in my purse while traveling, because you never know.

Anonymous wrote:I am so sorry for everyone with food poisoning, GI, etc. It's horrible and undignified and just sucks. My greatest fear is that on the airplane. Like WTF do you do at that point?

You deal. Definitely a low point in my life was the red eye I spent in the airplane bathroom. But I survived. And it was my flight home. After a few years of travel for work while pumping breast milk in the bathroom, which is, shall we say at the best undignified, that was by far worse, yes.

I traveled often as a single parent with my DS from when he was a baby and then toddler. He was prone to throwing up - whether it was due to ear infections, tantrums or motion sickness wasn't clear until he could talk (it did turn out that motion sickness was one reason).

The worst time ever was while on a long flight, (before it became clear he was prone to motion sickness and I started anticipating it and made sure I had a bucket etc. ) - he vomited all over himself, the seat, the floor. It was terrible! Felt terrible for him, for me, flight attendants, passengers nearby. The clean up was challenging.

Otherwise I feel my trips have been pretty uneventful.

Not so bad compared to others but took a cruise for our first anniversary. I felt terrible due to motion sickness the first full day and then got a bad case of norovirus the last few days. Spent at least 2 full days quarantined in that tiny cabin while the boat was rocking on the ocean. I think they offered me a voucher for 50% off a future cruise within the next year. This was something like 14 yrs ago and I will never go on a a cruise again.

I was a recent hire at a major company I'd always wanted to work for. There was a large business meeting at a resort for all the high-level execs and I was chosen as one of the support staff to attend.

I was thrilled as it was a good chance to "make a name" for myself.

The first evening, when all the execs were at a dinner, I decided to use the resort's hot tub. I gratefully sank into the warm water and relaxed.

That is, until I looked at the bottom six inches of my hair which had dangled in the water and had turned a bright green. The resort over-chlorinated the hot tub which had turned my blonde hair chartreuse! I was going to make a name for myself, that's for sure.

I immediately called the hotel manager who frantically ran to a drug store to find a product that supposedly took green out. It didn't work.

So I spent the rest of the conference/meeting doing my best to hide my green hair/green bun on the back of my head but it was still pretty obvious.

I do have a healthy sense of humor and I was able to laugh about it which probably helped my reputation in the long run. I know some of the female execs commented to me privately that they would be horrified if it had happened to them.

My DH shattered his arm on a vacation. We had to stay there to get surgery before we could fly home. The surgeons did a great job so that was a bonus.

As a child, my parents took us on a trip to Colombia, South America where my American grandfather was living with his second wife. At some point after dinner there was a big family dispute when my mom found out her dad had been shacking up with the girlfriend (now wife) while her parents were married. I cowered in the corner as voices were raised. Eventually, everyone went to bed very, very late so that we missed our outbound plane the next morning. That plane took off and crashed into mountains. Everyone at home who had our itinerary thought we had died. It was quite a trip.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got stranded in Central African Republic.

Being stranded at some location anywhere is a nightmare of mine and absolutely a driving reason we buy trip insurance for any international destination. And please let me continue to fantasize that if I’m stuck in an African jungle or atop Machu Picchu amid political unrest or a Volcano that’s getting too steamy, that I’ll be able to pull out my phone, call my trip insurance 800 #, and I’ll soon be hearing the helicopter coming for my evacuation.

has anyone ever used the evacuation clause from trip insurance?

Colonial Beach. Rented a house and it’s like living in a combination of a ghetto and dirt poor rural America. The beach is terrible. Literally like nothing but some skank diner to eat at. Then the exploding bombs that is the test firing from the military base. Could not leave fast enough.

Anonymous wrote:I got food poisoning so bad in Taiwan that I didn’t know how I was going to get on the plane home. Thank goodness it eased right before I left for the airport.

My hotel was bombed in Mumbai.

We went to one of the most “biologically intense” places on earth and saw a squirrel. Food was good though.

Neighbor is a foreign service officer. There was a major terrorist attack in the country he was stationed in (which already was a war zone) and the embassy was shut down. He got the last flight out. He got some enterovirus and couldn’t leave the toilet. He finally got to the airport but couldn’t leave the toilet. They kept calling his name. Finally he sprinted and waddled on. Shat himself during takeoff and spent the entire trip in the bathroom.

After hearing his story I never vacation without zofran and Imodium.

I am so sorry for everyone with food poisoning, GI, etc. It's horrible and undignified and just sucks. My greatest fear is that on the airplane. Like WTF do you do at that point?