Your Least-Favorite Vacation

[MrsJamesPSullivan]

1976 we spent a week in a cabin way up north in Minnesota. It was cold and rainy the entire week which put my father in a bad mood. There was no TV and only one radio station which was religious programming all day and the Democratic National Convention at night. My best friend and I were 13, not exactly interested in either of those things at the time! The big entertainment in town was to go to the town dump in the evening and watch the bears go thru the trash. It was kind of fun but we could only get my dad to take us one time. One rainy day we went for a ride and ended up at the Canadian border. My dad wouldn't drive across because he didn't want to wait in the line. We just wanted to go across, jump out of the car so we could say we'd been out of the country and come right back. The traffic wasn't that bad and it wasn't like we had anything fun to hurry back to! LOL We played a lot of games of rummy that week.

 

[Mortlives]

Starter husband and I were on Cozumel for Hurricane Gilbert. If you don't want to google it, it was a category 5 hurricane with a huge death toll, although we were told none of the fatalities was on Cozumel. DSH was stung by something in the water (fire coral?) before the storm hit and was feverish and delirious by the time I discovered that wind could, indeed, be the loudest sound I had ever heard. For 5 days afterwards we were stuck on Cozumel with no electricity, no plumbing, and mostly goat cheese and ham sandwiches to eat (#firstworldproblems).

I am aware that others had it much worse. For some reason, resort security delivered food to us during the height of the storm (and it backed over us, we saw the eye twice), and afterwards the owner of the resort had ice, and one time steak, flown in from Merida to make our stay more pleasant. And after those 5 days, we got to go home, unlike the unfortunate people who lived there who we saw stoically picking up the wreckage of their homes and still try to make us comfortable. Special shout out to the kind Americans who had phone service via a naval ship and had their parents phone my parents (we said collect: ignored) to let them know we were safe.

But, I would have to call that my least favourite vacation.

 

[ConnecticutNonna]

So many of these not so great trips are about WHO you went with... (Or the ones that got traveling sickness-yuch-so sorry!). My worst was to Hershey, PA with a guy I ended up realizing not even halfway through I was going to break up with. Nothing like a "vacation" (forced time in one place) to help you recognize what an unfit partner the other person would be! Lol! I considered it money well spent! BTW, went to Hershey again several years later, camping, and had a FINE time with DH! So far, (27 yes later) we have not had a terrible vacation again! Guess we're lucky!

 

[ConnecticutNonna]

I took my Dad and his longtime girlfriend to WDW in 2008, and that was easily the worst vacation I've taken. The trip was a disaster from start to finish. The DGF was obese and so deconditioned that she could hardly move. Soon after arriving, she claimed that someone had hacked her bank account, so she spent most of the first morning at Hollywood Studios screaming at BofA and crying. I rented a scooter for her and she fell asleep while driving it (five times she fell asleep!) and almost hit a group of people. Then she had a meltdown at the resort, was screaming obscenities at my Dad, and started to crawl to her room on her hands and knees. She spent the rest of the vacation in her room ordering buckets of fried chicken from room service and bossing the staff around. Would call me on the phone with curt demands---"Get me a bratwurst," and hang up.

At least it made for an entertaining story!

Please tell me they are no longer together, or that she is not now DW?!? Story made me howl!

 

[LukenDC]

Please tell me they are no longer together, or that she is not now DW?!? Story made me howl!

They are still together, but not married. The craziness has intensified, and DGF is the only member of the family (I've known her since I was 7 years old, so she practically is family) who routinely causes drama and stress. Thankfully, she is on the other side of the country. My husband began the year by announcing that he did not have "the emotional fortitude" to have a 2015 visit with DGF.

 

[ConnecticutNonna]

They are still together, but not married. The craziness has intensified, and DGF is the only member of the family (I've known her since I was 7 years old, so she practically is family) who routinely causes drama and stress. Thankfully, she is on the other side of the country. My husband began the year by announcing that he did not have "the emotional fortitude" to have a 2015 visit with DGF.

There's no understanding love and relationships!

 

[SwimMom2]

This thread is so great.

Hm, I have to go with when our family (DH, 2 sons, me) went to DH's and my alma mater for his 10th reunion. It was awful. It rained the whole time and the kids got soooo bored. My youngest was 8 months old at the time and all I remember was being muddy at the events chasing my 6 year old around the fields with the baby in a sling, swearing I would not attend another reunion until my kids were off at college.

We haven't. It looks like we might get to go to our 30th.

 

[Cadiewampus]

Believe it or not it was a trip to WDW. Its probably been 15 years ago. Our neighbors had never been so we booked a trip with them and my then 7 year old DS. Boy what a mistake. The neighbor wife would not ride anything (everything made her sick she said) and she whined the whole time about how hot it was and how many people there were and blah blah blah. And heaven forbid if we stopped for a adult beverage or two (including her husband). They are still our neighbors but no more trips and we still like him. But we still do other things with them mainly so we can do little things that we know will aggravate her.

 

[ConnecticutNonna]

Believe it or not it was a trip to WDW. Its probably been 15 years ago. Our neighbors had never been so we booked a trip with them and my then 7 year old DS. Boy what a mistake. The neighbor wife would not ride anything (everything made her sick she said) and she whined the whole time about how hot it was and how many people there were and blah blah blah. And heaven forbid if we stopped for a adult beverage or two (including her husband). They are still our neighbors but no more trips and we still like him. But we still do other things with them mainly so we can do little things that we know will aggravate her.

Love it! A little passive aggressive, eh?

 

[7165red]

A couple of years ago at WDW. Dh had gotten home from a 12 month deployment about 2 weeks prior so he was still trying to get used to normal life.

Then we got there and that evening got a call from our property managers saying the people who had just vacated our rent house skipped country and left damages to the tune of $10,000. We don't have that kind of money. Really hard to enjoy your vacation with that kind of stress.

Then dh got a call saying his grandfather was on life support and they wanted to pull the plug. His aunt said they would wait the 3 days until we got there. A few hours later I check fb to find out they didn't even wait an hour and he was gone.

Then dh got a call from his commander saying he needed to be back as soon as possible because in a few days he had to be gone again for another 9 months. Worst. Trip. Ever.

OH, how awful.

 

[Lilacs4Me]

Joining in!

My worst was a weekend trip with MIL. We were driving 5 hours back home for a BUDGET trip for my niece's first birthday party and had an extra seat in the car, and my SIL asked DH behind my back if we could bring MIL out with us. Of course DH said yes. Problem is, MIL is just about the most negative, mean, complaining person ever, and there is a standing rule in their family that she never pays for anything EVER when she is with one of her sons. So, everywhere we went, we bought. I'm talking appetizers, drinks, steaks, dessert, the works. She even treated herself to some "forgotten" toiletries and other essentials that she needed. I tried to curb the amount of times we stopped by feeding the kids before we left places, making them go to the bathroom before we left, etc, but that didn't work. She kept asking DH to stop for bathroom and eating breaks. When I told the kids they were not getting anything, she kept saying that she would buy it if we wouldn't because she didn't want to "stuff her face"(her words) in front of them alone. And of course DH wouldn't let her do that. Our budget trip ended up costing a couple extra hundred dollars.

Then, even though we were more than an hour closer to home than where MIL was staying, SIL refused to drive her out to us when it was time to go home because her teenage DD had a softball game, so we had to make the 2 hour round-trip to get her and get back to the original point before hitting the road to get home. We had to leave my niece's birthday party before it was over in order to do this, which was the whole point of going out there to begin with! And every other word out of MIL's mouth is a curse word, plus it's impossible to hold a conversation with her because she is either A. talking about people and things that kids should not be hearing about (like what relative of hers is in jail, whose the latest pregnancy, divorce, who is having "baby-daddy" problems, etc - trust me, we do NOT see much of DH's extended family!!!) or she is 2. too busy being offended by everything I say to have a conversation with her.

Never,ever again. We will be taking a 4-door sedan everywhere we go for the rest of our lives!

 

[MomofKatie]

Joining in!

My worst was a weekend trip with MIL. We were driving 5 hours back home for a BUDGET trip for my niece's first birthday party and had an extra seat in the car, and my SIL asked DH behind my back if we could bring MIL out with us. Of course DH said yes. Problem is, MIL is just about the most negative, mean, complaining person ever, and there is a standing rule in their family that she never pays for anything EVER when she is with one of her sons. So, everywhere we went, we bought. I'm talking appetizers, drinks, steaks, dessert, the works. She even treated herself to some "forgotten" toiletries and other essentials that she needed. I tried to curb the amount of times we stopped by feeding the kids before we left places, making them go to the bathroom before we left, etc, but that didn't work. She kept asking DH to stop for bathroom and eating breaks. When I told the kids they were not getting anything, she kept saying that she would buy it if we wouldn't because she didn't want to "stuff her face"(her words) in front of them alone. And of course DH wouldn't let her do that. Our budget trip ended up costing a couple extra hundred dollars.

Then, even though we were more than an hour closer to home than where MIL was staying, SIL refused to drive her out to us when it was time to go home because her teenage DD had a softball game, so we had to make the 2 hour round-trip to get her and get back to the original point before hitting the road to get home. We had to leave my niece's birthday party before it was over in order to do this, which was the whole point of going out there to begin with! And every other word out of MIL's mouth is a curse word, plus it's impossible to hold a conversation with her because she is either A. talking about people and things that kids should not be hearing about (like what relative of hers is in jail, whose the latest pregnancy, divorce, who is having "baby-daddy" problems, etc - trust me, we do NOT see much of DH's extended family!!!) or she is 2. too busy being offended by everything I say to have a conversation with her.

Never,ever again. We will be taking a 4-door sedan everywhere we go for the rest of our lives!

Oh, no! Sounds bit like my father. He is a huge pain in the you-know-what to travel with, too. We have avoided it for the last 10 years- can't handle the cursing, incessant complaining, frequent stops, and insistence on only eating at large chain restaurants (we enjoy finding fun little mom and pop local joints).

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

Oh man, we still laugh about it. This was way back when there was a Sea World in OH, my husband and I were newly dating and went on a weekend trip, the plan was to drive over from Pennsylvania, spend one day at Cedar Point, spend the night at a hotel, and then spend our second day at Sea World and drive home in time for work on Monday. So Saturday morning we had car trouble on the drive to OH and it put us several hours behind schedule. Cedar Point was a disaster, there were thundershowers off and on all day and many rides were closed due to the weather.

So we booked a hotel in Elyria, Ohio at the recommendation of the couple that we were going with, the wife had found a good rate, I think we only paid $40 a night. I was young and just went along with it and booked a room at this hotel, it was a Howard Johnson's so I figured it couldn't be too bad. Anyway, we get there and the other couple was upset because there was no pool. I guess they had asked about a pool when they booked, but the hotel was owned by a foreign family and there must have been a miscommunication. No problem, we stayed in and watched Deep Blue Sea on HBO and ate vending machine snacks in our room. But then the next morning we found out that the other couple hadn't gotten much sleep because drug addicts had been pounding on the door all night; apparently the hotel had rented out a room that belonged to a drug dealer and stangers in various states of sobriety had been showing up at the room all night and belligerently insisting upon buying drugs from this room. Then, when the other couple was packing up to leave they found a stash of drugs and we had to go to the police station.

Two hours later, the cops were done with us and we were finally on our way, we missed half our time at Sea World though and we were kind of upset because we had blown a huge chunk of change on this disappointing trip. Lol, I'm sure we spent less than $300 on this trip but we were poor college students at the time and that was big money for us!

From reading some of these other stories, I guess we were fortunate that this was the worst thing that ever happened on vacation.

**disclaimer**
No offense to anyone from Elyria, OH. I'm sure your town is lovely but we have no intentions of ever staying there again : )

 

[longboard55]

We usually go to hawaii or disneyworld and everythings great, we tried atlantis once and had 5 days with no sun at all, the problem is its ungawdly expensive to be sitting in your room

 

[NFLDERS]

I read this in our MSN News/Travel today thought it interesting, and remembered this thread.

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/travel/art...to-punch-me-in-the-back’/ar-AAe1I8v?li=AA5afG

 

[princesstinkerbelle]

I absolutely hate camping! We went to Cherrystone in Virginia when I was 13. I am not that kinda girl! I need air conditioning. And a hotel room with a concierge. To top it off family got in a massive argument...over a frying pan

I am also not too fond of "beach" vacations that don't involve more than lying on for 10 hours a day. That is so boring to me! I want to relax but I also want to have fun and see/do new things!

 

[jenjenster]

I love vacations...any type of vacations and vacations to any location....I never thought I would actually say I had a bad vacation until I went to Gulf Shores, AL with my boyfriend at the time. Like many posters on here it was not the location that was the problem...it was the person I went with. We actually had been dating for about a year and had taken small weekend trips but this was our first big trip for a week. My boyfriend had recently bought a used boat so we decided to take it down since the cottage we rented was right on the lagoon. We took the boat out and it keep stopping...we finally got it going and was having a decent time but my boyfriend was insisting we take the boat out in the ocean to try it out. I thought the man was delusional...it was not working great in the lagoon but he wanted to take out to the ocean where we could get stranded and drift out to sea and eaten by sharks and other horrible things. I was getting really upset because he kept insisting. I finally started crying because I was scared to death and he finally gave in and we went back to the cottage. I guess I made him mad because we really did not talk much the rest of the week and he did not want to do anything but lay on the couch and sleep. Needless to say...I broke up with him a couple of months later. I thought Gulf Shores was beautiful but I probably would never go back there because it would always remind me of him.

The only other vacation that I can think of that was not everything I had hoped was my first trip back to Disney without my parents. My parents loved Disney and we went pretty much every other year for last 35 years or so. I lost both my parents at the end of 2009. I decided to return to Disney by myself in September 2010. It actually ended up being very sad because I did not have my parents there with me. I pushed through and knew they were with me in spirit but it was hard when I did things I know they loved so much such as the Tower of Terror or Pirates. I have been back twice since the 2010 trip and it was a lot easier each time.

 

[Kiren]

Family road trip to Nova Scotia with our pop up trailer from Ontario. We went with my grandparents and we were miserable. My grandmother constantly needed us to stop so she could eat and use the bathroom but everywhere we went wasn't good enough. We finally stopped on the 2nd or 3rd day at Peggy's Cove and my mum called her mum. Next thing we know she's telling us the day we left our house was broken into! It put a damper on our vacation but more so was my grandmother just constantly complaining. It was the last road trip we did with them.