Anyone ever had a horrible vacation?

[Redblueflare]

My last vacation wasn't all it was cracked up to be. I got hit with arguments from every possible direction, and I couldn't even afford Throne Of Bhaal. My story notebook is close to being destroyed now, and to top it off, it rained almost the entire time. Any of you had vacations like this?

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Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I just don't have to listen.

No, but if it helps any I am terribly saddened that yours went so badly.

Hugs, my friend,

Moni

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[AliCat]

I had one vacation that, while not absolutely horrible, was not one I'd care to repeat parts of. I was doing a junior-year-abroad in England, and the university there had a three-term school year, with a two-week break at Christmas and a five-week break in March. I was originally planning on spending the first three weeks (my family was going to visit the last two of the five weeks) with a friend of mine who was studying at Heidelburg in Germany. We were going to travel around Europe on a Eurailpass. About a day or so before the break began, I found out that she went ahead and left without me and I'd no idea what she was up to. My British friends at the university had already made their own plans and were off, and I couldn't stay at my flat, as everything in the school including the co-op (food store) was closing down for the duration. So, I packed a backpack and took off. The first few days, I wandered around Paris, sleeping a night or two at an apartment of some people I met on the train (very nice couple). I also met another couple of friends from the uni whilst wandering Paris, and we dined on a baguette, some Camembert, and wine sitting on a bridge over the Seine at 9 p.m.
After that, I spent a week with a friend's family in Strasbourg, then travelled on this friend's advice to Amsterdam, Luxembourg, and Belgium. Amsterdam was fun (hung out with this neat girl from Brazil), Luxembourg was a dead bore (then again it was Sunday) and I ended up causing someone to have a traffic accident by crossing when I shouldn't have, then spent a marvelous time in Brussels (good beer, too). Then I ran out of money and headed back to England, only to find that the ferries were having a strike, and I couldn't get a ticket until the following day, and had no money for a hotel (without spending the money for trains back to the university). To make a long evening short, I ended up nearly getting raped and escaping into the night at 1 a.m. into the dimly-lit streets, planning to half-sleep at the Gard du Nord (Metro station) on a bench, until I found out the trains weren't running and I'd have to wander the streets until I found it. Extremely luckily as I was still running away from this man, I ended up stopping a car and asking for directions to the Gard du Nord. The driver turned out to be an American, who took me back to a flat he shared with two other Americans, and I spent a safe night there, before heading back on a ferry to England.

I'd much rather travel with a friend. Friendlier and safer.

[Redblueflare]

Okay i've lost all rights to complain about my vacation.

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Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I just don't have to listen.

[Laurel]

well, mine wasn't nearly as bad as AliCat's, but here it goes:
My worst vacation was the last family vacation that I went on. We went to Florida in mid-July, when it is the HOTTEST. My dad is very anal-retentive, and we MUST be up at 7 a.m. to visit the theme parks. Unfortunately, my father snores extremely loudly every night, making it very difficult to fall asleep. So, for one week straight, I was running on maybe 1-2 hours of sleep per night, getting up at 7 a.m., trudging around Disney World in the 95 degree weather, with my parents running around the park trying to find as many characters as they could for us to take pictures with (at the time I was 22 years old - you can imagine my embarrassment having to wait in line behind several 5 year olds to get a picture taken with Micky Mouse). To top it off, me and my father fought and argued every single day (I was very irritable due to lack of sleep). The best part of that vacation was when we got on the plane to go home. After that I vowed to never ever go on another family vacation unless I could have my own private hotel room.

[Sazerac]

Here's my vacation from H***, and the warning I would give you, is that you learn more about people when you have to travel with them.

A friend of mine was organizing a trip out to the Big Bend in Texas. We would go through Carlsbad Caverns, then head down to the Big Bend, and then back up to Dallas. There would be six of us: He and his son, his GF, me, and another couple. No problem. (right!)

The first day went pretty much without any complications. We made it to Carlsbad, NM, that evening, got our rooms, and then got up the next morning to tour the caverns.

Again, still not too much of a problem, other than the so-called "friend" I was traveling with happened to be a control freak of the worst order. Come to find out, he had taken this EXACT SAME VACATION two years before (this was in 1989) and wanted EVERYTHING to go EXACTLY as it had done on the trip two years ago (with completely different people, may I add)...all the way down to demanding that we go bowling in Carlsbad, NM, at 10:30 at night!

This isn't a joke. It gets worse.

After we finished the caverns (which we did without a hitch), we set off towards the Guadalupe Mountains and our next stop which happened to be McKittrick Canyon. I thought we were going to stop there for lunch. Stuart (my "friend") demanded that we hike the full 2 1/2 miles into the canyon. OK, guys, now this is about 1:30 in the afternoon in mid-June, and the temperature is already soaring towards 110. There isn't a dry place on us, and we're desperately seeking shade. So I told him that he could hike on in there, but I would stay back at the shelter (reasonable enough.) The others quickly assented to my suggestion.

Stuart proceeded to throw a tantrum (he was 29 at the time), screaming, bellowing, cussing, and finally stalked off into the canyon by himself. Nancy (his GF) decided to run after him and see if she could reason with him. Greg, Anne, and I debated on whether we should drive off and leave him, but we decided not to because of Nancy, whom we liked. So we waited there in the sweltering heat for him to get his head cleared and come back (about an hour and a half.)

The next day, we were still en route to Big Bend, but we decided to stop and cross the border to Ojinaga, Mexico, so Stuart could buy some tequila. Stuart didn't want to take his car across the border *sigh* so we had to trudge over the long bridge over the Rio Grande to get there. On the other side, there was the customs office, a small duty-free liquor store, and some souvenir shops. The town of Ojinaga itself was set back another 1 1/2 miles (at the very least).

So Stuart is about to purchase his liquor, when a man (local) in the store persuades him that there's much cheaper liquor prices in town. Well, guess what. All of us have to trudge after Stuart the 1 1/2 miles into Ojinaga, again in 110 degree weather, and to make matters worse, they were tarring the main road into town.

To make a long story hort, I got sick. I started vomiting and got pale and shaky (classic heat stroke). How I made it back across the border, I'll never know, other than I was 25 at the time and had more stamina than I do now. All I could do was lay in the back of the van and wish that I were dead.

Oh...and the best part? The "cheaper" liquor that Stuart went for was 8 pesos cheaper than the one he would have purchased at the border...a difference of about 1/16 of a cent in American currency.

It took me the rest of that day to recover. I missed pretty much the entire drive from Presidio to Big Bend, which I have been told is a marvel of natural beauty. Maybe I'll get to see it someday.

So we fetch up in Big Bend that evening. I'm still recovering from heat stroke, but doing a lot better, but I'm still pretty dang weak and shaky. So as soon as we make camp, Stuart INSISTS that we go hiking into Boquillas Canyon. I said "not no, but H*** no!" and he calls me a "wuss."

That's when I broke. I called him every name in the book but a healthy male, and told him to get his carcass into that canyon and that I hoped he rotted there and that the vultures picked his bones, and after they did I'd get his freakin' skull and use it as a candy dish on my coffee table at home.

We didn't speak for the rest of the trip, which was fine with me. I rode back to Dallas with Greg and Ann (the other couple) who were as outdone with Stuart as I was, and I think we spent most of the trip complaining about him and then laughing about it, which helped all of us get over that nightmare.

That was the end of that friendship. Stuart and I have never seen each other since (that's been 12 years) and I don't feel that I've lost anything. I have no regrets about that. But you can know that from that point onward, I made danged sure that I knew who I was traveling with, inside and out!

I've had no troubles on vacations since that time.

Cheers,

[Redblueflare]

That's horrible Sazerac! I can see why you laughed about it later. I laughed the entire way through. Why in the world would you want the vacation the exact same way it was before? That would be boring! I would've done the same thing if I were in your situation.

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Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I just don't have to listen.

[Sazerac]

Originally posted by Redblueflare: That's horrible Sazerac! I can see why you laughed about it later. I laughed the entire way through. Why in the world would you want the vacation the exact same way it was before? That would be boring! I would've done the same thing if I were in your situation.

Redblueflare, I think it's what you call a "control freak" crossed by a "personality disorder." I always knew Stuart to be a rather "Type-A" personality, but I had never dreamed it would get as bad as it did. He and I were never bosom buddies, so it did not hurt me in the least to "let him be" after that.

I agree fully with you...the point of a vacation is to relax, see new things, and let people enjoy things as they will. If Stuart had wanted to go hiking in the canyon by himself, that was fine, and I wouldn't have said a word. But forcing all of us to do that against our will...

well, let me put it to you this way, if Stuart had been a platoon leader in the armed forces, he'd have been one of the ones murdered by his own troops. A pity, really.

Ah well. Any more good nightmarish stories?

[AliCat]

Poor Saz!!! Yikes, indeed that was a hell story! Hmmm, now that I think of it, there were some definite advantages to traveling alone...

[Laurel]

geez, if that guy was that way with his friends, imagine how he was with his girlfriend...now there's a scary thought (can we say "abusive relationship?").