OT: MGoVacation horror stories

Several years ago we took a trip to Oahu with the in-laws to celebrate their 40th anniversary.  Back then we just had our oldest daughter, about 2 at the time.  My wife's sister also went with us and it just so happened that her best friend was also on the island with her extended family at the same time.

I had very few expectations for this trip other than to relax and to make a point of having a strong mai tai with every meal.  Things were going swimmingly for the first couple days when we decided we were going to meet up with my sister-in-law's friend and her husband on the third evening.  My SIL and her friend were making arrangements for us to go to a luau.  The SIL tells me they have made plans for what she is told is the "best luau on the island". 

The plan was that we would rent a car, drive around the island, picnic, swim, etc., and then meet up with her friend and her friend's husband at the luau.  Then, my in-laws would drive our daughter back to the hotel, leaving just me, the Mrs., her sister and her friends to go to the luau (which I interpret as no kids and a designated driver).  With that in mind, I forego the morning/afternoon mai tai, making the responsible choice to drive the family around the island.  All the while, I'm looking forward to the "best luau on the island" and can practically taste the dark rum in my mind.

We continue to drive on to the North side of the island with my SIL navigating.  The thoughts of no kids, designated driver, "best luau on the island", and the free-flowing mai tai's that must surely accompany such a spectacle crescendo to fever pitch in my mind.  The SIL tells me we're getting closer and I finally ask (yes, I know this is my own fault for not asking earlier) "where is this luau, anyway?"

SIL says "it's at the Polynesian Cultural Center".  Pause.  We approach the parking lot.  The FIL ruminates a moment and says, "Polynesian Cultural Center?  Isn't that owned by the Mormon church?"  Needless to say, I did not get my mai tai until I got back to the hotel that night.

I know this story doesn't compare with explosive gastro-intestinal problems at Disneyland, sunburn of death, cruise ships with no working toilets, etc., but I REALLY wanted that mai tai.

About four years ago I was sort of dating a girl long-distance (you may remember the Michigan grad who found her husband on the ESPN Big Ten blog). I flew down to spend a long weekend and on my second night there we decided to get Indian food before meeting up with her cousin. For some reason I decided to order goat simply because it was an option and I hadn't tried it before. The good news is that it was delicious. The bad news is that about two hours later a typhoon of destruction descended upon me with a fury unknown to man. I went from being perfectly fine to fatally ill in 30 seconds. I proceeded to take turns crapping and puking for the next five hours before waking up on the floor of the bathroom. I was so dehryrated that I was practically delirious and the pain was on a level I hadn't felt before or since. Anyway, it was clear prior to the illness that we were not a good match, so I changed my flight to head back a day early without telling her. It finally dawned on me that I had to wake her up and explain that I was leaving early and that she needed to drive me to the airport. Keep in mind that this girl had stayed up all night and done her best to take care of me and who thought everything was solid between us. To her credit, she rolled with this revelation and dropped me off without issue. I looked like death. I was sweating profusely, white as sheet, shaking, and grimacing every 30 seconds due to a stabbing pain in my stomach. At that point I was just hoping not to shit my pants on the flight. I managed to keep my pants clean, but at some point the pain was so unberable that I started to dig my knuckle into my skull to transfer pain away from my stomach. We finally land, so I grabbed a cab which proceeded to blow a tire about six blocks from my house. I hoofed it the rest of the way and spent the next five days laid out enjoying the sustenance of plain bagels and small sips of water. 

 

and I ended up with a fly stuck in my neck when the guy in front of me didn't watch what he was doing with his back cast. I ended up fishing for 2 hours with that damn fly in my neck before I had to go to the hospital to get it taken out Finally got out of the hospital after midnight.

This one time, at band camp......

... on a trip to India.  Problem was, the onset didn't kick in until a trip to the Maldives.  While a beautiful country, the infrastructure to support a foreigner with Malaria is lacking.  Add on top of that an out of season tropical storm that cancelled most flights for 3 days and I can safely say it was my worst vacation ever.  

 

 

I've seen the inside of a hospital in Jamaica.

Was helping a friend move from North Carolina back to the Denver area. First day we start driving back he gets sick and we only make it a few hundred miles the first day. Have to hang in a hotel while he throws up all night.

The next day we start rolling again and need to make a big push as I only have a few days and have to be back home to go to work. So we put in a long day driving and make it to Salina Kansas. It's about 10:30 at night and we are beat and just want to sleep. Well, turns out there is some square dance convention in town and no one has a room. After hitting up a few places a lady tells us she knows a place we can probably find a room. She gives us directions to a hotel called the Vagabond. We get there and the place is straight out of the 50's and is pretty nasty.

We go into the front office area and ask if they have a room. The lady says yes we do and then gives us a sly grin and says do you need one bed or two. We were like your kidding we need two. She then gives us this old remote and says that is for the TV you boys can just leave it in the room when your done. Give us this huge key on a key chain and we head to the room. All outside doors facing the parking lot.

We go into the room and I tell my buddy I don't think anyone has actually "slept" on these beds in years. Tell him I'm just going to lie on top of the blankets and see if I can get a few hours sleep. It's hot as hell so we crank up the window A/C unit and that thing shakes and rattle loud enough to wake the dead. We manage to fall asleep though for a short time and after a while my buddy gets up to shut off the A/C unit because of the noise. The curtains don't close all the way and we are by some stairs. Two hookers are walking down the stairs and waive at us and motion as if they want to come in. We just kind of waived them off and tried to sleep. The next morning early I was like man let's get out of this place before we catch something.

Hurrican Bob '91.

Provincetown, MA.

 

I logged in to make a comment and when it posted, everyones User ID's were listed as 'Anonymous Coward'. 

I got out and back in and it is fixed now though.

Lived in South Africa for most of 2015.  Great times for the most part, but had one unfortunate week of what may have been cholera.  Doesn't seem likely it was, but the doctor I saw said "hope it's not cholera" and gave me 3 bags of antibiotics to kill anything and everything, paired with a hydration regimen.  Thankfully this was pretty effective after a few days.

In 2013 my wife and I took a trip to see her grandmother in Vermont and my brother in Michigan. Too many things went wrong to list, but it took us 3 days to get from Seattle to Vermont, with one of the highlights being yelled at by United employees in the Newark airport. Newark is the biggest shithole I've ever been in. When we got to Vermont my luggage was lost. Had to wear my brother-in-law's cloths for three days. We finally got it the night before we left. When we tried to check in online the night before for the flight to Detroit we found out that United had canceled the rest of our itinerary. Finally got that worked out, showed up to the airport to find our flight had been canceled. So we got to sit in the Burlington airport for several hours waiting for the next flight. When we went to check in online again for the flight back to Seattle we found that United had again canceled our itinerary. For all our troubles, the United rep in Detroit upgraded us to the exit row. Yay. We will never fly United again.

My gf at the time went to school in Madison. I wanted to see her in the dead of winter, and decided to drive there with three other friends from my dorm.

I was 19 at the time, and the rental car place in AA required me to be 21. I asked one of my older fraternity brothers to rent a car for us. He did so without asking questions by accompanying us to the agency.

We left on a Thurs after class even though there was a lot of snow and ice on the roads. As my friend is driving on I-94 on a sheet of ice, he passes a semi. About 100 ft later, he starts swerving on the ice, ends up losing control, cutting right in front of the semi, going in to a ditch, and the car flips over. We were all fine afterwards, but the car was totaled.

The car rental company charges $5,500 for the totaled car to one of my friend's credit cards used for the deposit. Her dad insists on paying the card off even before we checked if her insurance would cover it.

My dad paid my portion, and I had to work the entire next summer to pay off the bill.

As a follow up, I move later to Madison to hang out with said gf. She ends up sleeping with a common friend behind my back who happened to live in the same apartment complex as me. Total betrayal by rubbing it in my face. (she apologized later). I should have seen the accident as a bad omen of what was to come.

Luckily I've never had any true Vacation Horror Stories ... Honeymoon to Hawaii was amazing and we've been back a few times during our 15yr marriage ...Mexico many, many times with some "dangerous" escapades and near misses ...Costa Rica with some similar adventurous fun.

Europe trip for four months between Jr and Sr years at UM ...almost got jumped by a group of drunk German Soccer hooligans in Greece ..it was 1994 and the WC was in the US.  Luckily this bad ass chick I had been hitting on in the bar and thought was from New Jersey (she was from Israel and had completed some form of military duty) saved me!

 

But now having posted this I presume that my next vacation will certainly be a Horror Story and as of now, it's a week Up North on GT Bay, my old stomping grounds...

 

The Horror ....The Horror ....The Horror ....

I hate vacations. I have never had a vacation that made me wish I had stayed there, or even glad I went. When I was 19, before cell phones, my folks and sisters did a two car caravan from KY to Orlando and back. On the way home, we were supposed to stop at exit 78 or something near Atlanta. There was no exit 78. My folks drive all the way back to KY and leave my sister and I in Georgia with a car that has a bright red Service Engine light. Another time we went to Disney world. All you do is wait and walk. Wife and kids want to go back. No way. 1 vacation in the summer is enough. Now we have a HS kid and they have something almost every weekend, thank goodness. I blame her for our lack of trips.

We drove down to Orlando from DC in December.  We stayed at a Howard Johnson and arrived at midnight.  They had to switch our room twice because of mold.  Then we had to go to Walmart to buy sheets because we didn't trust the sheets on the bed.  

The next morning, we woke up to try out the Chinese restaurant they advertised on their website.  The restaurant was burned out from a fire months ago.  

It was cold the entire time we were there and it snowed.  On the way back home, one of our tires blew a flat 90 miles from home.  It took us an additional three hours to get home on US-1.

You want to know how we followed that up? Two months later, my wife wanted to spend her last Spring Break as an undergrad in Maine at Acadia National Park.  You can imagine what the weather was like.  Oh, oh, oh, did I forget to mention we were trying to do this trip on the cheap?  For anyone familiar with the Northeast U.S., imagine what it's like to go from DC to Maine avoiding all the toll roads.  

For those trips to register as worse than the time a fake police officer tried to pull us over leaving the Holland Tunnel, they had to be a doozy.

2 years ago, my family went on a trip to Cabo for thanksgiving week.  Great trip, but the last day we were there my 8 year old and I, tired from a long week of sun and swimming, decide to chill at the room and order lunch.  We shared a chicken strip plate and fries.  Everything was fine, we thought.  The next day we were flying back home, and my son has the shakes and is burning up.  I thought it was just a little bug, so we thought, hey, lets just get home today, and rest on sunday.  We thankfully made it home without any incidents, but my son kept getting worse.  The next morning he had a 104 degree temp, so I rushed him to the emergency room, and low and behold, he had typhoid fever.  5 days of IV's and diahreah, and he finally was able to come home.  The pooping didn't end for another 3 days, so the poor little guy was just miserrable.  I don't wish that on anyone.

Western Europe with my parents when I was in 6th grade. Got strep throat at the beginning of the trip. People we were staying with couldn't get me meds. Had to wait 2 weeks to get antibiotics.

Also, went on a cruise with just my parents while I was in high school. Just me and the 'rents. We all learned by the end of that that we don't do well with vacations that leave the 3 of us in close proximity with nothing to do. Played Rook with my mom until that got real boring. Wasn't really a disaster, but definitely a waste of money.

You know who doesn't have any vacation horror stories?  Jim Harbaugh. He doesn't take them and we could all learn something from him

My wife and I went to Cancun in 2015. On the way back, we had to spend 26 straight hours in the Baltimore airport due to snow, about 4 inches. All flights were cancelled and the highway was shut down. We eventually took a flight home to Grand Rapids. Our luggage wasn't as lucky. At least not for another few days after we got home.

Christine Brinkley propositioned me on the freeway and I wanted to say yes but the horror came later when my wife and I got home...

Mount Rushmore area for a family vacation. We get there and find out its the annual Sturgis bike week. Literally a million motorcycles and 5 million tattoos.