BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Romantic Getaways Vacations gone wrong

The worst vacation I ever went on was years ago before I started travel-writing. My husband and I planned a four day weekend in Mexico. I woke up with a cold the morning we were to leave for the trip. After the miserable 2 hour wait in Customs, we finally made it to our hotel, Solymar. We checked in and were shown to our room with a PARKING LOT view. How romantic. Since the vacation was an all-inclusive package, all of our meals were paid for with three different restaurants to choose from. What melarchy! It was one restaurant that changed names for breakfast lunch and dinner.

We made the most of it and did some site seeing and relaxing by the small pool and had a few drinks. I enjoyed the time I had alone with my hubby and we definitely remember it. I learned my lesson. Research the trip.

So what were some of your worst trips?

I went to Brittany, France a couple of years ago with some friends. When we got to our hotel room, (which was quite late) we found ants everywhere, they were all over the beds, and in the bathroom.

However, we were told we couldn't swap rooms, and were given the ant killer stuff which totally stank up the room.

Now i know they're only ants but i dont want them crawling all over me when asleep. They could crawl in your mouth or your ears or something! yuk!

we ended up sleeping on the beach that night, and found another hotel the next day.

Yuck, I don't think I would stay somewhere with ants on the bed!!

I don't mind the view in the room, we usually don't stay in our rooms much so I'd probably draw the curtains and leave it at that. But if I was paying for all-included food I'd be pretty miffed at that restaurant situation!!

Worse trip ever? My first honeymoon which was in Disney World. Yes, I know that that has to be the strangest choice for "grown ups" when they want to spend their honeymoon relaxing but my husband at the time had never been to Florida.

Anyhow, for just rooms and airfare we paid close to $3,000 for 4 days. No park tickets, no meals, no rental car. When we checked in they made my ex carry all of our bags to our room. I remember packing pretty much my whole closet and him huffing and puffing up the bridge and through the paths and up the stairs finally to our room. The room with twin beds although we reserved a queen or king sized bed - can't remember, it's been a while. But I do remember that I could have lost 15lbs just walking from our room to the bus that takes you to the various parks.

Food was not included so we had only one good meal which was at a restaurant in Epcot Center I believe. Best lobster bisque I have ever had! The rest of the meals remind me of Atlantic City when I went with my grandparents and we went to the buffets. Enough said.

Then again.. the trip to Breezes was kind of awful as well. I guess 2 trips out of many isn't too bad.

I've had a lot of bad travel experiences from traveling across the country and most of them involved the hotel. In Dallas I was in a hotel room that was crawling with roaches...same for a room in Myrtle Beach, SC. In Orlando my room was crawling with ants and really smelled bad. (I somehow seem to attract insects wherever I go, especially mosquitoes!!) In a hotel in South Carolina I booked a "whirlpool suite" which ended up having a thirty year old bathtub with a bubble making appliance attached to it. In Key West, the hostel I stayed at still had someone's underwear in the dresser drawer, among other personal items. If you don't stay in a nice place, the whole vacation can be ruined.

For some helpful hints on how to effectively complain about hotel rooms and make your vacation more enjoyable, check out my articles on how to complain about a hotel room under the Travel Tips and Information section on my site.

I can completely relate to the issue of having crawling ants in some hotels. But, the worse thing that I can recall was on a recent trip to England when there was this unbearable stench. Turned out to be a frisky pet from the other room, which probably made the room into a kennel.

Well Bob and I went to Hawaii on a cruise in December and the largest hurricane they had seen in 30 years hit while we were there, flooded the islands, drove us out of one port, made us miss another port, and we lost power one night But it was great fun!

I guess, Lisa, a vacation gone wrong in Hawaii is still a pretty good one.
We've been very lucky with vacations. I can only think of one where we had some problems but still enjoyed it. It was July 3rd and we went to the beach. We checked into our hotel late and soon realized that the air conditioning was not working. After about two hours of different people coming in to try and fix it (and assuring us each time that it was fixed) we were moved to another room around midnight. Not a fun evening. The next night we put our beach blanket and chairs on the beach early to reserve a spot to watch fireworks, then went to dinner. Came out from dinner to find, storms brewing. Needless to say the fireworks were cancelled and our stuff on the beach was completely drenched and full of wet sand. But we got through it and had fun anyway.

Yes I was perfectly happy just being around Hawaii and on a cruise ship, I didn't care if we drifted at sea the entire time I like to have relaxed expectations and go with the flow.

When I was growing up we used to go winter camping in the snow and such, so I have a very laid back attitude as to what is a "good sleeping environment"

Trip to Cal State Fullerton last year. Why was it the worst? It was the only field trip where it rained all day. So we couldn't explore the campus much, we only got to hang out under the buildings, and we couldn't eat outside. How lame.

Eastern Caribbean Cruise Jan 2010: Rain/snow (that's right, snow in South Florida) & 40 F in Ft. Lauderdale on day of departure, and clouds/rain for about 2/3 of trip. Australia Dec 2010: 1 week of rain in Brisbane, clouds/wind/drizzle in Adelaide & Melbourne for 2 weeks. California Mar 2011: Rain & 55 F in San Francisco. Maureen M.

Ohh, sad to hear about all your travel woos. But thank God, I have never had a bad traveling experience so far. I only go to Indian cities or hill stations, etc.

Our worst vacation was down in Southern California when I had food poisoning. Everything hurt so bad I could barely walk (with every step I felt sharp pain). We did end up having a decent time and still went sight seeing!