Yikes--the Fodor's gremlins strike again. My reply was directed at a response (which has since disappeared) from Nontravelling Noah. I have no desire to get in the midst of the frank exchange of opinions between Cindy, Patrick, and Ilisa.

Martha, thanks for the compliment. I am not familiar with the post you referred to. Noah, sweetheart, you haven't even begun to see my obnoxious side.

Mackinac Island in Michigan, without a doubt! It is advertised as having no mechanized transportation (No cars, motorcycles, etc) Travel is accomplished by bicycles, horse-drawn trams or walking. Words like 'rustic' and 'quaint' fill the attractive travel brochures. We stayed at a hotel there (name escapes me at the moment...I think I want to forgetit!). It was extremely expensive ($250 a night for a SMALL double room. It was NOT air-conditioned which we didn't learn till we arrived. We had to keep the windows open for the breeze. Since transportation is provided by horse-drawn cariages and trams, the SMELL of horses and their waste was unbearable. There were dozens of shops and stores for shopping if that's what you like and a few historical-themed or nature tours to take, but everything was expensive and not that great in quality. Food was mediocre at best. Never again!

Wife and I went to Bitter End a couple of years ago and had great time. The staff was great, the food good and everyone seemed to be having a great time. Guess the place improved from the 1980's. Only disappointment was beach at resort, except we took boat to the most romantic two person beach in the VI.

Worst vacation spot? Belize City. Head out to the Keys.

My husband Clark, and our two children, Rusty and Audrey, have had many wonderful family vacations. However, I am reminded of our ill-fated trip to Wally World several years ago. It was one disaster after another. CLark drove off with Aunt Edna's dog chained to the bumper. Aunt Edna blamed Clark because the dog had peed on his sandwich when we visited my cousin, Eddie, who has s plate in his head. Then Aunt Edna died and we had to leave her on the porch in the rain. When we finally got to Wally World, it was closed for repairs. Clark went postal and nearly got us killed. But our later trips to Europe and Las Vegas more than made up for this.

Sacramento, CA, in summer.
This cow town state capital gets miserably hot (110 degrees F+), smoggy, humid (all those irrigated rice paddies do have an impact), and dusty (from farmers plowing their fields out in the Valley). It's pure hell. Especially when the torrid Valley smells of rotten tomatoes during the late summer harvest.
Come to think of it, a hot autumn day can be worse--when the farmers burn the stubble fields and the smoke mixes with the smog and dust.
Had Dante know Sacramento, he would have reserved a very special place for this town in his Purgatory.

Oops! Make that "known."

Ellen:

Is Janet Reno aware of your repetitive child swapping? Did you know that Clark gets nekkid with other women?

Anna, how long did it take you to recover from your dengue fever since, as you unfortunately know by now, there is NO antidote for this? Also, did the symptoms start BEFORE you left or after you returned home? Did you do a lot of hiking "in the woods" or did you stick mainly to the beach areas? Thanks!! (Hope you have recovered by now!!)

Steve,

Luckily, it was only a mild dose - I was back to normal within a couple of months. THe first week was hell, afterwards I had a few spells - each one was milder than the one before. We were mainly on the beach, but I must admit that I was not as careful as I should have been with insect repellant. I was a little complacent because Bali is not malarial - not a mistake that I will be making again!

It wasn't a "vacation," but one day in Wichita, Kansas, was 24 hours too long. (I grew up in a town of 300 people, so am accustomed to no frills.)

Appreciate all the comments about cruises; will move those way, way down on my list of future trips.

My worst vacation yet has been my trip to the Florida Keys. It was my lack of research and planning that caused the demise of my trip and helped me to be the cautious traveller that I am today. I have devised a list of do-nots to help me with future planning.

1. DO NOT camp in the Florida Keys in the summer. Why? HEAT, mosquitos, HUMIDITY, mosquitos, insecticide, mosquitos, tropical storms, hungry racoons and did I mention mosquitos. Miserable.

2. DO NOT expect to find a reputable hotel in case a tropical storm blows your tent away while you are dining on greasy frozen seafood at a sleazy tiki bar. If you do not heed my warning and decide to camp anyway, have backup reservations at a nice hotel or you may end up on a flea ridden, roach infested, urine-stained, houseboat with stale beer flavored air. I couldn't even shower. This place I think WAS mentioned in Dante's Purgatory.

3. DO NOT snorkel so far away from the shore that you cannot get back quickly in case there is a spontaneous tropical storm. Check the weather. It can change rapidly. Barracuda only attack in murky water. Luckily, the one I hit head on seemed to be in a trance of some sort.

4. DO NOT let a chronic key loser be in charge of the car keys. Lock smiths and cabbies can really stick it to you in Marathon.

5. DO NOT think you are impervious to sunburn. The sun is really intense in the Keys. Wear sunscreen, whoever you are. Mosquito bites and sunburn--not a good combination. Helpful hint--Avon's Skin-So-Soft sunscreen/insect repellant.

6. DO NOT waste your money on the aquarium in Key West. Unless they have improved over the years, it was a BIG disappointment. The shark that is so fervently advertised looks like a slightly overgrown catfish.

All this said, I must mention my trip's only redeeming quality--Sombrero Reef off the Marathon shore. This is a wonderful site for divers and snorkeler's alike. I found the Keys to be a wonderfully interesting place with lots to see and do. I will return someday with my DO-NOT list in hand.

If you like 50,000 holes of mini-golf to relax, WI Dells is the place for you. Also, catch the singing boat tour guides for an opportunity to toss your cookies into the WI River....sappy ad nauseum.. Never, never go sober. Anyway, I must cast a vote for Key Largo as most over-rated tourist destination. There is essentially no public beach and the town has little to offer outside of John Pennekamp State Park. Keep driving right on through as quickly as you can...My worst hotel was a Motel 6 in San Jose where the bathroom walls were covered with suspicious looking and smelling yellow triangles extending to the floor on our bathroom wall. The toilet was running as we entered the room and when I removed the water closet, there was a condom floating in there...someone really knows how to party...one more thing on the Keys, familiarize yourself with the name "no-see-em's"...a tiny, almost invisible bug that will devestate you with his friends and leave you itching for days despite whatever lotion you try...Puerto Rico has a good supply of these tyrants, as well...

Sardinia, the worst holiday ever, we went expecting an italian version of Corsica, couldn't be more wrong, not half as picturesque or green. The Avis hire car had to be changed three times due to faults and worn tyres. What ambiance there was in any of the restaurants we visited was totally ruined by the majority of the other diners using or being called on their wretched mobile phones. The best part of the holiday was a ferry trip to Bonafacio on Corsica. We were glad to leave at the end of the holiday but even here things went wrong as we had to sit at Olbia airport for 5 hours waiting for our flight which was delayed.

L.A. in the summer.

We (wife, son and I) were told that a place called Neve Yam, on the Mediterranean coast south of Haifa in Israel was a nice beachfront resort, run by the local kibbutz people.

That apparently was the “before” story. The “after” story was that it had been converted a year or two prior to be a Romanian “guest worker” camp. Our first room had no locking doors, cold water only, and an air conditioner which made a noise like a freight train but emitted only warm, gray smoke. We protested and they moved us to another cottage on the beach, this one with hot water but also with a toilet and bath tub which had not been cleaned since Israeli independence, an air conditioner which had been used by someone as a urinal (really), dirty sheets on the beds, and (my personal favorite) – how shall I say – spent birth control measures under one of the beds. This was the only available accommodation in the region that night, so we obtained extra sheets from the office, rolled ourselves up in them and slept on the top of the blankets on the beds, while the cockroaches helped themselves to whatever they could find on the countertops. We put more sheets down on the tub bottom and showered (our own towels), and chose not to go onto the beach, which had evidently been converted into a broken beer bottle recycling center.

We skipped the Neve Yam resort restaurant (featuring a lone light bulb and soccer on a B&W TV) and instead drove into Haifa where we watched a movie in a mall and delayed returning to our charming room until we were too tired to care. In the morning we were gone, pronto.

For a swell American evening, we once spent a night in a HoJo next to the Sioux City stockyards (ummm…beefy) listening to the tornado alerts and watching a green sky get lower and lower and the wind get higher and higher…

John -- you win. Please remind me never to travel with you.

happy to say i've never had a "worst" vacation (knock on wood)...

noah-

i believe starwood took over manele bay in early 1999...i worked for the preferred guest department at starwood until august of 1999 and up to that point i had not received any complaints about that property and two of our (very difficult to please) platinum members raved about it. of course, because the property was new (for us), this

(oops)

...feedback was from a relatively small sample of members.

by the way all you wackos, i am in no way, shape or form a travel agent...i've never been to hawaii and i no longer work in any industry even remotely related to travel so don't even start with me.

No problem Jules - maybe you can fix a deal with Starwood that give us loyal Fodor Folk a 50% off ????