GoTravel

This thread could be fun or get ugly but let's try and keep it funny.

What is your most boneheaded travel mistake?

Husband and I were flying out of Charlotte on USAirways to Charleston after an exhausting week in NYC.

The called the flight, we gave the gate agent our passes, boarded the plane stowed our belongings and settled in.

Another couple came up and looked at us strangely. They said we were in their seats!

Well I got indignant and went to find the FA.

Turns out my husband and I boarded the USAirways flight from CLT to Nashville!

We got on the wrong flight!

Peeling the egg off my face, we slunk off the plane embarrassed. Talk about feeling stupid!

ncgrrl

I think that was a boneheaded move on the part of the AIRLINE. You probably showed your tickets to at least 2 employees and no one noticed you were headed to the wrong plane. Please tell me (reassure me) that this was before 9/11.

I prefer not to think back on all my boneheaded mistakes. I just hope not to make them again.

GoTravel

No it was after September 11th.

The airline was more concerned with my identification matching the name on my ticket than route.

Ryan

Suggesting that we invite my parents to join my wife and I in Paris for an eight day trip. My wife countered with her mother and her aunt.

I realized my mistake on day 2 when her Mom called our room at 7:00 a.m. asking if she needed an umbrella that day.

I REALLY regretted my decision when my Mom called shortly after we'd returned from our expensive, romantic dinner about what time we should meet for breakfast the next morning. Let's just say the mood in the room wasn't quite the same as it had been after an expensive dinner and walk along the Seine.

LoveItaly

Bonehead mistake? Well not mine but my husbands. I was always the "travel agent", made all the reservations, plans etc.
Flew SFO to Tampa. Visited family at McDill AFB. Last evening, waaaay to many cocktails, wine with dinner and after dinner drinks at their home.
Next morning, not feeling very well!
Arrived at airport at Tampa. Husband checked us in. The "helpful" airline attendant told my husband that we could get on an earlier flight. That worked for him.
We were flying from Tampa to SFO via change of planes in Texas (Dallas or somewhere, I don't remember).
Got on the rescheguled flight.
Problem, flight going EAST from Tampa versus WEST from Tampa.
After takeoff I jumped out of seat to tell the attendant that "we were going the wrong way". As if she could do anything about it". LOL.
Don't even remember where flight landed. Somewhere on the eastcoast of Florida.
Airline did give us a room until they could get us on a flight going WEST.
Finally ended up in SFO around 3:30 in the morning. Car rental places closed. No shuttle buses. Siiiigh. Sat in the terminal until about 6:00am.
Tired, headaches, hungry. A good time was not had by all. Could have flown from Europe in a shorter amount of time than it took us to get from Florida to SFO.
But it wasn't my "bonehead" mistake, as I reminded my DH constantly everytime he grumbled about the flight problems.
Think memories about problems with travel remain with us sometimes more than with everything goes smoothly.
And does give us a good laugh later.
But at the moment, hard to believe.

atilla

While in New York we were walking and walking what seemed like forever looking for the Empire State Building. That may sound strange but the closer you are to it, the harder it can be to find because of the other skyscrapers around it that obscure the view and we did not know exactly which street it was on.

We walked up to a very kind police officer and asked him if he could please direct us to the ESB. He looked at us somewhat amused and then chuckled and said "Walk to the end of this block and look up".

jacketwatch

Well usually my vacation selections are on the mark. Once however I goofed. I picked the Rosarito beach hotel and spa which is a bir south of San Diego. Well the beach looked good and as did the hotel brochures but.... Let's say it was not in keeping with the nice resorts we had become used too. The hotel, perhaps splendid in days gone by, was a bit run down. The area it self was a haven for WE biker gangs from So. Cal., the beach was so-so and overall it was a mistake. Oh well, live nad learn.

Ryan

Atilla,
I wouldn't worry to much about your question for the cop, I'm sure he's heard worse. I had a friend who was a cop in Times Square (pre-Guiliani cleanup) that had a guy come up to him saying that the guy standing across the street robbed money from him. When my friend asked about the details, he was informed that "I gave him the money to get me a girl and he never came back."

atilla

Oh thank you Ryan. That's a good one! Of course we felt very foolish nonetheless.

OneWanderingJew

GoTravel--
I too flew on the wrong flight!! I didn't think that kind of thing could happen too often.

It was pre 9/11 by probably 10+ years. My friend and I were flying from West Palm Beach, FL to Newark, NJ for the holidays. Weather in NY was lousy, causing delays. We were just out of college and still in our drinking days so we headed to the bar in the concourse and had a few, all the while checking on updates...Eventually, we saw the Newark flight was boarding so we staggered over to the gate, showed our tickets to the agent and boarded the plane. Like you, people were not happy to see us sitting in their seats. I didn't move thinking there was some foul up w/Delta. Nope, the foul up was with us. Turns out there were 2 flights going to Newark and the gates were across from each other. We got on the wrong one, and the wrong airline! By the time we realized what had happened, the doors to the aircraft were shut and they wouldn't allow us to deplane. We were also told that our flight had departed ages ago...oooh, I knew I was halfway to dead because my dad was not going to be happy w/me! We stressed the whole flight, not able to call home and tell someone what had happened.

When we got to Newark we were in the wrong terminal so we treked through snow to the right one. My father was standing there waiting for my flight to get in. As it turned out, our original flight hadn't landed and we arrived before our luggage!

Talk about a bonehead!
Debbie

jor

GoTravel,

Why do

you double

space every

sentance?

My most boneheaded Travel move was renting a "hotel" room in the middle of the tourist season in the lakes region of Minnesota for the same price as a luxury hotel room in the heart of Minneapolis. The motel room was a dump and we paid top price because it was near a lake. And we had to walk to the check-in office to ask for ice. The trains went by every 15 minutes. A total mistake.

ms_go

I'm pretty sure I've told this story here before, somewhere. There might have been a similar thread on the European board.

A few years ago, mr_go and I took a vacation to the Loire Valley. I booked our rental car through my corporate travel department, which in turn booked the car through Auto Europe. I was very busy at the time, so I didn't look closely enough at the "documentation" they provided me -- assuming that the necessary voucher and name of the rental agency was all there, as it should have been. I just threw it into my travel bag and pulled it out when we got to CDG. And guess what .... no rental agency or voucher included. We had no idea which rental agency was holding our reservations, and we ended up having to go counter to counter through CDG, stand in lines and try to communicate in broken French and hand gestures. Of course, our reservation was with EuropeCar, the last counter we visited. And because there was no voucher, they had to make a bunch of calls and have the voucher faxed. It wasted several hours of our time and was quite embarrassing. But all's well that ends well -- they did not have our requested Renault in stock, and we ended up with a Mercedes for the week. And after that, I always make my own reservations directly with the providers and always make sure I have full documentation.

seetheworld

Many years ago, when my boys were 2 and 5, we rented a condo in Ocean City, MD and I asked my MIL to come along. I did this thinking it would allow DH and I at least a night or two out on our own plus the boys adored her.

What we didn't anticipate was the youngest getting sick on the second day of our one week stay. He was not just a little sick but contagious sick with coxsackie virus. I made the horrible mistake of listening to DH who insisted grandma could handle junior while we went out for a quick bite to eat. WRONG! As we left he was pounding on the door and crying "no, no, no".

Well, that did it - after that, he wouldn't go anywhere near grandma and he stuck to me like glue for the balance of the vacation (no pool, ocean, sun or sleep for me) but grandma had a great time

PaulRabe

I try to avoid areas with major events occuring (unless, of course, I'm going to them!) in order to stay away from crowds. A couple of times I just plain didn't check. On a trip to Banff I got a room in Calgary on the opening of the Calgary Stampede. Since I was going to Banff instead of Calgary, I (amazingly) had no trouble simply going around the city and missing the crowds.

About a decade later I went to Telleride in order to see some nearby waterfalls. When I got to the town I was informed that the Bluegrass Festival was occuring; in this celebration the town's population goes from 500 to 10,000. When I explained to the admission person (yes, they charge just to drive into the town at that time) that I was just passing through the town to see the waterfalls, I must have seemed clueless enough to avoid the charge. I went to the falls, got some nice photos, and then left.

wtggirl

I have so many I don't know where to start. One is very similar to GoTravel. My husband, mother, grandmother and I were all going to San Diego to meet a cruise (could not afford to miss a flight). We were running very late due to our connection, so I decided to stay behind with grandma while my husband and Mom went to hold the plane. When we got to the gate everyone was boarded. I got to the gate and handed the agent our tickets and she said noone else could board. I was out of breath and frantic explaining that my Mom and husband were on the plane. She said 'sorry!'....then took our tickets and then said "you are going to San Diego, not San Francisco!" I grabbed the tickets and high tailed to down to the correct gate. POOR GRANDMA! There were my husband and Mom just as frantic wondering where the heck we had been, standing at the gate door. Would you believe we were the last to board only to be delayed because the pilot was delayed on his flight??

JJ5

This was in 1985. I was old enough to know better. There were about 11 of us on this extended family visit to Europe. It was 6 countries in 14 days and we were all over- Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Austria and then the two Germanys. I have relatives in Italy and in Germany.

My cousin and I wanted to have some fun near the end and were sick of the "old" people. The Berlin wall was still up and we were only in Berlin for two days and got into the city after a long day of inspections etc. In late afternoon, we dropped off our luggage at the hotel and headed out to the mall (Ku-dam?) GREAT PLACE! Underground cafes / disco / bars/ shop/ and very, very young crowd. American Berlin was a college town and 3 big companies. There was almost no one over 40- too difficult to live there under other than student circumstances- very few families were there yet. All buildings etc. were brand new and very modern. We were in our thirties and almost everyone was a lot younger than we were. Ready to go back to the hotel (pretty late and did we have a good time) and we realize that we DON'T KNOW THE NAME OF THE PLACE where our relatives had checked in for us. We get in the cab. Carol really was starting to panic. We had almost no German. Taxi driver was Turkish (many are not German)- and all I could remember is that it was white and the WALL was on the right side of it. The man actually found it for me by description only and understanding about half of my English. He got the biggest tip- and in the kind of money he wanted.

We actually went between the subway gate dividers trying to use the DDR's phones. We missed our kids and wanted to call them. (And we succeeded.) But we took some boneheaded chances that night out of "pique" or something. The ironic thing is that she is the most conservative person and I would never have believed that any of this would ever happen to level-headed us. Since then I always remember to put some paper /reservation name etc.(matches have worked in Europe too)into my purse, so that I have an idea of the address. But it was NOT a good time or place to be that impulsive. I'll never forget the look on her face when we were driving in loops by different borders of the Wall.

bardo1

Very boneheaded. I had decided to change into more comfortable pants at the last second and I left my wallet at home. I was taking a domestic flight to accompany my son on a prospective college visit. Realized the problem during check-in. Amazingly, I was issued boarding pass (my 17 yr old, of course, HAD his wallet). The next problem occured when it was time to rent a car. They WOULD NOT give us a car of course. After hours of trying to get a hold of DW, she was finally able to fax my drivers license and credit card info from a kinkos (it was 10:30 pm by now). It was also fortunate that my son had recently gotten a part-time job and had opened a checking account w/ ATM). He was (barely) able to cover the other costs for that trip. I'm still embarrassed by this whole thing.

beachdreams

I have had one bonehead travel moment (so far) and one big mistake due to lack of personal knowledge on my part.

The bonehead moment - Hubby and I were on a week long cruise. It was his first ever and he was very excited. Let me back track a bit and tell you that normally DH and I are not pack rats. In fact we are the complete opposite because we hate clutter. OKay now back to the story.

Every day they offered a "drink of the day" in a different colored ship glass that you could keep. Hubby was determined to try each one. However, he was not limiting himself to just trying them, he wanted/insisted on keeping each cup as well. Now everyone knows those rooms are not huge so tons of extra room for these cups, we just did not have. I pleaded to toss them but he would not hear of it so I washed each one and put them away.

Every day we also received an intinerary and whatever else information they thought we would need that day. Well for some reason one particular day, we received numerous pages throughout the day. I came back into our room after shopping on an island and decided I needed to straighten up the place. I ended up doing such a good job that I threw away DH's passport and plane ticket home while managing to keep mine in the safe. I am not really sure how I managed to do this. I do remember going into the safe and putting some stuff in there but I do not remember tossing his stuff.

Luckily enough, DH was looking for the next day's itinerary and began riffling through the trash and found it. He is still convinced I was trying to leave without him over a few cups. I still hear about that to this day and this was about 6 years ago. I did feel horrible about it but he says I only feel horrible because I got caught. Then he points out that I managed to keep my stuff and all of our paperwork was together. He does have a valid point.

However, I do want to point out that after all that griping about keeping the cups, he tossed every single one of them the day we left the cruise. I seriously considered tossing him over the edge of the boat for that.

beachdreams

I forgot to post my other bad traveling moment. When we got to Charleston, we usually stay downtown and then drive to the beach during the day. Well one week we decided to switch things up and rent a house on the beach. We looked for one that would allow dogs because we wanted to take our two whippets with us. We found a company that rents on Folly Beach that allows pets.

We told them how many bedrooms we needed and all of our requirements and they told us they had the perfect house and described it. Before I would agree to rent it, I wanted to see pictures especially since I was aware that Fiolly Beach had some not so nice houses for rent and I did not want to end up in one.

They sent us a ton of pictures of this cute grey house with a screened in porch and a washer and dryer. They sent both inside and outside pictures. We agreed to rent it. The day we arrive we are following directions to the house. All of the sudden we pass this dilapidated mint green house and hubby gets this funny look on his face. I asked him what was wrong and he backed up and looked at the house number and let out a few expletives.

This was the house they were renting to us. Now mind you not only was it a different color, it was a completely different shape (1 story versus 2 etc). Not only that but the screened in porch had the screens flying in the wind because only the top portions remained attached. The washer and dryer were under the house with animal waste (at least I hope it was animal waste) on top of it. The beds were dirty and the couch, which was not the brown leather couch they sent us but a floral mess, had huge gaping holes in it. The refrigerator was lop sided and rusted through and through. It made the place John candy rented in "Summer Rental" look like a palace. There was no way in heck we were staying here.

He tries to find a phone to call them because we forgot to charge our cell and while we did manage to find 6 phones, none of them had cords to connect into the wall. We had to drive back to the rental agency and after getting a tad loud and showing pictures of what they claimed to be renting to us, we finally got our money back.

Thank goodness for the Indigo Inn which is a B&B owned by the same people that own The Jasmine House and Meeting Street Inn, because they allow pets at this one and they made room for us and our two dogs for the week.

We now laugh about that house and even went past it this past July but boy were we hot then.

GoTravel

These are funny!

jor, I double space so often because more than a couple lines of type make it hard for me to read. I figured it is easier to read.