kayla

What was the absolute worst vacation you've ever taken? I think it would be entertaining and useful to hear about the trips that went bad--these can often be the most helpful lessons in what to avoid when planning your next vacation!

beachbum

A cruise with all my husband's family. The ship was big, but not big enough.

bettina

The year we went to Hawaii for our 'dream vacation' and a hurricane-type storm came very close to Oahu. We had six days and nights of rain, thunder,unbelievable winds and cold temperatures (50's & 60's are cold for Hawaii) The sun came out the day we came home.

xxx

Taking a cruise with a co-worker I thought I knew and her being removed from the ship at our first port for what might have been alcohol poisoning. Ship didn't want the liability so she was removed after refusing medical treatment. Finished the cruise by myself but it was nice!

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anna

1961 or 62 I think. Parents loaded 7 kids ages infant to 10 into a VW microbus and headed for NOLA from Chicago via TN and MS. The campground in MS turned out to be a dump and when we arrived at Fontainbleu State Park in Louisiana we thought it was beautiful til we got out of the bus and the mosquitoes attacked. It was apparently the world record year for mosquitoes in LA (I still occasionally see the archival footage of Mike Wallace reporting the story while constantly swatting at them on news retrospectives). We couldn't find anyone to pay for the one night we spent there and the folks had had enough so we headed into town to find a motel to escape the bugs. On the way over the 26-mile-long Lake Ponchartrain Causeway (which was only one lane in each direction back then) the engine block in the bus cracked, limiting our speed to anout 15 MPH and we had cars backed up behind us all the way into Mississippi before we got off the bridge. Mom and Dad had to have Grandpa wire them $500 to get the car fixed. On the plus side, we ended up at the motel where the parents had spent their honeymoon and the owner remembered them and gave them a break on the rate, we crammed 9 people into two rooms, there was a VW repair shop right up the street, and we spent the rest of the vacation swimming in the hotel pool where the mosquitoes couldn't get us. We kids actually have fond memories of the whole trip, but I'm sure it was a nightmare for the parents.

Tambi

Had to copy and paste mine into this post too!...

My husband and I flew to Padre Island for a 5-day vacation a few years back. As we walked to the rental car the sideway dipped and I twisted my ankle... Ankle was swollen & I limped for 3 days. I had requested an ocean view room but we arrived to a regular room. So they switched us after much ado... only to find the A/C didn't work in this room (and we were kept up all that night because the exit door kept slamming!) So we figure we'll go out to a nice dinner, so I'm ironing my shirt... and drop the iron on top of my wrist/hand. MAJOR burn.

Next day, spend a day on the beach (looking like a major tourist with my wrist/hand wrapped in gauze and have to hold it above the water of course). Husband refuses to put sunscreen on... By that night he is FRIED and can barely move. So now the beach isn't appealing to either of us due to the iron burn & sunburn situation!

So we decide we'll head into Mexico for the day... we eat at a restaurant and I get a bottled coke, not thinking about the ICE CUBES (*and* I have IBS as it is!). Finally arrive home (Tennessee) only to realize I have Montezuma's Revenge something awful, and I miss 3 days of work!

It was the worst vacation ever.

Dee

Here is my worst vacation.........

We rented a vacation house, oceanfront in Nags Head, NC a few years ago with another couple. Rented the house in January for a July vacation. In March a terrible storm blew into Nags Head, knocking our rental house into the ocean. The only rental house left for the time period we were going, was termed "rustic" in the catalog.

We arrive to our rustic vacation house. My husband and I and three kids, our friends and two kids, plus two teenage babysitters.

Rustic does not begin to describe this place!!! Gross, icky, no ac, grass growing through the floor boards and the folks who live year round in the house right behind our rental are in some kind of domestic world war three.

If that is not all bad enough, it is hot and sticky and than the rains come!!! We arrived on Saturday, the rains started on Sunday and it rained all week. We are stuck in a hot, humid, gross house with 4 adults, 5 little kids and two teenagers with raging hormones. We had a male babysitter, they had a female babysitter, hey, their the only folks that had a good time.

And to top all this off, our friends didn't bring enough money for food, we had to supply the whole weeks worth of food. Nor did they bring diapers for their two kids, we had to buy them diapers.

The day we left to come home, the following Saturday the sun was shining as bright as can be.

Laredoll

In July 1990 my bridegroom of one year convinced me how wonderful it would be to invite his relatives down from OH & CO to take them on an RV trip of Texas for a week. We rented a 35foot motorhome and packed in his non-stop chainsmoking mom, his brother and his brother's wife and their 3 teenage sons, plus our dog and their puppy and the two of us. On the first night our dog barfed into one of the boy's sneakers and I should have known this was a sign from up above as to the stupidity of the entire idea. Needless to say it was the vacation from HELL and the longest torment of my life, but happily our marriage survived and we can laugh about it now! Never again.