Worst Vacation Ever

Vacations are intended to be relaxing. They're intended to be a time where a person goes and does what they want and has a great time, coming back relaxed and energized. Often that doesn't happen. I was just in Steamboat Springs and while I had a great time fishing I found myself exhausted by my family. My sister was only speaking in baby talk to my niece and was talking in baby talk while watching TV, drove me nuts. My mom is a headcase so there was that stress. My twin brother is having a bone marrow biospy soon, so he was understandably depressed and anxious, but his mood brought mine down.

This wasn't the worst vacation ever, I had a great time fishing, loved seeing my dad, our dog Chico lost some weight learned how to use stairs and was seriously happy the whole time. Steamboat is a great town.

Focus: Whats your vacation horror stories?
Alt-Focus: Vacations with the whole family? Yes, no? Is it better just to go with a few people you like or try to include everyone?
Unfocus: Best family vacation ever.

 

My junior year of college we went to FL for Spring Break. I had a summer bday so myself and a few of my friends were still 20. But we were going to a friend's family's condo near Destin, so we figured we would be good to go. We didn't map it out, just took our friend's word for it.

Should have known we were doomed when there was an argument at the end of the drive cause we switched drivers at a gas station 2 hours out and one friend accused the driver of, and I SWEAR, wanting to steal the glory for himself. We arrive to find ourselves in Santa Rosa Beach. Beautiful area, but upscale and a good 30 min from Destin and 45 min from Panama City Beach, so basically the middle of nowhere for a bunch of dudes trying to drink and get rowdy. Felt like hanging out in Naples but more isolated

The one night we go to Destin, we roll a carful of guys out and try to go to a bar only to be summarily turned away as multiple fakes were super obvious and we had no girls to mitigate anything. We spent most of the week just drinking in the condo in an upscale complex and praying we'd run into other people.

We went to Panama City Beach one night and went to infamous Club La Vela, where they used to film a lot of the MTV Spring Break stuff. They put HUGE black Xs on your hands if you were under, but that was fine we were just happy to be out, but it would come into play later. So we're drinking, dancing, having easily the best night of the trip when at about 1130, the aforementioned asshole, who brought us to said condo and who accused someone of taking the driving arrival glory, gave a drink to his 19 year old GF who had met up with us that night. She had not washed anything off, so her hand was clearly marked. She was immediately spotted and caught and I'm pretty sure was going to be let off with a warning. But asshole FREAKED out, got chest to chest with the bouncer, and got them both kicked out. AND he had the keys to the car and threatened to drive home in anger...so we all had to fucking leave. BEFORE MIDNIGHT. At a club that was open till 4. Fucking miserable.

Oh, and I had a sinus infection that the idiot doctor at Campus Health had misdiagnosed as bronchitis. So I felt fine drinking, but every hangover was 3X as bad. And another of my friends got the flu so bad he was in bed 80% of the trip. Fuck Santa Rosa Beach

 

I don't have fond memories of Lake George. We went there once, when the Missanthropic was a year and a half and a difficult kid. A couple of weeks before we left on vacation, my wife's best friend died suddenly. The day we arrived at Lake George it was about 95 degrees out. Then it started to rain. And rain. And rain.

It rained so hard and so long that the level of the lake rose up and over the docks.
It rained so hard and so long that a mudslide blocked the NY State Thruway.
It rained so hard and so long that a flash flood washed away a couple of houses the next town over. At least two people died.

So we took a not quite 2 year old bowling. And to the mall. Luckily the cabin was pretty nice. Man that vacation sucked.

Alt focus: If by whole family you mean me, my wife and my daughter, then yes. Cousins, Aunts, Uncles, In-laws, mothers etc.? Fuck no. They are part of the reason I need a vacation. In any group activity, things get exponentially more difficult for each person you add. And I've heard way too many horror stories form others.

Unfocus: Our recent trip to London was pretty awesome.

 

Didn't you get laid off sometime ago? Thats like a vacation.

 

Knock on wood, but I've been pretty lucky in terms of vacation.

A bummer of a trip was our last family vacation to Hawaii. My brother spent the entire trip in the hotel room...talking on the phone to his girlfriend. Quote of the trip: "Where's Bro?" "He's inside talking to Whoreface." So, the entire trip consisted of me being the third wheel with my parents. He basically spent an entire week in a hotel room, coming out to eat dinner. Every activity my parents and I did was with a bunch of honeymooners and a few families. Slightly awkward but whatever. It was frustrating to watch him basically waste a trip that my parents paid for hoping that we could have a nice trip together as a family.

The cherry on top was my brother ruining our last dinner...my Pops made a point of making reservations somewhere swanky since it was our last one before going home. Bro proceeded to get absolutely shit-face and break the news that he was planning on proposing to his gf. Nobody cared about the proposal...it was just really upsetting for my parents to see him embarrassingly drunk...and everyone wondered why he felt the need to get so wasted to tell us. My mom spent the rest of the night in tears, and I spent the rest of the night telling her lie after lie to comfort her. The flight home was spent babysitting Bro because he was obnoxious, wasted and bothering the lady in front of us. Luckily our parents were in a different part of the plane and didn't witness it. I had visions of him being kicked off the plane. Never again.

Alt-Focus: Nope. See above.

 

I was about 16 when my grandparents bought our family a Disney World vacation. My brother was about 10 at the time, so I guess it was really for him.

I got sick as hell after day one. My Dad thought I was faking it because I didn't want to hang out with them. No, I was really sick and didn't want to hang out with them. Now, I love my parents and I was generally well provided for, but this time they didn't seem to care that I had a high fever and puking and too weak and achy to get out of bed. There was no trip to the ER for me, no antibiotics, no medical opinion sought about my illness. Just left me in the hotel room and went to Disney World.

And the flight back was bumpy. Gave me my fear of flying that I still have today.

 

Focus: Worst vacation horror story would be getting food poisoning from a street food stall in Hong Kong on my first night. I've usually got a pretty strong stomach and always hit up street food in Asian destinations as its cheap and usually excellent and never had a problem. Spent 3 days out of 5 in HK with both ends exploding. I cannot eat (or even smell) sweet and sour pork to this day without feeling violently ill.

Alt-Focus: Ive taken a few vacations with The Wife's two sisters and brother-in-law and they've always been great, we all get along really well and when the girls want to do something boring (like shopping) me and the BIL go to the pub and/or find something massive and greasy to pig out on or find an activity the girls wouldn't be interested in (motorbikes, firing ranges, gambling, climbing tall things etc).

Also taken a couple of family holidays with my side of the family (my mother and her brothers and their kids), my uncles and their kids all live in the UK and my mum lives in Japan so i think the fact we don't see them all very often helps a lot... I'm sure the novelty would soon wear off if we all lived in the same city (or even country).

I would top myself before i went on vacation with her parents though. Just no.

Unfocus: Vietnam and Cambodia with the Wife's sisters and the BIL. Hands down best holiday i've had where it wasn't just me and The Wife

 

I may have posted about this before but here goes anyway. Years back me and my parents were supposed to go on a long weekend to montauk.

We had the hotel room booked weeks in advance and everything planned out. It was supposed to only take about 3 hours to get there. We hit horrid traffic and it takes nearly double the amount of time. When we get to the hotel they tell us that our room is no longer avaliable because we got there too late, but we will still be charged for it unless we take a different smaller room and pay an additional fee.

My dad is having none of this and starts arguing with them that it's complete bullshit and that we are either getting the room we paid for or we are getting our money back. The hotel refuses claiming they already filled the room and no other similar rooms are avaliable and that we are being charged the full price for the room regardless.

My Dad basically told them to fuck themselves and we left and started the drive home. As soon as we got in the car my Dad was on his cell with American express disputing the charges and cursing up a storm.

 

Microburst on a sailboat in the gulf. I was 10. It was my birthday, I grew up on sailboats so that's what I wanted to do. We went out, spent the night on the boat just relaxing. It was perfect. Next day, storms came out of nowhere, then the weather dropped like 30 degrees in what felt like 10 minutes. The boat was 42 ft but we could barely see our hand in front of our faces. Parents were scrambling just to get everything tied down and the charts right because the channel back through the jetties and into harbor was really narrow. Not a lot of margin for error. Nothing like being 10 and getting asked to take the helm by your father who you've never seen nervous before, never mind panicking. They had too many things to do and my entire job was to steer the boat according to the compass.

Coast guard was on its way but could get to us fast enough. Fire engines and meds at the dock, unfortunately so was the local newspaper. One and only time I ever made the paper, front page. They got all the details wrong and made it more dramatic than it was I'm sure to sell copies, but whatever.

Scared me to death but at least we made it back in one piece. You don't learn to sail in calm waters. That was the day I felt like I became a man. Still, worst vacation ever.

 

Focus: The time my parents packed up the van and drove us out to the Rocky Mountains from Minnesota, and I got sick and puked continuously on the way home. I remember it was bright pink from all the pepto-bismol my mom kept trying for me to hold down. Must have been fun for my siblings.

 

I once went to Poland. I didn't like it, it was full of foreigners.

They did do a lovely sausage though.

I didn't think their use of lard instead of butter on bread was very sensible though.

I came home after 4 days with a litre of Vodka and a new wife. She now cooks some fantastic sausages in my multiple kitchens.

 

Focus: I had a spring break trip in college that was off the charts lame. Most of my friends weren't doing anything of note, and going clubbing in Minneapolis didn't sound like a satisfactory spring break to me. I ended up going to Florida to do the traditional spring break drunkathon with the only two people I could find not dead broke and willing to make the trip.

These were the two most boring motherfuckers I have ever taken a trip with. I was not super close with either of them beforehand, but they seemed like they would be willing to have a good time. I was wrong. We arrive in St Augustine and they don't want to do anything because they're burned out from the drive. Fine. Next day we go to Orlando. We hit a couple amusements parks, and by we I mean only myself and one of the guys that came. The other doesn't feel like it and sits in the hotel room all day one day and goes shopping the other day. What the fuck? Then at night they don't want to hit the bars because they're so burned out from the 'big day'.

So we get to Daytona. It's spring break in Daytona, finally these fuckers are ready to have some fun, right? Wrong. When we get to the hotel they both pop out their lap tops (no beach, no bars, let's get on our computers!) and spend the next two hours whining that's it's raining and going to rain more tomorrow. I explain that it's Florida, it rains on and off practically every day. After their incessant bitching I finally agreed we would cancel the hotel stay the rest of the week if these worthless dip shits would hit the bars with me at least one night. They agree, but we only go out for about an hour. One doesn't drink at all, the other nurses one beer the entire time while I down a couple pitchers. The guy not drinking keeps making gay jokes. That can be kind of funny for a little while. Then it starts to get lame. Then stupid. Then downright awkward.

So we get back to St Augustine, and they want to go back to Minnesota because 'we've done so much already'. This is only Wednesday by the way. At this point I was so annoyed I just said fuck it, and decided to salvage what I could from my Spring break when I got back home. Fortunately my other college spring breaks pretty much kicked ass, but what a waste that one was.

Then there was my first trip to Vietnam, but I'll save that for another time.

Alt-Focus: When I was a teenager I had mixed feelings about family vacations. We usually went somewhere awesome and did tons of cool shit, but I only wanted to hang out with my friends. As an adult I tend to enjoy them now. Most of my family is pretty cool and we usually have an awesome time together. My sisters are younger than me, and just getting their careers going after finishing college. As a result they're very wrapped up in their own lives and we don't talk much except when I see them on these vacations. My uncle does business with a few senators and knows a shitload of insider politics so that always makes for interesting conversation. Overall, my family is very outgoing and is full of drunks, but not alcoholic embarrassing drunks so we manage to have fun.

 

For the most part I have enjoyed all of the vacations I have gone on. One notable exception was when the husband and I went to the Outer Banks and it started to pour down rain the moment we got there. Fortunately it was just supposed to be a weekend trip, so not a big investment of time or money. There was another trip that ended up being more expensive because we overslept and missed our flights both going there and coming back. I never booked an early morning flight ever again.

Speaking of lessons learned from prior vacations, I am trying to reduce my stress in terms of planning trips by letting go of urges like wanting to cram as much stuff to see as possible. The kid and I went to Atlanta last month to see some sights and visit an old friend. I planned three things the whole trip - Coca-Cola, CNN, and Hunger Games filming location (the kid is into HG and so is my friend). We ended up doing other things as well because my friend had some ideas up his sleeve and I even got to have lunch with another friend that I didn't expect to, all because I didn't schedule our trip down to the last second. It was a very pleasant experience.