Bad Vacations

[Moemg]

After getting some bad feedback on my Costa Rica choice for vacation I had to wonder What was your worst vacation ? I'm pretty layback and enjoy most places but Cancun was the worst .Too touristy ,too fake and dangerous rip tides .

 

[Sandy]

I actually hated the Florida Keys, especially Key West for the same reasons you hated Cancun. Touristy, too much city, and not enough of the natural community remaining. Farther up the keys, even Penecamp, the state park for snokeling on coral reefs, was disappointing. Between polution and too many people kicking the fragile coral in the shallow water, the reefs are dying and they are not easily replaced.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

You know what? Cancun was GREAT when I went there in the early and mid 80's. Really nice. So was cozumel up until about 8-10 years ago. The first time I went to cancun it consisted of about 10-12 hotels, one little restaurant, and the town of cancun proper was a sleepy little fishing village with a couple of small homey restaurants and no real touristy-ness to it at all.

It was horrifyingly different the last time I went there, around the mid 90's. Highrise buildings, shopping malls, everything built up to 5-10 stories. The whole area was jam packed with people trying to sell you stuff. Just the pits.

The only bad vacation I ever had was actually a good vacation screwed up at the end by Club Med and their little charter airline. On our last day they let us know that we had to be out of our rooms by 12 noon, but the shuttle bus wouldnt come to take us to the airport until 2am. Yes, 2am. Fortunately they stored our bags, but it was somewhat interesting to figure out what clothes to keep, what to wear, other stuff we were going to need and what we were going to do with ourselves for 14 hours sitting out in the compound.

Then the bus was late. Then the plane took off late. Even though it was only a few hours flight it was about 10 in the following morning before we landed.

Just ruined the whole 2 weeks. But they saved a couple of bucks on the travel, i'm sure. Never vacationed with them again after that.

 

[FinanceDude]

Worst vacation? I went to the Florida Keys with my girlfriend in 1987. She met up with a few old friends, and we went to a tiki bar and had a few cold ones.

At about midnight, her OLD BOYFRIEND showed up, and they started talking. By the time I knew what was going on (a little drunk), they were nowhere to be found. And SHE drove, so I had no ride. This was before cell phones, so I had no way to call her.............

About 4am, she comes stumbling in the hotel room where we were staying, telling me we're breaking up, and she was staying in town a few days, and I was on my own.............

So I had to RENT a car to drive home.............

Can you beat that??

 

[Moemg]

CFB ,
If I remember correctly the only thing you did not want to pack on a Club Med vacation was your beads .

 

[Moemg]

Finance Dude ,
You may be the winner of the worst vacation contest .

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

CFB ,
If I remember correctly the only thing you did not want to pack on a Club Med vacation was your beads .

Damn straight.

Only problem was, it was 100 during the day and 50 degrees at night, plus beach clothes arent that comfortable on a plane, plus we didnt want to have a bunch of drinks and then have to deal with the airport and customs...it was just a weird setup. We ended up having to shuffle through all our bags, make up a carry on bag and I had to haul that around with us all day, changing clothes in the bathroom stalls, etc.

But FD's story makes that sound pretty wimpy. Sounds like some folks needed to be invited to go hunting with the vice president.

 

[Moemg]

Sandy,
To enjoy Key West You need to stay at a flukey B&B .We stayed at the Chelsa House .What a fun place ! There was supposed to be a happy hour from 4 to 5 but they would start it whenever they felt like and end it hours later .Plus having been to Key west before I knew it was lacking in the beach department .

 

[Bigritchie]

Worst vacation? I went to the Florida Keys with my girlfriend in 1987. She met up with a few old friends, and we went to a tiki bar and had a few cold ones.

At about midnight, her OLD BOYFRIEND showed up, and they started talking. By the time I knew what was going on (a little drunk), they were nowhere to be found. And SHE drove, so I had no ride. This was before cell phones, so I had no way to call her.............

About 4am, she comes stumbling in the hotel room where we were staying, telling me we're breaking up, and she was staying in town a few days, and I was on my own.............

So I had to RENT a car to drive home.............

Can you beat that??

Ouch, well at least that didn't happen after you got married.

 

[Brat]

The worst vacation experience was when DH and I flew into Salt Lake with the kids (who were in grade school) over the holidays, headed for Park City. We had reserved a car with a ski rack with Alamo. When we arrived at the desk they said we could only get a ski rack if we upgraded our reservation BIG TIME.

I was SO angry I resolved to never, never do business with them again. That was over 20 years ago and have never wavered. When traveling on business I have stopped anyone else in my party from booking with them, even prevailed with a Fortune 500 company to cross them off the list for their business travelers.

There is no more angry customer than a Mom traveling with kids and we have long memories. Their attempt to extract a $100 from me cost them many many thousands.

 

[Nords]

I had to wonder What was your worst vacation ?

Worst ever: Subic Bay, RP, 8-16 June 1991. Our liberty call was possibly the Navy's last chance before the status of forces agreement expired, so we persuaded the bosses that we wanted to trade our scheduled Singapore portcall for Olongapo. Unfortunately the diplomatic maneuvering was overshadowed by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo and the impact of typhoon Yunya.

I still haven't been to Singapore.

Second worst: Ixtapa, Mexico in June 1987. It was our delayed honeymoon and we'd just bought our condo so we newlyweds had no extra cash for vacation upgrades. The air connections sucked, the beach was clogged with intrusive vendors, and Montezuma wreaked his vengeance upon me.

 

[ladelfina]

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/365368-post63.html

 

[CyclingInvestor]

We had reserved a car with a ski rack with Alamo. When we arrived at the desk they said we could only get a ski rack if we upgraded our reservation BIG TIME.

I was SO angry I resolved to never, never do business with them again. That was over 20 years ago and have never wavered.

Reminds me of an incident many years ago. I was on a bike touring / driving vacation
with a friend in Washington / Oregon. One day I rode 80 miles up H30 and down I84
thru the Columbia Gorge while my friend drove off somewhere. We met up and she
parked the car in the motel lot while I went in to get a room. I was dirty, hot and
sweaty after the ride, and was informed that the motel had no rooms left. I suspected
by their turned up noses that this might not be the case, so I went out and my friend
walked in. For her, they had a room. I bitched them out as I checked out, and have
not stayed at a Quality Inn since.

 

[dumpster56]

You know what? Cancun was GREAT when I went there in the early and mid 80's. Really nice. So was cozumel up until about 8-10 years ago. The first time I went to cancun it consisted of about 10-12 hotels, one little restaurant, and the town of cancun proper was a sleepy little fishing village with a couple of small homey restaurants and no real touristy-ness to it at all.

It was horrifyingly different the last time I went there, around the mid 90's. Highrise buildings, shopping malls, everything built up to 5-10 stories. The whole area was jam packed with people trying to sell you stuff. Just the pits.

The only bad vacation I ever had was actually a good vacation screwed up at the end by Club Med and their little charter airline. On our last day they let us know that we had to be out of our rooms by 12 noon, but the shuttle bus wouldnt come to take us to the airport until 2am. Yes, 2am. Fortunately they stored our bags, but it was somewhat interesting to figure out what clothes to keep, what to wear, other stuff we were going to need and what we were going to do with ourselves for 14 hours sitting out in the compound.

Then the bus was late. Then the plane took off late. Even though it was only a few hours flight it was about 10 in the following morning before we landed.

Just ruined the whole 2 weeks. But they saved a couple of bucks on the travel, i'm sure. Never vacationed with them again after that.

Cancun in 1976 was fantastic!

 

[Moemg]

Ladelfina,
That was really funny ! I can remember smoking pot in the 80's and BF and I go to see "Young Doctors in Love " we sat in the front row with barrels of popcorn and laughed our as---- off .I need to rent it sometime and see if it is at all funny .

 

[RunningBum]

Tahoe ski trip, sometime in the late 80s, with former wife, BIL, and a college buddy. A few years earlier I had one of my best ski trips there with a different college buddy so I had high expectations.

Bad weather made travel day an all-day ordeal. College buddy met us with the car but he had brake problems so we were without a car for a few days (though slopes were in easy walking distance).

Rain and fog made skiing terrible many days. Broken binding cost me a day. BIL adds to the fun by "dusting" anyone who falls (making a skid stop right above them, spraying snow). Funny once, got real old real quick.

Wife wanted to check out a timeshare deal and we spent too much time debating whether it was a good deal. The ex- and I were never very good about making financial decisions together.

Casino night was spent watching my money disappear on craps sequences like 6-9-7, 4-8-9-7, etc., and I would've had some monster blackjack wins had the game been called 23.

College buddy tells me he thinks BIL took some money out of his wallet, most likely to buy drugs since college buddy could smell smoke from some substance that had been burning in the bathroom, and it wasn't pot. He doesn't want to pursue it but after we get home wife asks why we were so hostile towards her brother and I tell her. She takes his side. So even getting home didn't stop the fun of that vacation.

 

[Outtahere]

Dh (BF at the time) was acting funny, didn't think too much about it. He'd bought a ratty ole RV, we threw the bike in the trailer and we were off to Sturgis, SD for the bike rally. RV is chugging along, we make it there and have a strange (dh still acting weird) but good time. Time to leave, we get about 200 miles east of Sturgis, stop for gas and something to eat, RV won't start. Dh checks the oil, it's almost empty so he fills it up, we have lunch and pray it starts. An hour later it's cooled enough and starts reluctantly, we never shut it off again until we reached Massachusetts. Took turns driving, stopped every couple of hundred miles to pour in 4 or 5 qts of oil and a can of Mystery Oil. The thing was leaking oil so bad it was leaking into the cab of the RV, the white trailer we were towing was now black. We get almost home but have to climb that one last mountain before we hit the MA Turnpike, the poor RV was at about 5mph when we hit the top, dh was thinking about taking out the bike and towing the freaking thing up the hill.

All through this dh is still acting strange but I figure he's just irritated and worried about getting home. So we make it to the top of the mountain and now we're home free, the RV gives a big sigh of relief and we head down the other side, we're about an hour from home.

Pull into the yard, RV and trailer are covered with oil, we're both exhausted from the stress of the ride. Two days later dh tells me he's leaving (he was bf at the time) and that he took me to Sturgis cuz he had promised me he would. Gee thanks for the F#$*ing good time A-hole. We stayed split up for about 3 months, he figured I'd hang around until he figured out what he wanted to do....WRONG... he saw me with another guy and that pretty much made up his mind for him We still don't talk about that vacation and that was 18 years ago.

Oh the RV motor had 2 missing cylinders on one side and a half missing on the other, I don't know how we made it home.

 

[FinallyRetired]

About 4am, she comes stumbling in the hotel room where we were staying, telling me we're breaking up, and she was staying in town a few days, and I was on my own.............

Other than that, how was your hotel room?

 

[W2R]

Bad vacation? Isn't that an oxymoron?

 

[TargaDave]

After getting some bad feedback on my Costa Rica choice for vacation I had to wonder What was your worst vacation ? I'm pretty layback and enjoy most places but Cancun was the worst .Too touristy ,too fake and dangerous rip tides .

I actually hated the Florida Keys, especially Key West for the same reasons you hated Cancun. Touristy, too much city, and not enough of the natural community remaining. Farther up the keys, even Penecamp, the state park for snokeling on coral reefs, was disappointing. Between polution and too many people kicking the fragile coral in the shallow water, the reefs are dying and they are not easily replaced.

Loved both places but we stay away from the international tourist spots. Never did care for the big hotels with planned tours

Cancun => , We stayed in Playa Del Carmen and old Cancun (Playa is more Burboun Street touristy but more my style than the high rise strip). Went to Isla Blanca for "no one within miles sailing", and Tulum for some very senic ruins. Cozumel and Playa were OK for diving. Next trip we'd like to head up to Isla Holbox for a few days. Definitely off the beaten path. We use a rental car, no tour buses. Just wing it each day. DD is already bugging me to go back.

We bring the boat to an RV campground in the lower Keys over Christmas. Fish 7-mile and Biahonda bridges, explore-snorkel any number of Gulf side reefs-islands. Same "no one within miles sailing" theme. Hang out with other campers, eat a lot of snapper. One day-evening in Key West to play on the water, then bar hop and listen to music. Seems to work great.

 

[DRiP Guy]

I was in the military stationed in Virginia. I had a wonderful girlfriend who lived two hours away with her family, and me being totally broke, it was difficult to go out to dinner/movies regularly on weekends I could go see her, much less 'vacation'.

But there was a river somewhere near her area, where lots of folks tubed, rafted and kayaked, so a plan was made that we would try it out. Neither of us had any experience at this, but it seemed pretty easy to me.

Since I had no equipment or experience, I went to the base MWR (Morale Welfare and Recreation) and I rented the only thing they had -- a huge aluminum canoe -- and bungeed it to my old beat up primered hot rod, and drove out to see her. We got a picnic basket, cooler, the two of us, the floatation devices, oars, and other gear, and treked to the put-in point, and off we went.

In the deep pool area, we kind of got our bearings, and things (as I recall) were not too bad at first, except for the oppressive mid-summer still heat, bugs, humidity, screeching youngsters in plastic boats making fun of us, etc. I was not smart enough to realize that we were the only ones out there in what is really a heavy, low, canoe fitted for a small lake, rather than a ride down shallow rapids.

As we paddled down through the still deep part, the current picked up, the river narrowed and got shallower, and the bottom started dragging. We tried to shift our weight and gear to make it better, but it quickly became frustrating, and what fun we might have hoped to experience quickly evaporated. I was self-conscious of my noob status, but determined to forge on. Eventually, it became clear we had completely the wrong gear to be where we were, and kids zipped by us on plastic floats, making comments and clearly seeing us as a goofy obstruction, and experienced kayakers would come by to "help" by telling us we should pull out as it was going to get worse not better. One young studly dude stayed around to help, even as I had to jump out of the boat and wade/push/grind it over the rocks with my embarrassed GF sitting there, obviously having me diminish in her eyes as a outdoorsman. In the impertinence of youth, and male pride, I snapped at the guy trying to help, and of course, that made it even worse still. So now I'm soggy, ego-bruised, stuck in the middle of a rocky ford with a too-heavy load and peeved GF, mosquitoes eating me up, no clear plan on what to do (try to go back upstream against current? No way that can work! Continue? Ha - never reach intended end, already stuck and getting worse. Get the boat out? Steep banks, no paths or roads that I would know about...)

I'm pissed that she had wanted to do this thing, at myself for not knowing enough to have seen the disaster coming, at the people trying to help because they just made me look more foolish and incapable in front of my GF... mad at myself for being such a baby about accepting and needing help...

We eventually did get to a place to pull the boat, and I (hazy on this) walked back, got the car and portaged all the crap to the road...

This was not the end of our relationship, but again, given the fragility of young male pride, it has stayed with me since as an embarrassing episode every time I happen to think about it.

Many years later, I really enjoyed sea kayaking in both the ocean and in the everglades, but only after hooking up with someone to show me the ropes first.

 

[kcowan]

Worst vacation was Rose Hall, Montego Bay, Jamaica. Beautiful facility but the beach was dirty with seaweed and unsuitable for swimming. When we were going into town, the natives were intent on ripping us off in a number of creative ways. Never went back.

Have had many nice Carrbbean vacations at other destinations.

 

[Moemg]

Ah yes Jamaica ,home of the we'll let you take our picture and then we'll shake you down for some money .It's one of the few places where you can get drugs delivered right to your beach blanket .

 

[bbbamI]

I don't believe I've ever had an awful vacation, but most of them had a splattering of not so wonderful moments. These moments did seem to make the trips more memorable, and quite funny over time.

 

[haha]

Dh (BF at the time) was acting funny, didn't think too much about it. He'd bought a ratty ole RV, we threw the bike in the trailer and we were off to Sturgis, SD for the bike rally. RV is chugging along, we make it there and have a strange (dh still acting weird) but good time. Time to leave, we get about 200 miles east of Sturgis, stop for gas and something to eat, RV won't start. Dh checks the oil, it's almost empty so he fills it up, we have lunch and pray it starts. An hour later it's cooled enough and starts reluctantly, we never shut it off again until we reached Massachusetts. Took turns driving, stopped every couple of hundred miles to pour in 4 or 5 qts of oil and a can of Mystery Oil. The thing was leaking oil so bad it was leaking into the cab of the RV, the white trailer we were towing was now black. We get almost home but have to climb that one last mountain before we hit the MA Turnpike, the poor RV was at about 5mph when we hit the top, dh was thinking about taking out the bike and towing the freaking thing up the hill.

All through this dh is still acting strange but I figure he's just irritated and worried about getting home. So we make it to the top of the mountain and now we're home free, the RV gives a big sigh of relief and we head down the other side, we're about an hour from home.

Pull into the yard, RV and trailer are covered with oil, we're both exhausted from the stress of the ride. Two days later dh tells me he's leaving (he was bf at the time) and that he took me to Sturgis cuz he had promised me he would. Gee thanks for the F#$*ing good time A-hole. We stayed split up for about 3 months, he figured I'd hang around until he figured out what he wanted to do....WRONG... he saw me with another guy and that pretty much made up his mind for him We still don't talk about that vacation and that was 18 years ago.

Oh the RV motor had 2 missing cylinders on one side and a half missing on the other, I don't know how we made it home.

Great story. Jealousy is the strongest non-pharmaceutical aphrodisiac known to man. Not sure if it works on women or not.

Ha