What dramas have you had on Vacation?

[LilyWDW]

Disney. 1992. It was myself (10), my mom and dad, my grandmother, my 2 cousins (11 and 8), and an aunt and uncle. But not the parents of my cousins. That uncle had had a serious car accident and wasn't allowed to travel because his legs were crushed. So no flying for him.

We went to dinner at the hotel (not at Disney, we stayed off site but I don't remember where as it was so long ago). My younger cousin (8) wanted lasagna. There was no lasagna on the kids menu. But she REALLY wanted lasagna. My dad would NOT let her order said lasagna because it was too expensive and she would not have eaten it all. This went on for a loooong time. Even my mom was begging him to let the poor girl have the dang lasagna. My cousin never got her lasagna. She would have finished it too. Even though she was tiny for her age, she ate a lot. We still joke about it to this day. "Do you remember the time...?"

 

[bcla]

Nothing too bad, but once on a trip across the west, our car's radiator sprung a leak somewhere in the middle of the Nevada desert. We were close enough to a town where we found an old fashioned service station (this was the early 80s before most went away). It wasn't too bad though. A mechanic just used a couple of bottles of some sort of stop leak, which worked. When we got home I'm pretty sure the radiator was replaced.

 

[RogueX]

On a train in Japan while visiting a friend, I was sandwiched between two men. One of them tried to grab me and run off the train at the next stop. He asked if I was American, to I responded in loud obscenities and my friend was able to break the grip on my arm and we got away.

At Djemma El Fna in Marrakesh, I was browsing at one of the merchant stands and felt something pulling on my small purse and found a guy trying to steal it. Well, it didn't seem to end well for him, he was dragged off screaming.

 

[PAsFab5]

Unfrickin believable in today's world, but this was the 1980s when this happened.

I laughing reading your post...when I think about the amount of flights my parents put me on in the early 90’s as a unaccompanied minor I literally have chest pains I have no idea how I made it managing flight changes, layovers and meals on my own but here I am

 

[bcwife76]

In 2018 we were at an all inclusive in Cabo, it was our first afternoon. The main pool was huge, the kids pool was down below and separate. We saw a slide which we incorrectly assumed emptied into the kids pool so told our kids 'off you go, it will be fun.' Our youngest (who was 7 at the time) went down and it turns out the slide emptied into what was the deep end of a kiddie pool....and I mean 6 feet deep. She went under, my husband shot down the slide to try and get to her, meanwhile someone else who was swimming close to wear the slide comes out grabbed her and pulled her to the surface. I couldn't thank that woman enough for helping!! In floods of tears I kept stammering out a thank you until she said "it's ok, we did the exact same thing two days ago when we arrived, thinking the same thing that it was shallow water." Still a scary experience for us and our daughter!

 

[cm8]

October 2019.... NEVER AGAIN!

Daughter wanted an all girls trip to the MNSSHP. We go every year. This time we took 3 other families. 2 of the 3 were absolute nightmares! One girl was upset my daughter was holding hands with her BFF and she wanted my daughter to hold her hand. My daughter and her BFF have been friends since they were 4! This new girl was only in the picture a year. The other lady and her daughter had issues because the other girls wouldn’t let her be the boss. She was a year older than the other little ones minus of the other girl’s sister.

I knew it was a bad sign when that tropical storm appeared out of nowhere on the Florida coast! In all the years we have been to MNSSHP, it had never rained It flooded out at the MK that night and it was horrible. Next day, we pretended to be asleep in our villa so they wouldn’t bother us. Those two had spilt a villa and my daughter’s BFF and family stayed in ours. The next day they wanted to try to make plans for our day and after last night, I was not having it.

They ended up buying tickets for some indoor race thing in Orlando and the other family and ours headed to HS. We had the best day ever without the other drama queens. Later that night, they wanted to go eat pizza. I told them we would pass because they know my child is allergic??! Anyway, they expected us to still come and look in their face I guess. Nope, hard pass.

At 3am I get a text message saying that she’s leaving and thanks for everything. Then at 5 am the other family left saying same exact thing.
I didn’t respond to either of them.
We get back home Sunday and they both were blaming the way they behaved on their hormones .

I was like One did apologize for her actions but I still will NEVER travel anywhere with her again. She’s been trying to get us to go with her back to Disney and my Husband even said HE”” no! Our daughter told him that she will never go back with those two either . Needless to say, hubby was upset with me for exposing our daughter to their crazy. I told him I didn’t even know people they were like that.

We are no longer friends y’all. It was that bad!!

PS, the kids in this story are 8,8,8, 9, 10

 

[Echo queen]

OMG, we were in WDW February 25 to March 4 this year 2020. We were leaving DHS when my DH said he needed to go to ER or urgent care with, he just didn’t feel well. I had to drag symptoms out out FEET NUMB, HEADACHE, BODY ACHES AND YES CHEST PAIN. I am a health care hero by the way. We stop at first aid at the gate and they gave him some pain medicine.

Thank god after a goodnight sleep he was ready to role.
DH drama.
I think I said I would call an Uber to take him to medical facility, I was not doing that.

 

[Magical2017]

When I was married to my ex, his brother and SIL invited themselves on our trip to WDW. There were small things that led up to a major blow up at Epcot, but she basically took over every aspect of the trip from planning to what time we would go to the parks (she liked to sleep until 10:30 every morning).

I am a do-as-you-please traveler when we travel with others. If you want to sleep in and we don't or vice versa, no biggie. Let's make plans to meet up later. It's all good--we are on vacation. Traveling with a control freak is not fun, and getting screamed at in the middle of Epcot because we wanted to split up for a few hours instead of watching her shop led to an all out blow out with her calling us selfish and a few choice words I won't type here. She did not speak to us for the remainder of the trip but once we were out of her sight we had a great time. Serenity now!

 

[Silver saucer]

My now ex husband and I were at WDW and decided to get a divorce. We did the parks seperately. Not at all fun.
This was 20 years ago. It ended up being the best decision we ever made.

 

[RUDisney]

I took my sister, her 2 kids and my DD to Washington, DC, 6 years ago. My sister's cancer had spread to her brain and she was wobbly, so I rented a scooter for her that was delivered to the hotel in Silver Springs. The first day we were touring, we were in the National Archives. We'd only been out for about 4 hours. The battery in her scooter died. I called the company and told them that the way I saw it, they could do one of three things... bring us a new scooter, bring us a new battery, or pick us up and drive us back to our hotel. The man on the line said that we should have brought the charger. I told him that lifestyle devices should last all day and not die after 4 hours. He confirmed that the charging would take 8 hours for a full charge (that provided us with 4 hours of use.) He wouldn't do anything for me. I very calmly told him that was fine and that my next call would be to American Express as I was sure they could do something for us. He suddenly became helpful.

About an hour later, they had someone deliver a battery to me in front of the National Archives building. The new battery lasted throughout the rest of the day, and upon charging it that night, it lasted all day the next day.

 

[bcla]

Maybe not drama, but once as an adult I went on the road trip with my parents that we never took when I was younger. It was before I was married, so I didn't have to deal with that. I'd booked a few interesting rooms. One place we even found a cabin with a queen size bed and a twin, which was perfect for us.

But at the end we were just winging it without a concrete plan. I guess we could consider that drama. We showed up in Vegas on a Thursday night looking for a cheap room and found it at a big Strip hotel/casino. We were even thinking of two nights, but declined when the rate for the second night (Friday) was double. I even played blackjack there when the power went out and I found our dealer hunched over the chip tray once the lights were back on. I was surprised there wasn't some emergency lighting backup that would go immediately. And it didn't seem like anyone took advantage of it to steal chips.

Then we went through Death Valley on the way home because it would be the fastest way. It was over 120ºF and my mom said she never wanted to go back. We also didn't have any plans for where to stay until we got to Bishop, CA where there was a distinct lack of lodging. A Holiday Inn Express was $170 a night and apparently fully booked by the person in front of me. Then we got desperate and looked at an independent motel. It wasn't that great looking, but it was $75 (smoking room too) and there was likely nothing else left in town. In the end I said what the heck because I didn't want to drive to Mammoth Lakes and find they had nothing too. This was before smart phones although I probably could have used my computer if I could find public Wi-Fi somewhere. The room wan't all bad. It was clean but smelled of smoke. Nothing was terribly upscale about it. And then there was the damage to to door, which looked like someone kicked it from the inside, although the door closed normally. The whole motel had something like 18 units and three icemakers. The manager said that they get a lot of people going fishing and that's one amenity that helps attract business.

 

[JoeA]

I was around 7 and my best friends family invited me to go to FL with them. We drove down from OH and I think we were near Atlanta when the engine started overheating. The wife told her husband to pull over and he refused (instead he said he'd turn on the air conditioner because that always fixes an over heated engine!).

After yelling back and forth for several miles the car finally broke down. We stayed an extra week in GA while the mechanic replaced the engine.

A few things I remember from that trip:
- The dad was an awful drunk!
- We were given the choice to drive down to Miami Beach or go to this new place called "Disney", presented to us as "choose one". We wanted to see a beach! But when we got home the guy said he would have taken us to both and was mad at us for not wanting to go to Disney!
- I was told not to eat the grits for breakfast because they would make you sick! Ah...nothing like growing up in the mid-west and traveling with an Italian family! What's a grit?!

 

[scottmel]

This is horrifying and I still see it in my head like it was yesterday. Down to the flip flops he wore and the gold chain on his neck from 30 plus YEARS AGO. My cousin and I both maybe 15 at the time - were in our parking garage at our condo at Rehoboth Beach, DE. We were walking towards a guy who had his you know what out of his shorts staring at us and being pretty obscene with said object. Fill in the blank. we NEVER told anyone. To this day I haven't lol. It was horrifying, confuising and hilarious all a the same time. I would be horrified if that had happened to my 14 year old but in the 80s it just seemed WEIRD....shudder.

 

[scottmel]

This is horrifying and I still see it in my head like it was yesterday. Down to the flip flops he wore and the gold chain on his neck from 30 plus YEARS AGO. My cousin and I both maybe 15 at the time - were in our parking garage at our condo at Rehoboth Beach, DE. We were walking towards a guy who had his you know what out of his shorts staring at us and being pretty obscene with said object. Fill in the blank. we NEVER told anyone. To this day I haven't lol. It was horrifying, confuising and hilarious all a the same time. I would be horrified if that had happened to my 14 year old but in the 80s it just seemed WEIRD....shudder.

 

[DumboDash2006]

My first time flying in years and my mom, sister, nephew and dd's first time flying was a trip to WDW in 2006. The engine on our scheduled plane was acting up so they had to put us on a different flight. But first we had to take a charter bus to Detroit, wait a few hours, fly to Atlanta, then wait another hour or two for another flight. Which was then delayed due to a thunderstorm and then fly to Orlando. We checked into CBR about half past midnight. With a five and six year old who had both gotten up around 4 am. That was FUN! My nephew is able to nap anywhere so he did ok, but dd was a very poor sleeper so there were a few tense moments in Detroit when we were waiting and she was bored and tired.

Then in 2014, we were finally able to take our first big, out of state family vacation and we planned an almost three week road trip stopping in several places, one of which was WDW. We left our house around 9 am and stopped in the afternoon in Kentucky. We had no sooner checked into our hotel when we got weather alerts saying it was storming badly at home. A little bit later, I got a FB message from a neighbor saying that she had just gotten home from work in the pouring rain and she saw that a huge branch from the giant maple in our front yard had fallen on our roof and she couldn't tell, but it may have messed up the roof. So I had to call my sister who lived nearby to run over and make sure we didn't have rain pouring in through our roof. Thankfully it didn't make it that far and dh was able to call a good friend with a property management service who immediately went over and tarped it. Then I got to deal with our insurance company on vacation.

 

[BrianL]

I have another one - I think I've told it before. The family was going to my Sister's wedding in Hawaii (where she lives). This included myself, my mom and stepdad, grandmother and grandfather, and a close friend of my sister's. We had to get an early start to get on our first plane to Dallas, but then it was Dallas straight to Honolulu on a nice, big, not full 747. Everything seems to be going fine until not quite halfway across the Pacific (the screens had tha tlittle plane tracker deal) they make an announcement asking for a "doctor or nurse on board to identify themselves to the flight crew." Oh boy. Sure enough they had to turn us around and land us in San Diego to be met by paramedics. Okay, fine, this stuff happens and they've gotta do what they've gotta do. Everyone understands.

There had been anotehr problem on this flight though form early on, and that was that one of teh lavatories was not working properly. It was fine - it's a big plane. Well, the issue was with the septic tank and the problem was spreading, knocking out each of the lavatories on one side of the plane, then the other. Okay, now we are about half-way across the ocean again when I see the plane turning around on the screen. Yeah, FAA regulations wion't let them fly with no bathroom and this time they have to take us to LA because that is their nearest maintenance hub. The passengers would've just voted to hold-it if we could've. In LA we have to deplane and wait for a replacement. That replacement was a737, so now every seat is full! It's getting past midnight local time and we are crammed into the tiny plane, on our way again. We didn't make it to Hawaii until about 1 AM Hawaii time after leaving at about 7 AM Central Time - 5 hours difference too!

We were all so cranky when we got to Hawaii. That first day was rough! We were all sniping at each otehr and pretty much miserable that we came. Fortunately my sister actually lives on Kauai but met us in Honolulu to do some wedding shopping. After a day we puddle-jumped over to her island which really is paradise - so calm and lovely. That pretty much chilled everyone out and we had a nice time for the rest of the trip.

 

[DisneyHardin]

Never had any major drama on a trip. The biggest was about 10 or so years ago when my sister and I were flying to Pennsylvania for a wedding. We were supposed to fly Louisville to Detroit to Erie. Our flight to Detroit was cancelled out of Louisville, so they put us on a flight to Philly that had a connection to Erie. When we got to Philly, we found that our flight to Erie was delayed so much that there was no way we would make the wedding, so we changed to a flight to Buffalo, NY, which was just a little bit further drive than Erie was to the town where the wedding was. We called the rental car company to change the car, but then the rental became a one way if we picked up in Buffalo, but returned in Erie on the way home and quadrupled in price. So, we called Delta and got our return flight changed to Buffalo. The flight to Buffalo was then delayed and we ended up missing the wedding anyway, but did get to enjoy the reception.

When it was time to go home, we got to the Buffalo airport and our flight to Philly was delayed. We finally got to Philly, but had missed the connection to Louisville. They told us the only way we could get to Louisville that night was to go to Atlanta, so we boarded a plane to Atlanta. Of course, the flight to Louisville from Atlanta was delayed, but did finally take off and we got home that night so we could go to work the next day.

Had we driven to the wedding, it would have been a 9 hour drive (18 round trip) - we ended up spending nearly 24 hours flying/waiting in airports trying to save time and fly.

 

[JoeA]

This didn't happen on vacation, it was a business trip but I was on my own "down time" when it happened so I guess that's close enough!

A few years ago I was in Tokyo and I went out drinking one night with an expat I knew who lived there. At the end of the night I got into a taxi and told the driver where I was staying. Well, his knowledge of the English language equaled mine of the Japanese language - ZERO!

I usually take a business card from the hotel for these exact scenarios but just spaced and forgot this time. We ended up driving all over Tokyo as I was trying to tell him which Marriott (or last the nearest train station). He turned off the meter so we were basically just sight seeing at this point...he and I were both laughing as we were trying to communicate. I think he and I both were enjoying the "adventure", to be honest.

He finally pulled up to a fellow taxi driver who knew English, I told him where I was staying, he translated to my driver and off we go! I got into the taxi around 10:00 pm and got to the hotel around midnight. That was my last night so I basically just emptied my pockets and gave him all of my local currency I had remaining (he made out very well that evening!).

Ah...the memories of frequent international business travel!

 

[bcla]

This didn't happen on vacation, it was a business trip but I was on my own "down time" when it happened so I guess that's close enough!

A few years ago I was in Tokyo and I went out drinking one night with an expat I knew who lived there. At the end of the night I got into a taxi and told the driver where I was staying. Well, his knowledge of the English language equaled mine of the Japanese language - ZERO!

I usually take a business card from the hotel for these exact scenarios but just spaced and forgot this time. We ended up driving all over Tokyo as I was trying to tell him which Marriott (or last the nearest train station). He turned off the meter so we were basically just sight seeing at this point...he and I were both laughing as we were trying to communicate. I think he and I both were enjoying the "adventure", to be honest.

He finally pulled up to a fellow taxi driver who knew English, I told him where I was staying, he translated to my driver and off we go! I got into the taxi around 10:00 pm and got to the hotel around midnight. That was my last night so I basically just emptied my pockets and gave him all of my local currency I had remaining (he made out very well that evening!).

Ah...the memories of frequent international business travel!

I was in Bangkok once, but it was on vacation. We didn't understand Thai, and there were some taxi drivers who didn't even know enough English to take the name of our hotel. However, there was a card in our hotel room that had the name/location of the hotel in the Thai language just in case it was needed. However, we managed to give the name of the hotel once and the driver figured it out.

We even asked a taxi driver to take us to a nice seafood restaurant. I was imagining this fancy place I once saw on Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous. Our driver ended taking us to some sketchy area that was dark and rather unappealing. We were dropped off in front of a seafood place, but it didn't look busy and the prices were ridiculously high. We then took our chances and told the driver that we no longer needed his services and paid the fare. I think he was disappointed because he would have likely gotten a commission if we had bought something there. We then walked a while before we found our way to some place that was busier - near the Siam Center. There we got another taxi where the ride to our hotel was uneventful. I think we just had a quick meal near our hotel.

There were also some weird things that happened during our guided tours booked at our hotel's tour desk. We had one that was pretty nice where it was by bus. Stuff like elephant and cobra shows, and a trip to the Rose Garden. They also had a little bit of Thai boxing as part of the admission. We were happy enough with it that we booked a Bangkok sightseeing tour that was mostly visiting temples. It was pretty fun until the end where we were taken to a jewelry factory. When we expressed that we weren't going to buy anything, our guide said he would arrange for a driver to take us back to our hotel. We were picked up and somehow the driver ran out of fuel just a bit before we got to our hotel. He knew enough English to ask us if he could possibly borrow some cash and get some fuel, where we would be reimbursed at the tour desk at our hotel. We didn't have many other options so we gave him the equivalent of $10 and he did come back with a gas can. The next day we went to the tour desk and was told that they never got word of anything. I figure we got scammed out of just a little bit of money so they didn't have to spend the $10 themselves on fuel. I guess it could have been worse. I've heard of the "out of fuel" scam going on during boat tours. Or maybe they have fuel but refuse to take someone back without being paid a service fee.

 

[KPeterso]

A couple over the years...

The first time we went to Disneyland when I was 8. We went on like 2-3 rides and then "lost" my Mom for the rest of the day. Seriously, no idea how she got separated from us. But it was in the days before cell phones and with just the 3 of us, we did not expect to lose her all day and did not have a meet up place. She ended up going on the rides she thought my Dad and I would like and we went on the rides we thought she would like. We were separated 4-5 hours. Sadly, she is still very easy to lose. She cannot lead, she cannot follow. We have lost her many places over the years.

Another time we were travelling to Disneyland. Originally, my Dad was supposed to go several days ahead for a conference and then my Mom and I would fly out to meet him. At the last minute, his conference was cancelled so my parents had to scramble to book a new outgoing flight for him, and we could not get him on the same flight as us. So day of the flight, Mom and I put Dad on his earlier flight that connected through Kansas City. Our flight was about an hour later direct and we were going to beat him there and had all of the luggage and the rental car information. So my Dad gets to KC and his flight is badly delayed as it was stuck in Boston in a snowstorm, but they eventually got a new plane from somewhere else. Mom and I get on our flight and were merrily on our way. Until they started paging for a doctor urgently on the flight and came and took our meal away within maybe 5 minutes of getting it as we were going to be landing in Nebraska and very quickly, dumping the fuel as we were going down. Someone had a massive heart attack on our flight. Once landed, we all sat on the plane. They got emergency people onboard and were able to resuscitate the person and take that person off. In the meantime, the plane had dumped all the fuel, so they had to get the flight re-fueled and were re-stocking the food on the plane since many never got their meal and some like us only had it a couple minutes before it was taken away fast. Oh and the airport was new and not 100% open yet. We never even pulled up to a gate and everything took a lot longer from where we were. Honestly not sure, how long we sat there now. In the meantime, Dad has made it to LAX and there is no sign of my Mom and I. And he knew weather was clear in Chicago, flight was scheduled as on time, we were to beat him anyway, and of course, he had been delayed too. So where on earth were we? He tried to get the rental car (not in his name). He tried to get information on where the plane was, but the airline was being tight lipped. He finally straight out asked if there was a crash. He truly feared he was never seeing the 2 of us again and was so scared. He finally got a little information and was so relieved when we landed. That was the first and last time that the 3 of us did not fly together if we were all going to the same place.