Top Ten Holiday Fails
Come on, admit it…. reading about other people’s wonderful holidays can be a big turn off when you’re not going away yourself. So I’m providing a new service here: a good dose of holiday schadenfreude. I have probably caused much irritation with posts on my blog about some fabulous trips abroad but I’ve had plenty of experiences over the years which would make you wonder why I don’t just stay at home and camp in the back garden. Sit back, enjoy my pain and you’ll feel a damn sight better afterwards.
1. Minorca
1974 I think it was: a holiday with the family where my brother nearly drowned in the sea trying to find his goggles and my mother fell through a deck chair, got her arse stuck, and had to be helped by a very small Frenchman who struggled gamely before inviting more chaps to join in the rescue attempt. Our tour operator then went into liquidation and the courier defected to the Germans in a neighbouring hotel, leaving us to fend for ourselves.
2. Tunisia
A month after I met my husband we jetted off on a cheap deal to Tunisia. The weather was unseasonably cold, the hotel food inedible and there were so many flies in the room Dougie spent a considerable amount of time jumping on the bed flicking them with an elastic band so that by the end of the week we had an accent wall decorated in fetching black speckles.
3. Formentera
Our honeymoon in 1990, on the gorgeous island South of Ibiza, was marred by Dougie losing his wedding ring down the plughole of the bath on the second day. On our return flight we missed crashing into an oncoming plane by 6 seconds: on the plus side our near miss made the tabloids the next morning.
4. Spain
Dougie perched himself on the edge of a glass coffee table in our apartment: the glass shattered into millions of tiny pieces. Thankfully his backside survived and we weren’t charged for the damage.
5. Italy
A fly drive around Tuscany and Umbria in 1995, in a tiny Renault Twingo, was pretty hair-raising at times, mainly due to our inability to find places to park. In Pisa we took a wrong turning down a no-entry street, drove through a cobbled marketplace and glided past the Leaning Tower, six feet to our right, to the bemusement of market traders and tourists.
6. Lanzarote
Yes we were the idiots who succumbed to the dreaded Time Share touts on a day when it was a bit cloudy and we were bored. We were driven up to some half-built apartments in the middle of nowhere, plied with some over-sweet plonk and given the hard sell. When we eventually persuaded them that we were definitely not going to hand over our credit card we were ceremoniously booted out, minus our promised free gift of a T-shirt, and had to walk miles to get back to our resort.
7. UK
A family weekend visit to Ironbridge is now affectionately remembered for the Telford Turd incident. We checked into a pretty basic hotel in Telford only to find a sizeable deposit in the loo. I was all for making a big fuss but husband told me to get over myself and just flush the bloody thing away.
8. France
A night in a campsite in the Loire Valley is to be remembered for the hurricane that hit the region one night. We were so scared we packed our cases and huddled in our mobile home wondering how the poor buggers in the tents were coping. The next morning we discovered all the plastic furniture had blown away, many tents had gone, trees had fallen down and the Kids’ Club tents had completely vanished.
9. Canada
Another fly-drive vacation which caused its fair share of domestic arguments in the car, due to the bloody SatNav. We set off along Toronto’s busiest thoroughfare waiting for directions from our GPS lady, only to discover she was talking French. She also let us down badly by taking us through a tunnel in the middle of Montreal so we lost the signal, took a wrong turn and travelled back out of the city again.
10. Iceland
A holiday which took me out of my comfort zone. I don’t usually do ‘cold’ or ‘activities’ on holidays but on this trip I endured a terrifying snow-mobiling trip, white-water rafting and glacier hiking. Having survived these adventures, plus a horse-riding gallop in the pouring rain, I suffered three hours of horrendous sea sickness on a whale-watching trip, accompanied by a bout of the runs brought on by taking laxatives the night before. Thank heavens for waterproof trousers. My motto: avoid activities with hyphens in the title!
