Best/Worst vacations

[kathymc]

I dont have a worst vaca they've all been great but none top our 10 year anniversary to Hawaii. Two weeks/three islands - just heavenly.
Going back to Maui in Feb 2010 for our 5th time back.

 

[joyjoy]

Best: Argentina. We rented an apartment for 10 days in Buenos Aires, then took a side trip waayyyyy down south to El Calafate where we hiked on the Perito Moreno glaciar. Amazing.

Worst: Camping. Ugh.

 

[Teresa Pitman]

Best:

New Zealand. We did a bus tour first to hit all the "touristy" parts and then rented a car and drove ourselves around (on the left side of the road!) for another week. Beautiful, amazing country.

Vancouver, BC, and area: Stunning scenery.

Sanibel Island (Florida): Amazing beaches, wild dolphins who swam near us.

Worst: (for me) Nova Scotia. Parts were scenic, but most of it just didn't appeal to me. I enjoyed visiting my friends there, but if it wasn't for that I wouldn't have enjoyed it much at all.

Teresa

 

[Diznotyzed]

I've never had a bad vacation either, but some of our more recent favorite trips have been St. Croix, USVI, Costa Rica, and the San Juan Islands of WA where we had an amazing experience when a large pod of Orcas swam right through our group of kayakers twice.

 

[Disney Ella]

First vacation was to Oahu which I hated the worst. It is very crowded, traffic is bad, beaches were packed by 9am. Also, I'm a 5 star kind of person and the hotel (which I have purged from my memory) was not good. I enjoyed our day on the North Shore but other than that, I did not care for Oahu--it reminded me of going to the beaches in the Los Angeles area.

Second vacation was to Maui/Hawaii. We stayed at the Grand Wailea in Maui which is a gorgeous hotel/spa but did not care for the Wailea area at all. Not enough to do. I was bored, bored, bored. On the island of Hawaii, I did enjoy the volcano area but other than that, I was bored.

Third vacation was to Maui and we stayed at the Ritz in Kapalua. I think I might have enjoyed this vacation (hotel is gorgeous) except I was going through chemo so I sat on the lanai in the shade and read for most of the week. Since it was the third visit to the islands, my negative attitude was already in place.

For me, Hawaii would be a good weekend place but a week or more and I'm climbing the walls. Driving around and looking at scenery doesn't thrill me and I can only sit at a pool/on a beach for a short period of time.

I'm in the minority in my opinions so I would not let my comments deter you from going there.

Well, you certainly gave Hawaii a fair chance after three trips.

So many of you have been so many great places. I need to start saving more money and finding more vacation time so I can go to some of the places that all of you have been.

 

[missypie]

Worst: any place staying in a relative's house - esp. little lake houses with one bathroom and no A/C or dishwasher...makes coming home seem like a luxury

Also, that terrible trip to Cancun where I suspected my then-husband of having an affair and he kept leaving the beach to "call work." I had a splitting headache the whole time, but it wasn't really Cancun's fault!

Best: Paris. Barcelona.

 

[Momvic5]

Worst vacation - any vacation that is timed down to the minute on what you're doing. If it's all run, run, run, that's not relaxing.

Best vacations - Backing out of your driveway and saying which way? The most relaxing vacations ever. Not having a set schedule on how many miles you're to drive in a day. Being able to stop and see whatever may interest you. There's lots to do and see in this country that most people never even know about because they only take the highways or a plane to a certain place.
In one 2 week vacation, we managed to see wild buffalo, one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's homes, Mount Rushmore, The Badlands and a number ofther things.

There was one vacation we drove 9 miles one day and 800 the next.

You never know what you're going to see when you're not looking only at the destination.

I recently discovered your wisdom on vacationing. This past March, my family and I got into our Ford Expedition and just drove. Our ultimate goal was to reach North Carolina within 5 days to be with a family member during a surgery, but we decided to use this opportunity to see all that we could along the way. We live in the Houston area of Texas and as long as we made it into NC within 5 days, we drove without an agenda or schedule. I was terrified at the thought, but it turned out to be our best trip ever. My Dh and I drove with our 3 children ages 7 to 12. We went through 15 states within 14 days. We dug for crystals in Arkansas, visited the Peabody Hotel, Graceland, and Zoo in Memphis, Tennessee, hiked through the Rocky Mountains, visited family and lighthouses in NC, toured Washington DC, shopped in NYC, and played in Hersey, Pennsylvania. We stopped when we were tired and just had tons of fun. We packed movies and games for our children to watch and play during the drive, but not once did they pull that stuff out. We talked, sang, listened to books on CD, and played road games. We stopped so frequent to check places out that the drive did not seem so hard. We collected state magnets, and as we drove from state to state, we placed our magnets on a small magnetic board that I kept in our Expedition. I have to admit we all know the location of our east coast states a little better due to our trip. Talk about a great geography opportunity.

We love Disney World, but we will all admit that this past road trip was just so much more relaxed and fun. We are now making plans to take a road trip to the west coast this coming fall~ so Disneyland~ here we come!

 

[twoeeyy]

worst for me was WDW last Oct. finding out on vacation that our marriage was over and to boot it was out DD16th b-day.

Best had always been WDW we had been taking her since she was 12 for her actual B-day but now I think I am done with WDW for awhile at least. I have a trip booked for her 17th this oct. from the FD bounceback but am pretty sure im gonna cancel it.

 

[themilesfamily]

Best:

Ireland - West Coast
Cooperstown, NY
Yogi Bear Campground in Wisconsin Dells
New York City -- Broadway!
Washington, DC
Hannibal, Missouri -- beautiful B&B, riverboat ride down the Mississippi

Worst:

Bahamas
Cancun
Cruise to Cozumel/Calica

I'm just not a tropics person. It's not my thing.

 

[Poohbear123]

I love Key West/Orlando/St. Augustine and Savanna Ga. I hated Pensacola area, Milton Fl. what a potunk town that is!

 

[skater]

Best- Turks and Caicos, it is my one true happy spot!!

Worst-Free Carnival Cruise to Mexico, worst room, food and guests, staff etc.... I can't believe some people willing choose to cruise this line it was like Circus Circus in Vegas. No vacation would of been better then that.

Also a trip to the grand canyon where we got carbon monoxide poisoning and ended up in the hospital. I got out drove up to the canyon, looked down and said I almost died for THAT???

I was just considering a Carnival Cruise to Mexico!

 

[Ohiodislover]

I don't think I've ever had a "worst" vacation.

I guess the closest would be the grand canyon when I was 10. We had an RV, which I don't mind. However my dad drove, and drove, and drove. We would BEG him to stop at a KOA campground. Then we got to grand canyon, and spent 3 hours, yes 3 HOURS, after a 5 day drive around the country. It was seriously like the Griswalds on Vacation. Plus my dad had a thing about trying to get us to as many states as possible. We would drive 5 hours out of our way, so that we could say we were in Texas.

Places that I love
Hilton Head Island
San Fransisco
Riviera Maya
Bermuda
Aruba

 

[wdwiala]

Best vacation: renting a convertable and driving down the Oregon coast with my husband for a few days while my mother watched the kids. I would love to do it again but with the children this time. Absolutely beautiful.

Worst vacation: when I was 12, we drove from Louisiana to South Dakota in the middle of summer to visit and stay with family. Hot. Boring. A trip that I now could appreciate (the family part) but not then. Had to hide out in a JCPenny store room from tornados.
My husband always tries to get me to take a trip to South Dakota again. I told him that, other than for family research, no way. It's. Not. Going. To. Happen.

Best trips, as mentioned in other posts, are those where you don't overplan. Our trip to TN last year, when we rented a cabin for 8 nights, was my husbands hands down favorite. Nothing like just veggin'.

 

[dnoyes]

Worst. Turks and Caicos

Best non Disney vacation. 5 days on a crab boat off the Oregon coast with my two best friends (I'm a man by the way) have gone back six times in the last ten years. Never thought working so hard could be so much fun.

Another one would be whitewater rafting Hells Canyon for 3 days with nothing but a sack of onions and potatoes and fly fishing rods. Well, we did pack some beer

 

[disykat]

The only PLACE I actually really didn't like was Vegas. I'd prefer to go almost anywhere else. I thought it would be hard to go wrong with fancy hotels and restaurants, but I just really disliked the atmostphere.

I also wasn't a big fan of Yellowstone. The heat, the driving distances, the fact that our van was breaking down, the kids were sick, my allergies were awful. I'm generally a fan of national parks (I worked summers at one in college!), but it was just a horrible combo of things that made that trip the worst!

My family enjoyed a weekend in the Branson area, but only because we spent all our time on Table Rock Lake and the theme park. What's not to like? We didn't do any shows or anything like that.