Travel horror stories - let's hear 'em

[bytheblood]

I traveled with my mother-in-law. Need I say more.

 

[macraven]

Originally posted by bytheblood
I traveled with my mother-in-law. Need I say more.

you win, hands down, more gory than twilight zone, and tales from the crypt.

 

[manning]

Two trips late to Hawaii.

The first was when we traveled with aunt uncle and cousin. My cousin warned us whenever she flies, things happen. Sure enough the 747 we are on has mechanical problems. They spend 2 hours trying to figure it out. The mechanics can't find the problem noted on the check list. Turns out it was fixed and someone didn't sign off. On the return my cousin continued on to Florida and got the seat with the broken seat belt, and they had a rough flight. Did I say things happen when she flies? Once she was on business and the meeting ran long and she missed her flight by minutes. Thank goodness!! It was the Air Florida plane that went down into the river.

The second trip to Hawaii we are over two hours late getting out. We board and after 30 minutes taken off the plane. Got boarded again after a wait and waited over an hour on the taxi way waiting for a takeoff slot. Because of the weight we had to use the longest runway which was being used for landings. The reason for the delay was the co-pilot was supposed to arrive from Dallas and instead was sent to another city. They had to find a co-pilot with enough down time to fly. That flight was flown by two captains.

The funny thing about it was my SIL who is a travel agent was with us on a FAM trip. She was to fly with a group thru Atlanta. We convinced her to come with us direct out of Chicago. She was mad at us for the delay until she found out the group was delayed and arrived three hours later than us.

 

[Mouseteacher]

Fortunately, I don't have any really horror stories. My one bad experience was in August 2002 - returning home from MCO to Boston on Delta Express. That ole Delta Express that I called the "sardine can" plane...no room anywhere / seat in front of you practically in your face plane!

We were delayed on the runway for 1 hour and 45 minutes due to a lightening storm - claustrophobic conditions, no air circulating in the plane b/c they shut the engines down and HOT, and the flight attendants no where to be seen not even to offer water to the melting people. Fortunately, I always carry a bottle of water with me on the plane. Since I am claustrophobic, keeping myself from panicking was extremely difficult. And, I am so glad the airlines "wise-d-up" and now give a little more breathing room in their seats.

 

[Deafmedic]

Geez! Does anyone ever drive anymore? All of these "horror" stories are about planes! How about some about driving?

 

[macraven]

Originally posted by Deafmedic
Geez! Does anyone ever drive anymore? All of these "horror" stories are about planes! How about some about driving?

i have made over 12 trips to orlando now. when i first started to go, i did think of driving. with the three kids, who were kind of young then and just myself, i worried about car trouble and the length of time to get there. it would be 22 hours of driving for me.

i have been lucky to get affordable plane fare. this is the only reason i fly. $$$$$ its cheaper for me....

 

[Dznypal]

We were traveling from MAui to LA.

we left Maui at 10pm

there was this mother with a screaming kid for a good part of the way to LA

the worst part was the mother would play "possium" (acting like she was asleep!!!!) probably hoping the kid would fall asleep
(it didn't work)

twice the fligh attendent asked if there was anything she could do

the mom just said she'll be ok

I know the Flight attendent was getting complaints and this wasn/t a little kid either
she was probally almost 4.!!!

 

[diswedwish]

Okay trip for me, not for DH! We were on our way home on SEAL - because you get your seating assignments when you check-in I was directly behind him instead of next to him. We were on the Gold Plan and both of us mananged to get sick by the end of our trip (too much running around and stuffing our faces, not enough sleeping). DH looked a little pale in the morning, but insisted that we go parasailing anyway before our flight. He continued to look more and more pale...

Finally during the beverage service part of the flight he decides he needs to use the bathroom NOW (of course he waits until the soda cart is between us and the bathroom). So he gets up and the flight attendant tells him that he needs to be seated since the fasten seatbelt sign was on. He says that he needs to throw up. "Can you wait sir?"

So there he sat turning green for quite a while, then finally the aisle was cleared. Needless to say, he hogged one of the bathrooms practically the rest of the flight. When we were getting ready to leave he needed the bathroom again - one guy started to laugh at him until he retched - then they got out of his way You should have seen the faces of the girls next to him (I was glad to be *behind* him).

So we get off the plane and I stupidly didn't take one of the little baggies off the plane with me for the drive home, so I asked for one in the airport. They gave me a humongous trash bag - lol. After he was on the ground for a few minutes he was okay and found it funny. Nothing like that every happened to us before, one more traveling experience

 

[ErinInCT]

Originally posted by Deafmedic
Geez! Does anyone ever drive anymore? All of these "horror" stories are about planes! How about some about driving?

Every year our family drove from MI to CT for vacation (visiting family, never made it to WDW until the late 70's & we flew). It was around a 14 hr drive & my dad insisted on driving the whole way in one day. Not really horror stories, but a few funny incidents:

1 year we put all of our plants into the tub with water in it & my dads wallet fell in with all his money for the trip. It was soaked. Now me, I would have just stick it in a ziploc & been on my way (maybe they didn't have ziplocs back then) but he took all of the bills and stuck them on the registers and turned on the heat to try to dry them!!

My mom always made sandwiches & brought snacks with us. 1 year we had a container of lemonade. We were in a station wagon with the back seats folded down (once again, olden days, I do not recommend this anymore!!!) and all 3 girls were hovered right behind the front seat. My sister, who was perched right behind the drivers seat) had a cup of lemonade & my dad warned her not to spill it. Oh course she spilled it, right down his back. So he drove almost the whole way with a sticky back. (Dad is one of those packers who has everything in it's place & a zillion things have to be moved to get something out so he could not change his shirt!)

1 year we brought our dog & we had to go thru Customs in Canada. The dog was sleeping quietly at my mom's feet. The customs guy asked about pets & I piped up about the dog so he asked to see the papers. Well, my mom had forgotten the papers & she kept searching and searching & I guess the guy took pity on us (mom & dad, 3 girls & a dog) and just let us go through!!

Good memories!!!

 

[disneymom3]

This is a long one--horrors both ways.

I found a great fare to Orlando from Mpls at the end of a very cold Feb. We had days left on hoppers so decided to go for it. Me, DH, DD 5 DS almost 2 and DS 5 months. Okay, right there, you know we were in trouble. Of course, we had seats for both the boys. We were flying on ATA and had a layover at Midway.

We left Mpls on time so started out well. Leaving Midway, we originally boarded the plane about 45 min after we were supposed to take off. Then sat and sat and sat.......then they had us get off the plane. One of the doors would not shut. Okay, we are still fine with this, no one wants to fly when there is something wrong with the plane. The problem came in when they kept telling us every 30-45 minutes that they would have more info for us in 30-45 minutes. For 5 HOURS!!! Now, for the first two hours, we were stuck very close to the gate--think about this, 2 children under two, both of their carseats that they were flying in and all assorted paraphenalia for a family w/ 3 children. And we had gate checked our stroller and they wouldn't get it off the plane. Every time they would say that they needed more time, I would go up and politely ask if we could get our stroller (along with the strollers of the other 10 families on the flight) and EVERY time, they told me they had people on the way to do that for us. After two hours, they are obviouslly lying... Finally got the strollers when I pointed out that they were indeed lying, I had been very polite up to this point and I was not leaving the counter until I had my stroller so I could feed my children who were supposed to be in the hotel in FL and eating dinner by now.

Bleah--ended up arriiving in FL at around 1 a.m., should have arrived at 4:00 the previous afternoon.

Enjoyed our 4 days there immensly, felt like the trip down had been worth it afterall when I saw my 2 year old's reaction to seeing main street for the first time.

But then, it was time to go home....I'll shorten it somewhat and just say that we left FL three hours late. By the time we arrived in Midway, we had 30 minutes to get our connection and it was snowing--a lot! Sat on the tarmac for 20 minutes.....Booked across the airport, departure signs are saying our flight is leaving in 20 minutes (Phew, thankful for once of ATA's delays!) Get to the gate we are to leave out of and on the elec sign it says info about a flight to Dallas. We are confused, but another family bound for Mpls who had also been on the Orlando fliight goes up to check. Our plane has not yet landed in Dallas which is has to do, reboard, fly to Midway, take the people already waiting back to Dallas and THEN return to take us to Mpls. This does not even make sense to me and I think this other dad must have an extra trip in there, but no. The ATA guy soon gets on the speaker and this is exactly what he tells us. Our flight should be departing at 2:00 a.m. At this point, my DH is livid and I am just trying to maintain my children so I go off to find them something to eat. On my way down the terminal, I hear the local news and the guy is saying that O'Hare is going down to one runway and midway will be closing completely around 1 a.m. WHOA! Didn't they just say we were leaving at 2???? I go back to the gate and tell DH this. He says, "They are never getting us out of this airport. We have to rent a car." Thankfully we found one who would rent to us one way. Major blizzard, but I had a major conference for work to attend the next day (I know, dumb planning.) so we kept going, just driving slowly.

Next day, DH returns the car to MSP and there is a woman there returning a large van. She asks him if he was from that ATA flight out of Midway and then says that she was too and they did cancel the flight at 1:30 a.m. and there was a mad dash for the car rentals. She ended up sharing this van with 6 other people she didn't know!

Our luggage finally made it to Mpls the following Tuesday. We had left Chicago on Friday night.

Ever since then we have driven to Orlando and never had a problem. We LOVE driving.

 

[jlima]

This happened in Aug. 03

DH wanted to take 1 last trip to LA with the kids before school started. The plan was for him to drive with the kids on Thursday from Vegas to LA; go to Soak City on Thursday & Disneyland on Friday; and I would fly out on Friday night from Vegas to Long Beach ($49 on Jet Blue); and we would all go to DL & CA on Sat & Sun morning and drive back on Sunday afternoon.

DH forget the APs. So on Friday they went to Universal instead. I brought the APs with me.

Someone from my office brought me to the airport Fri afternoon and I was there at 5:15. Got checked into my Jet Blue flight which wasn't until 6:45 so I think I only have 1.5 hrs to wait, right? WRONG!! This was the day after the big East Coast blackout, and flights were backed up all over the country due to East Coast airports trying to get back on schedule. The plane I was supposed to fly on was in Long Beach and since its crew had already worked a full day Jet Blue had to find another crew to fly it. Several delays were announced and my flight did not take off until after 10:30p. I could have DRIVEN to LA faster!!!!! To make it worse there was bad turbulence due to rainy weather that the flight could not fly over or around as Vegas is in the flight path of LAX. It was the WORST flight experience I've ever had. Landed after 11:30 and made it to Anaheim Hilton by 12:30a.

DH & the kids did get to stay at Universal until it closed at 8p instead of leaving earlier to fetch me . . . and the Jet Blue people said to hold onto the boarding pass as they would give everybody on the flight $25 off any Jet Blue flight within the next year.

 

[Hawkeye314]

Bumping...always good to see people taking it in stride, though. Not like most of the people on SWA Reality show!