Horror Stories

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Comment by Jose Balido on September 25, 2009 at 9:51am

Hey folks, a fellow travel journalist, Hailey Ratigan, is looking for holiday travel horror stories from travelers for an October 5th deadline. Specifically, she's looking for stories about winter/early spring holidays spent abroad that
didn't turn out as expected -- ideally humorous. Also tips from savvy
travelers on enjoying holidays abroad. Responses should specify if
traveler was alone, on business, or with family. Include location, holiday,
and sentence or two on how things turned out.

Any juicy stories out there? Post them here!

Comment by Andrea Grill on September 18, 2009 at 2:47pm

Imagine if you had stayed there. Next time try serenading with a hearty rendition of Dueling Banjos, or at least Chattanooga Choo Choo.

Comment by Jose Balido on September 18, 2009 at 1:55pm

OK, here's another one.

Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, circa 1999. The fear of Y2K hung thick in the air as I drove around the foothills of the Smoky Mountains looking for the cheapest beds in town for Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel magazine. Let me say upfront, I LOVED Tennessee. The landscapes were spectacular, the barbeque was great, and most of the locals were living monuments to Southern hospitality.

However.

I should've known something was amiss at one particular out-of-the-way motel I pulled up to when I saw the torn screen on the door leading to the office. Not that I have anything against torn screens, but on a motel door, it conjures up images of the Mothman flying through in the middle of the night and throttling you in your sleep. Not a good scene.

Anyway, as I stepped in, a burly man in a worn plaid shirt looked up from whatever he was doing at the time and gave me a good once-over. I launched into my standard cheerful "Good morning, Sir, I'm here to review your property for Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, and --"

Before I could finish the sentence, the man jumped up from his seat and roared at me: "Git the hayl off my property! If I could sue you f***ers I would!!!"

Well, I'd never received such a cordial welcome in all my life, so I promptly skedaddled before he could grab his shotgun. What was going through that man's mind? Had he been jilted by a travel writer? Had his dreams of writing for a glamorous rag been dashed in his youth? Or did he not want me to find the bodies? I'll never know, but I'll always remember the innkeeper in the plaid shirt as one of the more colorful bruises from my writing career.

Comment by Andrea Grill on September 17, 2009 at 8:47pm

That's true. And I make sure to keep a positive attitude when I travel, because it seems to get more painful every trip lately. I've been through the gammit - long delays sitting on planes with no air, food or water & then they end up not even taking off, so you have to spend the night. I've been stuck in snowstorms, thunderstorms, hail storms, icestorms, made up storms. And no one seems to care. The only time it really bothers me is when the delays are so long that you miss your connection & have to figure out how you're going to actually get to your destination in time to make the trip worth it.
But, I still really DO love to travel. Both business and pleasure. So I'm resigned to taking the good with the bad.

Comment by Wendy Capra on September 17, 2009 at 5:15pm

Andrea, I had a similar experience. Travel can be such a pain sometimes! But when I get where I'm going I usually have such a great time I forget all about the airports and hassles.

Comment by David Paul Appell on September 17, 2009 at 12:28pm

The barfing bit reminded me of a flight from Fort Launderdale to New York/LGA this past spring. I almost hesitate to claim it as a true "horror story," since the flight was relatively short, but it certainly was massively annoying at the time.

I was seated in a row directly behind an Orthodox Jewish family, and the father spent an inordinate amount of time davening and winding/unwinding phylacteries and other such accoutrements. That wasn't remotely the issue. It was the kids. While he was doing all this, and the wife sitting there smiling vacantly, right alongside them their little boy and girl were endlessly and loudly babbling, were were never buckled, and were literally jumping up and down on their seats like mini-trampolines. Then they started literally climbing over the seat backs, at several points sticking legs and arms directly in my face. A flight attendant came once or twice to ask the parents to exert some control, with little noticeable effect. The highlight came when suddenly the little girl leaned over and spewed all over her father's lap -- that added a pleasant little olfactory kicker to the whole sensory experience.

To add insult to injury, I was traveling with my small dog, who sometimes gets nervous on takeoffs and landings. So I zipped open his carry bag a tiny bit to reach in and scratch his head reassuringly, and a flight attendant, who was on a jumpseat nearby, said to me, "you're trying to get me fired, aren't you? That's against FAA regulations." I stared at her incredulously, motioned to the row in front, where the kids were still bouncing off everything in sight, and replied, "how many regulations do you think that's breaking?" Ah, the joys of mass travel in the early 21st century...

Comment by Andrea Grill on September 16, 2009 at 12:47pm

We laughed our way through most of it & just chalked it up as another adventure. Nothing really bad happened & it was really more funny than anything else. I also have the attitude that you just have to go with the flow when you travel. It's the spontaneous stuff that usually makes the trip memorable. It also falls into the category of - "you just can't make this shit up", which is why I'd be a terrible fiction writer.

Comment by Jose Balido on September 16, 2009 at 12:21pm

Wow. I think your horror story may be worse than mine, Andrea. I mean, a stranger's puke on your lap, or endless flight delays and no luggage? It's kind of a toss-up......

Comment by Andrea Grill on September 16, 2009 at 12:09am

I have a few horror stories. The best one is heading out to Hawaii on free tickets when PanAm was still around. My husband & I had standy tickets. The deal at that time was that you called the night before to check the status of the flight & you usually got a pretty good feel for whether or not you'd get on the flight. So we showed up at 7am for a flight from JFK to Honolulu after being told the flight was wide open. We even checked our bags for the flight & were told it should be no problem. We got to the gate & the flight was oversold by 250 seats! There was almost a riot at the gate. There was no way we were getting onto that flight or any other flight that would get us to Hawaii within a few days. Since that was now not an option & we had the time already scheduled off from work, we looked at the board & saw our only choice seemed to be a flight leaving for Miami within 15 minutes. We figured we'd visit some friends down there & then go to Disney. So we dash to the gate, only to find that the gate had changed & now the new gate was all the way in the other direction. We run to the new gate & with some argument they let us onto the plane & quickly shut the doors behind us. We sat on the runway forever with JFK traffic. The plane revs up the engines & taxis and then "oops" doesn't take off. A little bit of a mechanical problem. "Easy to fix, no big deal, we're going to get on the back of the line again & try this again". Another 45 minutes on the runway, the plane revs up, taxis & then "oops", again no take off. Now, obviously some people are not willing to take another chance so we have to go back to the gate to let people off the plane. The pilot assures us he will get off the ground this time. The plane is pretty empty now. We're hysterically laughing as we attempt this one more time. Another 45 minutes on the runway & off we go. We finally arrive into Miami close to midnight. As we're approaching the car rental booth a women is waving her arms saying "Don't bother, we have no cars available". I'm normally very mild mannered and non-confrontational. I just kept walking toward her & said "What kind of car can you give us?" I must've had the look of a terrorist by that point because the rental agent came up with a set of keys so fast. We drove to Ft. Lauderdale to spend the night at a friend's. It was January & about the coldest weather on record in Florida. So, since we had no luggage (it had a wonderful time in Hawaii), we had to buy clothes and even coats. Since we were on standby tickets, the airline would not send us our luggage, since they deemed it as basically our own fault. We had a great time at Expo & I sent postcards from all the different countries we visited, since everyone thought we were in Hawaii. On the way home, we were only able to get a flight back from Tampa. They boarded us onto the plane, but then let 2 people on with the same boarding pass seat numbers, so we were escorted off the plane quite embarrassingly. They did however, accommodate us on the next flight.
We now arrive into JFK airport on the coldest day of the year. Our luggage is in their warehouse in a hangar next to the terminal. We have to find it ourselves among hundreds of unclaimed bags. It was about 2 degrees outside & it think it was about 5 below inside! It took us about an hour to find our bags.
We tried to get a taxi home, but because we lived within 15 minutes of the airport, no one wanted to take us because it takes the cabs a really long time to get back into the airport during peak hours & they want the bigger fares (the law has changed since then & now they have to accept any ride). We had to wait more than 2 hours before someone would take us.
I think we both slept for a whole day once we made it home.
P.S. We don't fly standy anymore.

Comment by David Paul Appell on September 15, 2009 at 5:24pm

Yes, that may be a little tough to top, I must admit (short of, say, getting locked in the cargo hold). But let's hear yours, too, Andrea! Here it's all about comparing notes, right?

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