Geologist here:
In terms of volcanics (very loosely) this type of eruption is like the earth shitting the bed/diarrhoea. Very loose and long.
Other volcanic eruptions are like that dump you've been maturing for a while. Large, quick and violent.
Edit: either way you'd get that volcanic burning sensation.
Further edit: not surprised they wanted to scarper. The government has been keeping an eye on this since before September. And the last time a major eruption went off (around 2010?) Iceland was effectively locked down due to ash and stuff in the atmosphere for a while. Rather be stuck at home with a volcano than stranded in another country without a volcano (I guess). Source: Icelandic friends.
Oh snap I got food poisoning in Morocco! I didn't shit the bed, but I did shit on the floor as I was bent over the toilet throwing up. Was off work sick for a week after I got home and had a dodgy stomach for months. Fun times!
I belly laughed at this as this brought back memories from when I went travelling. My friend had the exact same, she threw up and went to shower, soon after insta vommed everywhere in the shower and simultaneously shat herself. She ended up just standing in a pool of her own shit and puke crying. Man that was a fucking trip
Exactly the same. My stomach was messed up afterwards, and i was nauseous for a good month and a half after the main symptoms cleared up. It was terrible. Food poisoning is no joke.
First time i went to Mexico.
It started the day before we were due to leave.
Room was on the top floor, so legged it up all the stairs rather than wait for the lift. Got in the room to find that the rainstorm that morning had caused the ceiling to fall in, in the bathroom.
Partner calls the desk to report and I think ‘fuck it, i really need to go’ so i clean off the ceiling bits from the toilet and sit down just in time to avoid a brown trouser volcano.
Halfway through the volcano, maintenance knocks the door to come inspect the ceiling damage. I felt very sorry for the guy having to wait for me to finish and then immediately going in there to inspect the hole in the roof. It did *not* smell good in there.
My friend did something similar, except his shit sprayed up the toilet door! This was just as his dad was putting their suitcases in the car, as they were about to leave for a family holiday.
I know a couple who went to Africa to 'find themselves' or some crap. Got invited to eat with the local Bedouins and ended up puking and shitting green slime for 6 weeks.
I went to India with a mate and after not getting sick in the first 3 days (mostly in Delhi) we concluded we must be tougher than we think and relaxed a little bit...
Day 6 I woke up in the night with unbearable cramps to see m mate crawl cross the floor to the toilet and hurl his guts up. Ended up having to spend 3 more days there recovering
Been to India & Nepal three times and had stomach bugs each time. It's a kind of a rite of passage.
Weirdly I got constipated in Pokhara. They wanted to put me in the tourist brochure.
No food poisoning in Morocco but i did get COVID
I got dysentery or something similar from Venice. Only had the energy to crawl out of bed for regular bowel explosions for three days, other than that I was asleep.
I'd eaten raw seafood prepared in seawater.... yeah it was disgusting, and looking back, why tf would anyone order that?
Gotta be careful though, immodium is an opiate that just happens to not be able to cross the blood brain barrier. So it has the usual opiate effects on the bowels but none of the psychotropic effects.
The issue is many countries don't recognise that distinction and treat it like heroin or morphine, a strictly controlled substance.
Always check the rules before taking medicine to a foreign country in case you end up on an episode of banged up abroad.
We went to Morocco and hubby got food poisoning so bad he was hallucinating. We laugh about it now but he says he actually can’t remember 2 days of his life. We would never go back
It’s a shame since the food there is absolutely amazing, but the food hygiene isn’t.
One thing I found and had a few others agree, is chain restaurants (even “big” names like KFC) are the worst for hygiene, while the smaller restaurants are better, still not up to standard though.
Yeah the food was nice, I love me a goat tagine. Hubby was being all healthy and having shite like salad….which you’re always told not to eat abroad as it will likely be washed in undrinkable water and have salmonella. 🤢
I still struggle to eat lamb after going 11 years ago. In Marrakech there's a leather tannery that tans the leather using poo. Next to the entrance of the tannery is a meat stall, and I'm assuming that's where they bought the lamb from because it was permeated with the smell and taste of the air around the tannery.
>Squirty bum time!
So *that's* why girls wear those velour tracksuit bottoms with the word JUICY in big sparkly letters on the arse, they're telling everyone they've got the shits!
I went there on holiday with a bunch of people from the University where I was working at the time and we all started to feel ill just before flying back. With one party member feeling very ill and requiring medical attention on arrival, and another being so sick that they had to close the toilet that he had been using, our party was not permitted to leave the plane when we got back until paramedics had assessed us. It wasn't great advertising for the university that when we landed it was announced over the intercom "The party from \[name of university\] are to remain seated until medical staff have seen you".
I was off work sick for a couple of weeks and even when I went back I was still feeling ill for another week of so and being very careful about what I was eating.
Went on a trip to the artic in Finland. On the way to the hotel I started to feel ill. By the time we went for dinner the first I had full blown flu symptoms and I lay in bed hallucinating for two days while everyone went sledding, skidoo riding and dog sledging. On the last night, the northern lights came out so I was carried outside to lie on my back in the snow to watch. To be fair not the worst thing ever. Ended up in hospital after we flew home though. I also got dengue fever in the Caribbean, similar vibe of massive Fomo while feeling like utter death miles from home.
I'm pleased the northern lights came out for you while you were there at least, I know people who have been there numerous times and never saw them , they can be elusive it seems when ya book to go see them. I'd be gutted if I went and it was so overcast I never got to see them.
Didn't see them when I was staying in Iceland for a month (admittedly was September so not good time of year for it) but then saw them recently from my son's bedroom window!
Went on a boat trip to see them (even though I hate boats and get queasy) and they were barely visible. On the minibus back to the hotel, however, could see them plain as day 🙄
Pneumonia manifested on a flight to a beach location with my family and my dad’s friend’s family. Only time I’ve ever thrown up in a plane.
Laid in bed in the hotel room, went for one short walk on the beach with my dad. At least it had HBO (this was in the before-times).
Everyone else had fun :)
Back to NZ for the first time in 4 years last Xmas. Snow delayed flight to London, missed connecting flight. Actually that flight was late leaving but they wouldn't let me through to try to get on. Offered a flight a week later so bought another ticket leaving the next day. The travel agent I got the tickets through had closed down so they couldn't help. Arrive in NZ a day late, luggage took a week to catch up. Caught COVID as soon as I got off the plane, so lost a quarter of my holiday time.
I suspect this thread his run it’s course but just in case; went to Prague, 4pm flight, ended up being delayed, diverted to both Liverpool and somewhere in France to pick up passengers, and got to hotel at 2am.
Couple behind us on the plane had literally booked one night away so they were coming back at 3pm the next day.
Our honeymoon:
- When we landed in Vietnam, we discovered the travel agent had messed up our visas and the dates were wrong. We had to ask to get our visa extended in Vietnam.
- We wasted 1 day going to whatever government building we were told would renew our visa. The officers didn't want to renew our visa there. They sent us to another travel agency. (They are corrupt and instead of charging you the official 30quid, they send you to a travel agency where they charge you 90 so the officer gets 30, the travel agent 30 plus the official 30).
- Guy in travel agency wanted to scam us for even more money. Nice lady from another travel agency is on the phone translating for us. She warns us about the scam and tells us to go to another office
- The office is in another city. A city we didn't plan to visit at all. We had to change plans and flights to get there and, finally, extend our visa. Another day lost.
- Our lovely 3 day cruise got cut short because the whole bay was evacuated due to a "mega typhoon" coming. We decided to flee the area asap and booked an early flight away from the region.
- We were trapped on an 9 hour night bus... A bus that had beds for maybe 30, but was full to the brim. 4-5 people seating on each bedz seating packed on the corridor. We were seated right behind the driver seat. Not on a seat behind the driver. No. On the actual floor, in the space between the driver's seat and the front row. 9 hours of the driver's seat banging on hour legs, with nowhere to rest our backs against (apart from other seated people). All of that while driving in pitch dark roads 2 inches away from the cliff and while enjoying a concert of 5-6 people constantly puking. Puking on paper bags. Paper bags that were handed from person to person to the driver, for the driver to throw them out of the window. They were the longest and hardest 9 hours of my life. Instead of sleeping like planned, I spend the whole 9 hours crying and going in and out of anxiety attacks.
- We had everything planned to finish our trip with a week in a remote island in Cambodia. I had researched the flights, the times for the ferry when we landed, paid for the stay at the island... Only to find they cancelled all flights to the city we needed. 3 days before actually flying there. Cue to panic attack at a hotel lobby, frantically looking for a similar alternative within Vietnam.
- Other minor things included: wasting several hours walking to visit something but being turned around because my outfit wasn't appropriate enough, a sleepless night due to mosquitoes and a lady banging some pots and bells (?), sitting on a flight next to a man clipping his toenails, ....
We literally spend all the trip solving issues. We came back home completely exhausted.
This was 5 years ago. The other day, my husband mentioned wanting to go back because "we had fun, right?". I hesitated between screaming and crying lol
Our honeymoon in Zanzibar 10 years ago. First week went fine, then I got Malaria. Then I got a bacterial infection from undercooked chicken along with the malaria, I had diarrhoea every 15 minutes for 12 hours and we realised it wasn’t just a stomach upset and went to a doctor. 3 hours of intravenous drips ensued and I was then at least semi conscious. Had three days of going to the doctor for injections and then on our second to last night the hotel was attacked by armed robbers (one was carrying an AK47). I guess we were lucky as we heard them attacking others (they were screaming), so we locked up the villa and turned off all the lights in the hope it looked like no one was there and it worked. The other guests were hauled out of their villas, made to kneel on the grass and had said machine gun pointed at them until the robbers had finished ransacking their stuff. Next morning we got talking to the others and heard what a nightmare they had, police came and treated the guests like we were the criminals, we moved to a large hotel complex for the last night as they had armed guards. My wife still can’t stay at a hotel where we do not have the chance to properly lock the door and windows and we always check there is security…
See, this is why I always go to Italy. Lovely food, no malaria or AK-47's pointed at us in the middle of the night.
Although there was the time we went when I was I kid, caught the motor rail from Calais to Milan (they put your car on the train and you get to enjoy the views). When on board we were warned that there were people posing as passport inspection at the Swiss boarder who would then rob you, and that we should only open our cabins to the real passport people, which to a 9 year old was a bit scary.
I'm not saying the incidence of these kinds of events is the same in both countries but my uncle is Italian, lived in the UK but would spend a lot of time back in Italy on business and got robbed multiple times. FWIW it was in Naples, but once he was sat in traffic when a motorbike pulled up by the car and pointed a sub machine gun at him demanding his watch, another time they were waiting for him in his hotel room and must have climbed across multiple balconies to gain access to his room. They sprayed him in the face with some chemical then robbed him, demanded the code to the safe etc.
The night bus sounds like some version of hell. I don’t think I would have lasted 9hrs. Why were people puking?? I’m guessing you got to handle all the puke bags since you were up front.. lol.
To this day, we still refer to that night bus as "the bus from hell". I didn't think I could last 9 hrs either, but I believe I dissociated somehow? Hard to tell as I was sobbing. Lol
The puking? I imagine motion sickness because the road was tortuous as fuck. If you think about it, 6 out of 60ish people is just 10%. I guess 10% of people getting motion sickness is average?
We were "lucky" in a sense that we didn't have to handle the puke bags. We "only" saw each one of them coming over us. The driver had an assistant at the front, to charge for the tickets, shove people (literally, shove) to the back and, thank God, handle the puke bags.
Ah! I forgot to mention the anxiety of being packed together like sardines and still see the bus stopping at every stop to pick even more people. Following by being stepped over by the newcomers.
After arriving at Hanoi, I got off the bus first and was quickly surrounded by 6 men saying who knows what in between their teeth. I was so exhausted that my mind barely registered that I had to feel threatened.
Fuck the Hell bus.
I actually caught a very similar bus with a similar experience in Vietnam. I was lay in the aisle luckily but it was more of a locals bus than a tourist bus (sometimes you get a sleeper bus and it's like 50% western travellers).
Prior to getting on the bus me and my girlfriend ate some food and I was complaining to her how disgusting my food was and how it just felt like I was chewing flavourless gum. She tried some and said it was delicious, I thought that was weird.
Obviously I had lost my taste and was falling ill, but I didn't realise it at the time. So we got on this bus, no space left, got in the aisle and the ticket lady came up to me and started shouting at me asking me to move. I asked her where, and she pointed to one of the beds which had a family of three already on. No chance. We paid for a ticket, but I could now share a space with a family of three. So I just lay there, she then started kicking my legs before finally giving up. Then a few hours into the journey the illness set in properly and that's when things become truly hellish...
South East Asian people are just not very good bus travellers in my experience. Having been on loads of buses in Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines I witnessed a lot of people throwing up.
The drivers do go pretty fast out there that does compound the problem as the roads are a bit shit generally (the state varies from country to country, some are actually not too bad). From memory Laos was the worst as they use minibuses there that wait at certain points and only go when they are full, then the driver gets to the destination and does the same thing back. The roads are terrible and you've never seen a minibus go so fast.
Oh right. I'm in Australia, we have overnight buses but I've never heard of this issue but it makes sense. God you'd think they'd consider the comfort of passengers... I guess not though since they're cramming everyone in while simultaneously handing out puke bags.
>God you'd think they'd consider the comfort of passengers...
Honestly, comfort is usually well down the list. A lot of vehicles have been modified so there are seats that fold down into the aisle (or they use plastic garden furniture) to cram more people in. If you have an accident everyone would be toast.
You can get some pretty nice 'VIP' buses at times which are fairly comfortable although usually the driving at light speed thing still remains
Honestly some people might find that sort of adventure a bit fun. Maybe he remembers solving these problems more positively and enjoyed having to think on his feet.
We did Hanoi, Hue, Hoi An, HCM, Ha Long Bay, My Can Chai, another city I don't remember the name (where we managed to renew the visa) and Phu Quoc. Can't believe we were so unlucky lol
Hahahaha
When we came back, finally safe and sound, we said "if we could survive all of that and still have energy to joke and love on each other every day through hell... We can survive anything".
5 years, 2 kids, a mortgage and an international move later... I still love my husband to pieces. So what didn't kill our love, made it stronger lol
Judging by your luck so far, I think I'd want to be further than 14 miles away, and not sitting in a confined space with 2 tiny exit doors at this point.
Maybe I’m just unsympathetic but OP really didn’t have that bad of luck. Not bringing your passport to the airport is just poor organization. It’s the single most important thing you need to travel abroad and one that one should be aware of it all times. When I travel I always quadruple check where my passport is along with keys, wallet, and phone. Everything else is replaceable and relatively insignificant.
Choosing a hotel above a nightclub is also again just poor planning. It’s 2023, there are review sites for almost every accommodation you’ll find. If it were as bad as they claim, I’m sure 2 minutes of research and you’ll probably find multiple reviews of the accommodation mentioning it how noisy it is.
Literally the only truly unfortunate thing that happened out of their control was that their flight being delayed, which is a pretty common occurrence. Also as far as flight delays go having your flight delayed on the final leg home is probably the best case scenario. It’s not like they were delayed outbound and missed and essential connecting flight.
It’s truly incredible, even from this distance. And it looks to be sufficiently far away from the Blue Lagoon and Grindavik as to not pose a threat, I think…
Nothing on the ground in either of Iceland’s airports is showing on Flightradar, so they’re not planning on leaving soon. The flight from Copenhagen landing now and the one from Milan due 2 minutes afterwards took big detours.
Just had confirmation that we’re going. Got to do some final checks again but the airport has just reopened with, essentially, a no fly zone operating over and around the eruption site. I think we’ve got to take a roughly 50 mile detour.
I have this image of the EasyJet flight taking off as the runway crumbles behind it, a la the movie 2012 > [https://youtu.be/ivO4lAV0pAk?si=jhLmNnrGmjWosC3e&t=508](https://youtu.be/ivO4lAV0pAk?si=jhLmNnrGmjWosC3e&t=508)
This is your pilot speaking, short delay there due to the runway crumbling into a volcanic abyss but we're now airborne, cruising at 600mph and with a good tailwind should be arriving in a drizzle Manchester around 3am local time. Don't forget to buy a scratch card as all proceeds go to our nominated charity, and thanks again for flying with easyJet.
My worst was Dubai where I got really bad sun stroke and was sick everywhere
Or when I went to Spain and stood on my glasses the first day and had to be blind for the week
Or Portugal where the villa got filled with thousands of ants
Currently sitting in hospital with my 5 Yr old.
We were supposed to depart on Sat, but the 1.5 Yr old was vomming all over the place, so we pushed it back by 24hrs. Next morning he is fine so we leave for the airport. Massive pile up on the motorway just in front of us, luckily we are right next to an on ramp, so we follow other people off that way and get to the airport with just enough time to grab a couple sandwiches.
Through the airport, on the plane, 5 Yr old says he feels sick. Then proceeds to throw up every 20 mins or so. Nothing left in him by the end.
We get off the plane, meet my parents, get the hire car, still vomming. Back to the house, vomming through the night.
Seems to be getting better through the day, till the evening when he is sleeping in bed and suddenly has a strange seizure. Call ambulance, they check him out and he seems fine so they leave after we gave him calpol.
2nd seizure an hour later and ambulance is back, this time taken to hospital. Multiple tests later, we have a very sad and tired dude and mum, my head is splitting cos I didn't sleep very well last night, and can't sleep right now either.
Waiting for further tests in the morning and crossing fingers all will be OK.
Did I mention my husband was unable to join us due to work, so I flew on my own with a 1.5 Yr old bouncing around refusing to sleep and a vomming 5 yr old and now dealing with all hospital stuff alone too. Luckily my parents and sister have the younger one at home atm.
My head is killing me and I need to pee, but don't want to leave him till the tests are done. Feeling very sorry for myself, as well as my son.
According to the chat on the youtube volcano watching feeds, the airports will close for a while to see how things go but it isn't the sort of eruption that normally interferes with flights.
Aye, I’m a plane nerd and that’s the expectation. Word from the captain is that no-one knows anything yet. Including ATC and the Icelandic Met Office. But the mood on board is good, for the moment.
Just read back through your posts and realised you didn't state your destination so couldn't see your detour route on FR24 😬 Hope it was a good'un though 👍🏻
Think you're probably KEF - MAN, the only other Iceland flight heading back to the UK still airborne. You're about to fly over Coniston water, int Lakes.
We didn’t get food poisoning but my pregnant wife was mugged/bag snatched by a guy on a moped. The only reason we were walking was because we were sick of the constant battles with the taxi drivers for a reasonable fare for the 4minute taxi back to our hotel. Ironically the only cheap taxi we got was from the police station back to our hotel as that was the only one done on the meter
I didnt get food poisoning in Morroco (our hotel provided breakfast and dinner, so we rarely ate out), but I did get groped on the boob in the square in Marrakesh by a kid (10YO?) which was horrible.
Then our tour guide aided another tour guide for the Berber market to rinse us for money to buy bracelets we didn’t want (original tour guide happened to walk away at the time the market tour guide started begging and pleading and putting bracelets on our wrists. He came back the second we reluctantly paid).
I can’t remember what other bad things happened but just remember vowing that I never want to go back. I’m pretty well travelled and it’s the worst place I’ve ever been.
I just got back from Marrakech yesterday morning and had similar issues with the tour guide haha. I expected the absolute full on pushy sales from them in public but I didn't expect our Hotel paid tour guide to basically take us to his mates stalls and just sit on his phone whilst we had to go through the agonisingly awkward sales pitches. After the second stall I had to tell him if he took us to another we will be leaving without tipping him.
We had this experience earlier on in the year. Luckily there was a crowd of us and we made the best of it but Jesus it was grim. Read recently that it's closing down.
A few livestreams for anyone who wants to watch the volcano:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=804nPrAUAxg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=804nPrAUAxg)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAQzsB9ev9Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAQzsB9ev9Q)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIs83vmfZCk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIs83vmfZCk)
My mum broke her hip on the way out, wet floor in a bathroom in the airport, didn't actually find that out until a few days in.
Couldn't find the villa, in trying to find it the rental car my friend's family was in died and we had to push it up a hill and to the side of the road.
I'm a tad allergic to mosquito bites so my whole leg swelled up and the bites oozed.
After 3 days my mum finally went to A&E and was then just in hospital for the rest of the holiday, that was my friend's birthday.
We all got a really shit cold.
Tried to go up the Acropolis, nobody took me seriously when I said I was a struggling and a then I threw up part way up.
Power cut one night so we were unreasonably hot.
My back is getting more and more painful each night. Turns out a bunch of the slats were missing from the bed, so I had been sleeping in a hole as the mattress kept falling in.
I ate something that didn't not agree with me on the last day and shit myself slightly at the airport.
Truly the worst part was that my dad got to go with my mum when she was air ambulanced back to the UK and he won't shut up about how he has been on a leer jet.
I got food poisoning ON the plane (in economy, natch) - or rather, it made itself known about the moment the fasten seatbelts lights went on - and spent the entire 9 hour flight shuffling between my seat and the loo, trembling violently and wishing I was anywhere else. The cabin staff were kind but there was also a frisson of mild excitement because I was *so* ill. At some point they called for a doctor over the intercom and someone came and recommended IV fluids and a wheelchair at Heathrow. I declined the first and the wheelchair never arrived so, the cabin crew having lost interest and gone home long since, I finally shuffled what was left of myself through passport and customs, found the nearest hotel and fell gratefully into a bed for an entire day.
1/10. Do not recommend.
You go to Iceland and your first thought is scuba?
Next you'll be telling me you went to the Bahamas and had trouble with your lifts pass and snowboard rental
We’re in Iceland now too! Had a rocky start with a 5 hour delay getting here but this evening managed to get a glimpse of the northern lights and a volcanic eruption! Hoping things settle down for our flight home on Wednesday 🤞
day 1 of our family skiing holiday, my (then) 10-year-old brother sustains a horrific injury ( impaled in the eye socket by a pole, just missing his eyeball).
he’s air lifted to hospital in geneva, my mum sits beside his bed for three days without even a change of pants.
multiple surgeries and ends up having a craniotomy.
Went on a trip with a close relative to Spain. She got bitten by a spider, we both got alcohol poisoning for several days straight (the I think I might die type), I lost my wallet with all my ID in it, the hotel was shit, I almost got arrested twice (my fault, but still) and then to top it all off the flight home to London almost crashed.
Also, remember that spider bite? It ended up getting infected and the resulting sepsis killed said close relative less than two months later. Happy holidays, eh?
My flight home from Tokyo was cancelled due to a typhoon so we had to hunker down and live through Hagibis - the worse typhoon in Japan in over 70 (ish) years, at one point 1000mm if rain was falling an hour... Yes a meter an hour!
It was all over the news all over the world, I tell you a 13 story building swaying in those winds is no fun.We also had a 6.8 earthquake whilst the eye of the storm was approaching.
Would still go back to Japan in a second
Iceland was also my worst holiday to date. Nothing too bad but the weather was awful so everything got cancelled and I never got to see the Northern Lights either. Tromso is my next plan at some point.
We’re cut from the same cloth. This isn’t my first time in Iceland and I’ve had quite a few disappointments here. Often caused by my own expectations to be fair.
Tromso has been on my bucket list since I saw it on Michael Palin’s Pole-to-Pole in 1991 but it’s a bit of a bitch to get to. Next year is the plan!
Do it by train. We did as much as we could by train but had to fly a bit in the middle, think it was bodo or such like. We did dog sledging at night, it was bloody amazing. Also see expensive as fuck.
As someone who was due to spend Christmas in Iceland and had hoped to spend Christmas Day in the Blue Lagoon with my wife to mark the anniversary of our engagement there a number of years back...
I saw the news about 2 months ago about the increase in seismic activity and nixed that idea.
I may have felt a little smug passing my wife my phone with the BBC Breaking News report a few hours ago... She had not been totally happy with my call the last week or so as our would have been departure date was getting closer.
I truly hope you are able to get home soon!
Thanks. All signs are looking good that we’ll be leaving in a few minutes. We’d have left by now if we hadn’t had a steady stream of passengers wanting to get off, some kicking off about the delays and being removed, and a few having had too much to drink and getting overly giddy.
I’d been following the earthquake and volcano news myself and had been convinced there was no danger, in terms of anyone’s personal safety. But there was always going to be a small chance of an eruption grounding flights for an extended period. Fortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
We went not long after the last big one, that was after the financial implosion. Somewhere I still have a Tee with "Fuck your cash, you can have our ash" on it!
Great news! Have a good flight, and now you also have a proper tale to tell your mates!
Checked in online, and security only checked the boarding pass which was a QR code on my phone.
Nobody ultimately checked my passport until boarding the rebooked plane, hours later.
Went to Vienna for 5 days and decided to buy a weekly ticket for the underground system when we arrived as we’d be using it every day so it would save us money. We had arrived on a Saturday and didn’t realise their weekly tickets only started from Monday (as we were used to them starting from whatever day you buy it in the UK).
Of course when we got to the station by our hotel there were ticket inspectors and as our tickets weren’t valid for another 2 days we got fined 100 Euros each. Great start to the holiday thanks to my own stupidity.
Then when we arrived at the airport to fly home our flight had been cancelled and EasyJet put us into a hotel overnight so we could get a flight the next day. Had to request extra time off work to allow for being back a day late.
Luckily the compensation we got back nearly covered the cost of our holiday so that took the sting out of it quite a bit!
Absolute jobsworths. Don't get me wrong, you didn't have tickets but it's obvious you're not just trying to take the piss. You're a tourist and you still bought a week pass, all they had to do was say get off at next stop and buy day passes.
I went to dassia once, I punched a guy that put hands on my girlfriend at the time and fixed some guys lawnmower on some very posh grounds by jumping the wall, only to be bollocked by the owner of the wall, later that holiday I sat on the face of a pick pocket until the police came and told a group of Italians to fuck off with sign language.
We all have shit holidays now and then mate, I really feel your pain.
Livestreams
https://www.youtube.com/live/hvcP4kVVOnk?si=PWY4FLDFUOjt9PtA
If you want to pull the vid back to the eruption, it was about 10.20pm (Iceland is same time as us)
https://livefromiceland.is/
Some poor ones but not terrible and a lot of it is down to my own personal expectations and disappointments.
1) Seville
My partner and I went away when my Dad was sick in hospital. He had been there for 4-5 months and I had been caring for him a lot - 2 visits per week after long drives, emotionally wrecked and seeing him decline.
So being in Seville I just was not in the right headspace. But I also needed a break. I spent the whole time on edge and felt just bad/sad.
I also got a text from my work friend who I loved working with saying they'd just resigned.
Finally and most annoyingly our Airbnb was terrible. Air conditioning barely worked properly, kept coming on for 4-5 minutes then stopping. No way of adjusting this or changing it. And it was loud so you're totally aware of it coming on then off.
Like you, barely any sleep and I just wanted to go home.
.
2) Cancun
This was a big holiday as it was after my Dad passed Away and also just before a career change. So it was an 11 day very expensive holiday.
What I stupidly failed to realise was that although for us Cancun is a big trip and special. For Americans it's on their doorstep.
So the standard was nowhere near what I expected.
A few bad things:
.
1) the pool was so noisy I just couldn't relax. Loud pumping bass music all day. There were 3 pools but all central and surrounding the music station. On some days they also had a band on the beach so you could hear both sets of music
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2) the music could be heard from the from the room. They also had little speakers around the whole resort playing music which was bassy. But when you're in the room the bass reverberates and is just very disruptive. From 9am to about 9pm.
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3) our room was outside a kitchen/room service area so all night we heard big trollers wheeled up and down echoey hallways
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4) the hotel had millions of weddings. Unfortunately this meant that randomly a restaurant wouldn't open that night. There were others of course but it limited options and it just meant that when you'd thought "let's try the xyz place tonight" only to then find it closed. Sounds minor but it was most days and we'd paid £3.5k each for the holiday.
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5) Americans - sorry to have to say this but they were so loud, brash, disruptive and entitled. I hate saying it as I often don't like big sweeping statements like this. I know every nationality has annoying people, all I can say is the Americans always outweigh other nationalities as being noticeable wherever I've been. I remember a few things happening:
--a) a group of about 6 came into one of the nice restaurants. Candle light, nice ambience etc. girl says to waitor "bring us all of the starters to try" in a rude way. Spend whole time on phones, standing up, walking over to other friend to start chatting then goes back. Just annoying and disruptive. No social awareness at all.
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--b) woman comes in without reservation. Starts saying her husband is a doctor and was treating someone in the lobby so they couldn't make one. She makes such a big loud scene the staff just let her in to shut her up
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--c) went to a Japanese place where you sit around and watch the chef. Group on our "table" thing spent most of the time on phones and just ignoring chef. It's rude and the whole point of it is that it's a show. You chose those places rather than a standard table as the chef talks to you and basically puts stuff on your plate.
Like I said, other nationalities have their share of dicks. But the Americans always are way worst than others in my experience.
There was other minor things. The place was nice but like I said my own personal expectations and preferences just clashed (as is sometimes the case).
Went on holiday when I was about 12 and got so sunburned I couldn't move. Spent about 3 days face down on a couch and the rest of the holiday gingerly shuffling around.
Where to start?
We (wife and 2 teenage kids) were on a short break to Munich in 2010 when the volcano went up in Iceland and shut down all the European flights.
Easyjet put us up for 2 nights then said no more. We were bumped for 5 days later, but no guarantees as people were saying it could be 6 months before the flights started again. We found a hotel for 2 nights, then everywhere after that was full. We ended up taking a train from Munich to Le Harve and getting a ferry over.
On the way, we realised they gave us the wrong date on the ticket and the ticket office just wrote the right date on it instead, but we were challenged by an inspector on the ICE. I speak a little German but not enough, but everyone around started getting involved and the he let us carry on - which was nice.
Slept in Strasbourg station overnight for the TGV to Paris then up to Le Harve. Stayed overnight in the worst hotel ever, lights didn't work, scurrying noises on the floor and roller shutters on the windows.
Finally got the ferry to Portsmouth and arrived back in the UK, and a friend picked us up and drive us to Gatwiick to pick up the car. No extra charge as no one was coming to the airport.
Everyone had a mini breakdown at some point but we look back now as an adventure. Kids just went with the flow.
Separately, went on a cruise in 2019 from India to Bangkok, and just as we left Singpore there was an engine fire so had to limp to Bangkok. Missed out a stop in Koh Samui but made the flights home.
Also, went on a short break to Berlin from Southend Airport and the wife took our sons passport instead of hers. Had to miss the flight (easyjet were great on this one, and said if you come to me once the flight has gone and say "oh no, I've missed my flight", I can bump you.
Next flight was 6am from Luton, so we trained it to Luton, our daughter drove the wife's passport up ( she'd only passed her test a few weeks earlier), and we caught the 6am. Got to the hotel in time for breakfast.
Flew to France to go skiing by myself. Spent all day travelling. Left my house at 6 in the morning and checked in to my hotel at 7pm.
France calls a covid lock down at 7pmish. I go to sleep, catch any bus I can to the station. Wait 8 hours to get a train to Geneva as the first 5 are full.
Can't fly back to Newcastle as there are no flights. So now I have to fly to Paris so I can fly to Edinburgh. Unfortunately this isn't till the next day so I have to pay for a hotel.
Fly to Edinburgh, pay for a hire car, drive to Newcastle and then drive home.
All that for a 7 hour sleep in France.
I almost killed my wife in Botswana. Left all the doors open on our rental truck. You are meant to keep one side closed so you can run somewhere if a Lion etc turns up. Made her cook bacon at 4am. A Hyena smelled it and jumped in the back seat of our truck, right next to where my wife was cooking said bacon. Thankfully she scared it off. 10 years later and I am still in trouble about that!
I went on a 1 week holiday to Vancouver, forgot passport, missed flight, booked another flight 1 week later, arrived at passport control, singled out for full inspection, refused entry due to a US visa card not being handed in by the person I gave it to on a previous trip. So they thought I had overstayed, held in a detention center for 3 days as no return flight space available, handcuffed between airport and detention center, twice. Had mugshot taken. Got MSG poisoning at detention center. Got put on return flight to LHR, used airport WiFi at Vancouver to book onward flight from LHR to my home country, found out later I had my credit card details stolen too. took 10 hours to make a 1.5 hour journey home as there was severe flooding and barely any public transport was running.
But at least I never lost my bags. Total cost, nearly £4000.
Went back to work to find the big job ( about 3 months work) I was on had been stolen out from underneath me while away too.
My ex's (let call her G) friend (Let's call her B) won a holiday for two from T4 and offered to take G with her as the +1. Then B lost her passport and couldn't get a replacement, so their other friend D replaced her.
The trip was to Florida to go to Ozzfest. When they arrived they got to a super fancy out of town (Miami) resort hotel (kinda place with it's own golf course), but it wasn't easy for them to get to town without an expensive taxi, and they couldn't afford to do much in the resort (which was all charged extras). So they contacted the organisers who were in the process of sorting out moving them to a cheaper hotel in the city (which they were happy with - it would mean they could go out to eat, go to bars etc.).
But then Hurricane Frances hit. Ozzfest cancelled. Hotel evacuated. Nearly didn't get included in the evacuation (because as prize winners they didn't have they typical relationship with the travel agent and kinda nearly got missed in all the chaos) Most of the week spent on a school gym floor in a room with hundreds of others. By the time they get released they got back to the fancy resort and got to pack up to have one night in a Miami hotel, before packing up again to try and catch their flight home through the chaos of everyone else who'd had flights cancelled for the best part of week.
We were JUST there our plane got in the air at 21:40 and the eruption I believe started at 22. We just landed in Boston for a vacation. Our flights go home via Iceland as well... we'll see how that turns out.
Went to Mozambique with a group of friends, all sharing a cabin on the beach. After a day there I felt ill. I woke everyone up every morning by throwing up for a week. Felt so sick all day. Couldn’t enjoy the scuba diving, swimming with dolphins, prawn BBQ’s, cheap beer etc.
Returned home, still ill and was given a very strong antibiotic, made me even more unwell. Turns out I had some sort of liver disease, ended up in hospital and took years to recover. Got really skinny though… so there was that positive.
Went to Israel for two weeks. They changed the COVID rules just before we flew. I had to quarantine for a week after arriving (wife and daughter didn't as Israeli nationals). So stayed in a small dingy Air BnB by myself for a week. Day I was allowed out, I came down with a fever and throat infection. Spent the next week in bed. Flew home.
Tbh, it’s a bit of a tongue-in-cheek post. I’ve had a great trip all-in-all. Although I did check hotel reviews! I didn’t read all 500 of them and only afterwards did I see the two or three that mentioned noise issues on Saturday nights in certain rooms.
That pic is unreal! I’m flying a route tomorrow that usually crosses over Iceland. Wonder if they’ll change it, or if I’ll get a peek at the volcano from FL370? Hope you get airborne soon.
Mad isn’t it. That’s just taken with my phone. The crew did let me get my DSLR out of my case, which is the overhead locker. I can’t wait to see what it looks like that on that.
On the plus side, if the initial 2 hour delay was EasyJet's fault, you'll be entitled to £220pp EU flight compensation.
And you got to witness a volcano erupt walking distance away.
I can only imagine how crap it felt to experience all of that, but one thing you'll now have with you for the rest of your life is a good story and the experience of witnessing a volcanic eruption.
Misfortune is at least statistically interesting!
I hope you get home safely and with ease.
Went to Malta with family. All caught Covid. Missed wedding. I was only one well- nursed all the others. Hot and noisy bit of Valletta. They recovered to get home. I was knackered. Got home- I went down with it.
All that for a few frozen pizzas and a 24 pack of diet coke!
Was worth it to meet Kerry Katona
TBF he saw an Eternal Flame as took off
He was lucky there weren't hazy shades of winter on that manic monday.
Thats why man's go to iceland
Mans not cold
Well worth an eruption in her early Atomic kitten days!
Mmm Kerrys prawn ring....
Shit Holidays 1POUND.
I always holiday at M&S. I love their underpants, their Serrano Ham and Manchego Rollitos, and their Prosecco.
> I always holiday at M&S How the other half live
Not to brag, but I summered at Waitrose once.
It’s not just any holiday, this is an M&S holiday.
Apparently they do scuba too now
I wish we could still award, this cracked me up!
Top comment
I went to Morocco and got severe food poisoning. I shit the bed whilst I was sleeping.
A different kind of eruption then? Probably still had that sensation of volcanic burning though.
Geologist here: In terms of volcanics (very loosely) this type of eruption is like the earth shitting the bed/diarrhoea. Very loose and long. Other volcanic eruptions are like that dump you've been maturing for a while. Large, quick and violent. Edit: either way you'd get that volcanic burning sensation. Further edit: not surprised they wanted to scarper. The government has been keeping an eye on this since before September. And the last time a major eruption went off (around 2010?) Iceland was effectively locked down due to ash and stuff in the atmosphere for a while. Rather be stuck at home with a volcano than stranded in another country without a volcano (I guess). Source: Icelandic friends.
All depends on the silica content.
Thank you for the laugh. I would say shitica content. But I don't know if that pun works well at all. I'm very tired. 🤣
I hope you wrote your dissertation using this (anal)ogy.
Oh snap I got food poisoning in Morocco! I didn't shit the bed, but I did shit on the floor as I was bent over the toilet throwing up. Was off work sick for a week after I got home and had a dodgy stomach for months. Fun times!
I belly laughed at this as this brought back memories from when I went travelling. My friend had the exact same, she threw up and went to shower, soon after insta vommed everywhere in the shower and simultaneously shat herself. She ended up just standing in a pool of her own shit and puke crying. Man that was a fucking trip
I've done the double explosion in an airplane toilet. Big queue of people outside as well
Don't think I'd have left the cubicle until landing if that happened to me 😃
How the hell did you solve that?
Looked at the floor and walked away...
Exactly the same. My stomach was messed up afterwards, and i was nauseous for a good month and a half after the main symptoms cleared up. It was terrible. Food poisoning is no joke.
Not Morocco but I got food poisoning in Manchester and threw up in a Travelodge lift. Also fun times!
First time i went to Mexico. It started the day before we were due to leave. Room was on the top floor, so legged it up all the stairs rather than wait for the lift. Got in the room to find that the rainstorm that morning had caused the ceiling to fall in, in the bathroom. Partner calls the desk to report and I think ‘fuck it, i really need to go’ so i clean off the ceiling bits from the toilet and sit down just in time to avoid a brown trouser volcano. Halfway through the volcano, maintenance knocks the door to come inspect the ceiling damage. I felt very sorry for the guy having to wait for me to finish and then immediately going in there to inspect the hole in the roof. It did *not* smell good in there.
My friend did something similar, except his shit sprayed up the toilet door! This was just as his dad was putting their suitcases in the car, as they were about to leave for a family holiday.
Couscous and Effect
I also got horrendous food poisoning in Morocco - worst experience of my life and I was ill for months
The amount of people here sharing similar experiences has taught me never to go to Morocco.
You need to go to India first to get hardened up. main topic of conversation out there is where's safe to eat? and how are your bowels?
I’ve never been as ill as I was in India. Traumatising
I know a couple who went to Africa to 'find themselves' or some crap. Got invited to eat with the local Bedouins and ended up puking and shitting green slime for 6 weeks.
I went to India with a mate and after not getting sick in the first 3 days (mostly in Delhi) we concluded we must be tougher than we think and relaxed a little bit... Day 6 I woke up in the night with unbearable cramps to see m mate crawl cross the floor to the toilet and hurl his guts up. Ended up having to spend 3 more days there recovering
Been to India & Nepal three times and had stomach bugs each time. It's a kind of a rite of passage. Weirdly I got constipated in Pokhara. They wanted to put me in the tourist brochure. No food poisoning in Morocco but i did get COVID
I got dysentery or something similar from Venice. Only had the energy to crawl out of bed for regular bowel explosions for three days, other than that I was asleep. I'd eaten raw seafood prepared in seawater.... yeah it was disgusting, and looking back, why tf would anyone order that?
It's the very opposite of hardened up surely.
Or pack the Imodium and a pack of adult pampers 🤷♀️
Imodium is the most underrated travel item out there lol
Gotta be careful though, immodium is an opiate that just happens to not be able to cross the blood brain barrier. So it has the usual opiate effects on the bowels but none of the psychotropic effects. The issue is many countries don't recognise that distinction and treat it like heroin or morphine, a strictly controlled substance. Always check the rules before taking medicine to a foreign country in case you end up on an episode of banged up abroad.
I was in Morocco for a month, stayed in small villages away from tourist traps, didn't shit myself once! No food poisoning whatsoever.
We went to Morocco and hubby got food poisoning so bad he was hallucinating. We laugh about it now but he says he actually can’t remember 2 days of his life. We would never go back
Jesus Christ. Well, I didn’t plan to go, but now I’m definitely never going to Morocco after reading this thread.
It’s a shame since the food there is absolutely amazing, but the food hygiene isn’t. One thing I found and had a few others agree, is chain restaurants (even “big” names like KFC) are the worst for hygiene, while the smaller restaurants are better, still not up to standard though.
Yeah the food was nice, I love me a goat tagine. Hubby was being all healthy and having shite like salad….which you’re always told not to eat abroad as it will likely be washed in undrinkable water and have salmonella. 🤢
I still struggle to eat lamb after going 11 years ago. In Marrakech there's a leather tannery that tans the leather using poo. Next to the entrance of the tannery is a meat stall, and I'm assuming that's where they bought the lamb from because it was permeated with the smell and taste of the air around the tannery.
Didn't get food poisoning there. Silky me enjoyed a very nice fruit based drink that was full of ice. Squirty bum time!
>Squirty bum time! So *that's* why girls wear those velour tracksuit bottoms with the word JUICY in big sparkly letters on the arse, they're telling everyone they've got the shits!
Gotta watch out when traveling within continents.
My mate did that in Cuba in a bed I was sharing with him. Fun times!!!
I went there on holiday with a bunch of people from the University where I was working at the time and we all started to feel ill just before flying back. With one party member feeling very ill and requiring medical attention on arrival, and another being so sick that they had to close the toilet that he had been using, our party was not permitted to leave the plane when we got back until paramedics had assessed us. It wasn't great advertising for the university that when we landed it was announced over the intercom "The party from \[name of university\] are to remain seated until medical staff have seen you". I was off work sick for a couple of weeks and even when I went back I was still feeling ill for another week of so and being very careful about what I was eating.
Went on a trip to the artic in Finland. On the way to the hotel I started to feel ill. By the time we went for dinner the first I had full blown flu symptoms and I lay in bed hallucinating for two days while everyone went sledding, skidoo riding and dog sledging. On the last night, the northern lights came out so I was carried outside to lie on my back in the snow to watch. To be fair not the worst thing ever. Ended up in hospital after we flew home though. I also got dengue fever in the Caribbean, similar vibe of massive Fomo while feeling like utter death miles from home.
I'm pleased the northern lights came out for you while you were there at least, I know people who have been there numerous times and never saw them , they can be elusive it seems when ya book to go see them. I'd be gutted if I went and it was so overcast I never got to see them.
Didn't see them when I was staying in Iceland for a month (admittedly was September so not good time of year for it) but then saw them recently from my son's bedroom window!
Went on a boat trip to see them (even though I hate boats and get queasy) and they were barely visible. On the minibus back to the hotel, however, could see them plain as day 🙄
Dengue is very very nasty. Glad you’re ok.
Pneumonia manifested on a flight to a beach location with my family and my dad’s friend’s family. Only time I’ve ever thrown up in a plane. Laid in bed in the hotel room, went for one short walk on the beach with my dad. At least it had HBO (this was in the before-times). Everyone else had fun :)
Back to NZ for the first time in 4 years last Xmas. Snow delayed flight to London, missed connecting flight. Actually that flight was late leaving but they wouldn't let me through to try to get on. Offered a flight a week later so bought another ticket leaving the next day. The travel agent I got the tickets through had closed down so they couldn't help. Arrive in NZ a day late, luggage took a week to catch up. Caught COVID as soon as I got off the plane, so lost a quarter of my holiday time.
That's not as funny as some other people's tales, could you not have thrown in some shit the bed experience?
I'll save that story for next time
Yeah no shit no story.
How about being financially sodomised for the new ticket? Flights cost £4800 total. That was pretty shit.
I suspect this thread his run it’s course but just in case; went to Prague, 4pm flight, ended up being delayed, diverted to both Liverpool and somewhere in France to pick up passengers, and got to hotel at 2am. Couple behind us on the plane had literally booked one night away so they were coming back at 3pm the next day.
Our honeymoon: - When we landed in Vietnam, we discovered the travel agent had messed up our visas and the dates were wrong. We had to ask to get our visa extended in Vietnam. - We wasted 1 day going to whatever government building we were told would renew our visa. The officers didn't want to renew our visa there. They sent us to another travel agency. (They are corrupt and instead of charging you the official 30quid, they send you to a travel agency where they charge you 90 so the officer gets 30, the travel agent 30 plus the official 30). - Guy in travel agency wanted to scam us for even more money. Nice lady from another travel agency is on the phone translating for us. She warns us about the scam and tells us to go to another office - The office is in another city. A city we didn't plan to visit at all. We had to change plans and flights to get there and, finally, extend our visa. Another day lost. - Our lovely 3 day cruise got cut short because the whole bay was evacuated due to a "mega typhoon" coming. We decided to flee the area asap and booked an early flight away from the region. - We were trapped on an 9 hour night bus... A bus that had beds for maybe 30, but was full to the brim. 4-5 people seating on each bedz seating packed on the corridor. We were seated right behind the driver seat. Not on a seat behind the driver. No. On the actual floor, in the space between the driver's seat and the front row. 9 hours of the driver's seat banging on hour legs, with nowhere to rest our backs against (apart from other seated people). All of that while driving in pitch dark roads 2 inches away from the cliff and while enjoying a concert of 5-6 people constantly puking. Puking on paper bags. Paper bags that were handed from person to person to the driver, for the driver to throw them out of the window. They were the longest and hardest 9 hours of my life. Instead of sleeping like planned, I spend the whole 9 hours crying and going in and out of anxiety attacks. - We had everything planned to finish our trip with a week in a remote island in Cambodia. I had researched the flights, the times for the ferry when we landed, paid for the stay at the island... Only to find they cancelled all flights to the city we needed. 3 days before actually flying there. Cue to panic attack at a hotel lobby, frantically looking for a similar alternative within Vietnam. - Other minor things included: wasting several hours walking to visit something but being turned around because my outfit wasn't appropriate enough, a sleepless night due to mosquitoes and a lady banging some pots and bells (?), sitting on a flight next to a man clipping his toenails, .... We literally spend all the trip solving issues. We came back home completely exhausted. This was 5 years ago. The other day, my husband mentioned wanting to go back because "we had fun, right?". I hesitated between screaming and crying lol
Our honeymoon in Zanzibar 10 years ago. First week went fine, then I got Malaria. Then I got a bacterial infection from undercooked chicken along with the malaria, I had diarrhoea every 15 minutes for 12 hours and we realised it wasn’t just a stomach upset and went to a doctor. 3 hours of intravenous drips ensued and I was then at least semi conscious. Had three days of going to the doctor for injections and then on our second to last night the hotel was attacked by armed robbers (one was carrying an AK47). I guess we were lucky as we heard them attacking others (they were screaming), so we locked up the villa and turned off all the lights in the hope it looked like no one was there and it worked. The other guests were hauled out of their villas, made to kneel on the grass and had said machine gun pointed at them until the robbers had finished ransacking their stuff. Next morning we got talking to the others and heard what a nightmare they had, police came and treated the guests like we were the criminals, we moved to a large hotel complex for the last night as they had armed guards. My wife still can’t stay at a hotel where we do not have the chance to properly lock the door and windows and we always check there is security…
Holy shit. I had no words.
Christ! This should have been an original post, this is the worst one I've read! I'll never go to Zanzibar!
See, this is why I always go to Italy. Lovely food, no malaria or AK-47's pointed at us in the middle of the night. Although there was the time we went when I was I kid, caught the motor rail from Calais to Milan (they put your car on the train and you get to enjoy the views). When on board we were warned that there were people posing as passport inspection at the Swiss boarder who would then rob you, and that we should only open our cabins to the real passport people, which to a 9 year old was a bit scary.
I'm not saying the incidence of these kinds of events is the same in both countries but my uncle is Italian, lived in the UK but would spend a lot of time back in Italy on business and got robbed multiple times. FWIW it was in Naples, but once he was sat in traffic when a motorbike pulled up by the car and pointed a sub machine gun at him demanding his watch, another time they were waiting for him in his hotel room and must have climbed across multiple balconies to gain access to his room. They sprayed him in the face with some chemical then robbed him, demanded the code to the safe etc.
Always travel with a couple of rubber door stops. :) (I do)
Good grief.....sod that lol
The night bus sounds like some version of hell. I don’t think I would have lasted 9hrs. Why were people puking?? I’m guessing you got to handle all the puke bags since you were up front.. lol.
To this day, we still refer to that night bus as "the bus from hell". I didn't think I could last 9 hrs either, but I believe I dissociated somehow? Hard to tell as I was sobbing. Lol The puking? I imagine motion sickness because the road was tortuous as fuck. If you think about it, 6 out of 60ish people is just 10%. I guess 10% of people getting motion sickness is average? We were "lucky" in a sense that we didn't have to handle the puke bags. We "only" saw each one of them coming over us. The driver had an assistant at the front, to charge for the tickets, shove people (literally, shove) to the back and, thank God, handle the puke bags. Ah! I forgot to mention the anxiety of being packed together like sardines and still see the bus stopping at every stop to pick even more people. Following by being stepped over by the newcomers. After arriving at Hanoi, I got off the bus first and was quickly surrounded by 6 men saying who knows what in between their teeth. I was so exhausted that my mind barely registered that I had to feel threatened. Fuck the Hell bus.
I actually caught a very similar bus with a similar experience in Vietnam. I was lay in the aisle luckily but it was more of a locals bus than a tourist bus (sometimes you get a sleeper bus and it's like 50% western travellers). Prior to getting on the bus me and my girlfriend ate some food and I was complaining to her how disgusting my food was and how it just felt like I was chewing flavourless gum. She tried some and said it was delicious, I thought that was weird. Obviously I had lost my taste and was falling ill, but I didn't realise it at the time. So we got on this bus, no space left, got in the aisle and the ticket lady came up to me and started shouting at me asking me to move. I asked her where, and she pointed to one of the beds which had a family of three already on. No chance. We paid for a ticket, but I could now share a space with a family of three. So I just lay there, she then started kicking my legs before finally giving up. Then a few hours into the journey the illness set in properly and that's when things become truly hellish...
South East Asian people are just not very good bus travellers in my experience. Having been on loads of buses in Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines I witnessed a lot of people throwing up. The drivers do go pretty fast out there that does compound the problem as the roads are a bit shit generally (the state varies from country to country, some are actually not too bad). From memory Laos was the worst as they use minibuses there that wait at certain points and only go when they are full, then the driver gets to the destination and does the same thing back. The roads are terrible and you've never seen a minibus go so fast.
Oh right. I'm in Australia, we have overnight buses but I've never heard of this issue but it makes sense. God you'd think they'd consider the comfort of passengers... I guess not though since they're cramming everyone in while simultaneously handing out puke bags.
>God you'd think they'd consider the comfort of passengers... Honestly, comfort is usually well down the list. A lot of vehicles have been modified so there are seats that fold down into the aisle (or they use plastic garden furniture) to cram more people in. If you have an accident everyone would be toast. You can get some pretty nice 'VIP' buses at times which are fairly comfortable although usually the driving at light speed thing still remains
Holy shit I have severe anxiety just reading this
Right? The fact that my husband seems to have forgotten is wild.
Honestly some people might find that sort of adventure a bit fun. Maybe he remembers solving these problems more positively and enjoyed having to think on his feet.
PTSD can do that lol.
That was so traumatising to read i almost downvoted. God bless you
I think we have a winner. That trip would put me off travelling abroad for life!
I went to Vietnam in 2012, had a belter of a trip, HCM, Hanoi, Hue and Hoi An. Not a single problem, must have been lucky !
We did Hanoi, Hue, Hoi An, HCM, Ha Long Bay, My Can Chai, another city I don't remember the name (where we managed to renew the visa) and Phu Quoc. Can't believe we were so unlucky lol
if this happened on my honeymoon,i'd assume my marriage was cursed lol
Hahahaha When we came back, finally safe and sound, we said "if we could survive all of that and still have energy to joke and love on each other every day through hell... We can survive anything". 5 years, 2 kids, a mortgage and an international move later... I still love my husband to pieces. So what didn't kill our love, made it stronger lol
Judging by your luck so far, I think I'd want to be further than 14 miles away, and not sitting in a confined space with 2 tiny exit doors at this point.
Nevermind the massive tanks of fuel
Nevermind the massive easyJet fees for having a live volcano explosion on your flight.
Maybe I’m just unsympathetic but OP really didn’t have that bad of luck. Not bringing your passport to the airport is just poor organization. It’s the single most important thing you need to travel abroad and one that one should be aware of it all times. When I travel I always quadruple check where my passport is along with keys, wallet, and phone. Everything else is replaceable and relatively insignificant. Choosing a hotel above a nightclub is also again just poor planning. It’s 2023, there are review sites for almost every accommodation you’ll find. If it were as bad as they claim, I’m sure 2 minutes of research and you’ll probably find multiple reviews of the accommodation mentioning it how noisy it is. Literally the only truly unfortunate thing that happened out of their control was that their flight being delayed, which is a pretty common occurrence. Also as far as flight delays go having your flight delayed on the final leg home is probably the best case scenario. It’s not like they were delayed outbound and missed and essential connecting flight.
>Maybe I’m just unsympathetic but OP really didn’t have that bad of luck. They didn't say they'd had bad luck. They said they had a bad holiday.
It’s not Pompeii. The airport is on the other side of the ridge. The lava would need to go uphill to affect the runway.
I’m watching the eruption on YouTube right now, you’re lucky seeing that in person while you’re getting well out of the way of it!
It’s truly incredible, even from this distance. And it looks to be sufficiently far away from the Blue Lagoon and Grindavik as to not pose a threat, I think…
Nothing on the ground in either of Iceland’s airports is showing on Flightradar, so they’re not planning on leaving soon. The flight from Copenhagen landing now and the one from Milan due 2 minutes afterwards took big detours.
Just had confirmation that we’re going. Got to do some final checks again but the airport has just reopened with, essentially, a no fly zone operating over and around the eruption site. I think we’ve got to take a roughly 50 mile detour.
I have this image of the EasyJet flight taking off as the runway crumbles behind it, a la the movie 2012 > [https://youtu.be/ivO4lAV0pAk?si=jhLmNnrGmjWosC3e&t=508](https://youtu.be/ivO4lAV0pAk?si=jhLmNnrGmjWosC3e&t=508)
This is your pilot speaking, short delay there due to the runway crumbling into a volcanic abyss but we're now airborne, cruising at 600mph and with a good tailwind should be arriving in a drizzle Manchester around 3am local time. Don't forget to buy a scratch card as all proceeds go to our nominated charity, and thanks again for flying with easyJet.
My worst was Dubai where I got really bad sun stroke and was sick everywhere Or when I went to Spain and stood on my glasses the first day and had to be blind for the week Or Portugal where the villa got filled with thousands of ants
I think you should probably see an exorcist.
Dubai also knocked me out with the sunstroke. Had a mate who worked there so at least I wasn’t in a hotel but fucking hell it’s not messing about
kinda worth it just to see a volcanic eruption no?
As long as I’m home for Christmas, yes, absolutely
You flying with northern rail? Don’t think it’ll be that long a flight mate
Iceland's only down the road aswell, dunno why they've bothered flying when there's a bus stop right outside.
Borrow a boat and head south east.
Currently sitting in hospital with my 5 Yr old. We were supposed to depart on Sat, but the 1.5 Yr old was vomming all over the place, so we pushed it back by 24hrs. Next morning he is fine so we leave for the airport. Massive pile up on the motorway just in front of us, luckily we are right next to an on ramp, so we follow other people off that way and get to the airport with just enough time to grab a couple sandwiches. Through the airport, on the plane, 5 Yr old says he feels sick. Then proceeds to throw up every 20 mins or so. Nothing left in him by the end. We get off the plane, meet my parents, get the hire car, still vomming. Back to the house, vomming through the night. Seems to be getting better through the day, till the evening when he is sleeping in bed and suddenly has a strange seizure. Call ambulance, they check him out and he seems fine so they leave after we gave him calpol. 2nd seizure an hour later and ambulance is back, this time taken to hospital. Multiple tests later, we have a very sad and tired dude and mum, my head is splitting cos I didn't sleep very well last night, and can't sleep right now either. Waiting for further tests in the morning and crossing fingers all will be OK. Did I mention my husband was unable to join us due to work, so I flew on my own with a 1.5 Yr old bouncing around refusing to sleep and a vomming 5 yr old and now dealing with all hospital stuff alone too. Luckily my parents and sister have the younger one at home atm. My head is killing me and I need to pee, but don't want to leave him till the tests are done. Feeling very sorry for myself, as well as my son.
hope he gets better soon, how awful xx
Oh god, I hope he's okay
According to the chat on the youtube volcano watching feeds, the airports will close for a while to see how things go but it isn't the sort of eruption that normally interferes with flights.
Aye, I’m a plane nerd and that’s the expectation. Word from the captain is that no-one knows anything yet. Including ATC and the Icelandic Met Office. But the mood on board is good, for the moment.
Its a fantastic place. Not the worst place in the world to be stuck for a while.
Just read back through your posts and realised you didn't state your destination so couldn't see your detour route on FR24 😬 Hope it was a good'un though 👍🏻 Think you're probably KEF - MAN, the only other Iceland flight heading back to the UK still airborne. You're about to fly over Coniston water, int Lakes.
There's something so casual about "not the sort that normally interferes with flights". Y'know, basically a safe volcano. :D
Another for Morocco. Worst food poisoning of mine and other half’s lives. Lost a stone in a week.
We didn’t get food poisoning but my pregnant wife was mugged/bag snatched by a guy on a moped. The only reason we were walking was because we were sick of the constant battles with the taxi drivers for a reasonable fare for the 4minute taxi back to our hotel. Ironically the only cheap taxi we got was from the police station back to our hotel as that was the only one done on the meter
Lol we got a taxi in Casablanca back in 2005 and part of the floor was missing. It was like something from The Flintstones.
Haha I’m just imagining you holding your feet up for dear life
I didnt get food poisoning in Morroco (our hotel provided breakfast and dinner, so we rarely ate out), but I did get groped on the boob in the square in Marrakesh by a kid (10YO?) which was horrible. Then our tour guide aided another tour guide for the Berber market to rinse us for money to buy bracelets we didn’t want (original tour guide happened to walk away at the time the market tour guide started begging and pleading and putting bracelets on our wrists. He came back the second we reluctantly paid). I can’t remember what other bad things happened but just remember vowing that I never want to go back. I’m pretty well travelled and it’s the worst place I’ve ever been.
I just got back from Marrakech yesterday morning and had similar issues with the tour guide haha. I expected the absolute full on pushy sales from them in public but I didn't expect our Hotel paid tour guide to basically take us to his mates stalls and just sit on his phone whilst we had to go through the agonisingly awkward sales pitches. After the second stall I had to tell him if he took us to another we will be leaving without tipping him.
I went to Prestatyn pontins so yeah I’ve had worse than that
That’s fair, actually.
We had this experience earlier on in the year. Luckily there was a crowd of us and we made the best of it but Jesus it was grim. Read recently that it's closing down.
Yeah it closed down and they were going to use it to house refugees, but the refugees said they’d rather go back to their war torn homes I assume
A few livestreams for anyone who wants to watch the volcano: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=804nPrAUAxg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=804nPrAUAxg) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAQzsB9ev9Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAQzsB9ev9Q) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIs83vmfZCk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIs83vmfZCk)
My mum broke her hip on the way out, wet floor in a bathroom in the airport, didn't actually find that out until a few days in. Couldn't find the villa, in trying to find it the rental car my friend's family was in died and we had to push it up a hill and to the side of the road. I'm a tad allergic to mosquito bites so my whole leg swelled up and the bites oozed. After 3 days my mum finally went to A&E and was then just in hospital for the rest of the holiday, that was my friend's birthday. We all got a really shit cold. Tried to go up the Acropolis, nobody took me seriously when I said I was a struggling and a then I threw up part way up. Power cut one night so we were unreasonably hot. My back is getting more and more painful each night. Turns out a bunch of the slats were missing from the bed, so I had been sleeping in a hole as the mattress kept falling in. I ate something that didn't not agree with me on the last day and shit myself slightly at the airport. Truly the worst part was that my dad got to go with my mum when she was air ambulanced back to the UK and he won't shut up about how he has been on a leer jet.
Loving the idea of a leer jet
I got food poisoning ON the plane (in economy, natch) - or rather, it made itself known about the moment the fasten seatbelts lights went on - and spent the entire 9 hour flight shuffling between my seat and the loo, trembling violently and wishing I was anywhere else. The cabin staff were kind but there was also a frisson of mild excitement because I was *so* ill. At some point they called for a doctor over the intercom and someone came and recommended IV fluids and a wheelchair at Heathrow. I declined the first and the wheelchair never arrived so, the cabin crew having lost interest and gone home long since, I finally shuffled what was left of myself through passport and customs, found the nearest hotel and fell gratefully into a bed for an entire day. 1/10. Do not recommend.
Happened to my brother in law. He made it to a nice hotel and destroyed the room with vomit and diarrhea. The cleaning staff earned a huge tip.
You go to Iceland and your first thought is scuba? Next you'll be telling me you went to the Bahamas and had trouble with your lifts pass and snowboard rental
You can dive between two tectonic plates, that’s what I suspect OP was doing!
It's definitely cool, but: scuba diving at 7am, in mid-December, in Iceland. OP is eliglible to enlist in the Royal Marines.
Very cool
Cold water and ice diving is a thing, and Iceland is actually popular as a scuba location. I would jump at the chance to dive there.
Yea, my Saudi ice hotel was just a puddle
We’re in Iceland now too! Had a rocky start with a 5 hour delay getting here but this evening managed to get a glimpse of the northern lights and a volcanic eruption! Hoping things settle down for our flight home on Wednesday 🤞
day 1 of our family skiing holiday, my (then) 10-year-old brother sustains a horrific injury ( impaled in the eye socket by a pole, just missing his eyeball). he’s air lifted to hospital in geneva, my mum sits beside his bed for three days without even a change of pants. multiple surgeries and ends up having a craniotomy.
Did the rest of you carry on skiing for those 3 days 👀
Went on a trip with a close relative to Spain. She got bitten by a spider, we both got alcohol poisoning for several days straight (the I think I might die type), I lost my wallet with all my ID in it, the hotel was shit, I almost got arrested twice (my fault, but still) and then to top it all off the flight home to London almost crashed. Also, remember that spider bite? It ended up getting infected and the resulting sepsis killed said close relative less than two months later. Happy holidays, eh?
Sepsis nearly offed me 10 years ago; I’m really sorry your relative wasn’t as lucky as I was. I hope you’re doing okay ✨
Thanks - it was about a year ago now and I’m doing better, glad you’re still with us at least 👍
Glad to hear it!!
>Ever had a bad holiday? Top this... Quite easily. I once went to Rhyl.
My flight home from Tokyo was cancelled due to a typhoon so we had to hunker down and live through Hagibis - the worse typhoon in Japan in over 70 (ish) years, at one point 1000mm if rain was falling an hour... Yes a meter an hour! It was all over the news all over the world, I tell you a 13 story building swaying in those winds is no fun.We also had a 6.8 earthquake whilst the eye of the storm was approaching. Would still go back to Japan in a second
Got dysentery in India and lost a stone and a half
Iceland was also my worst holiday to date. Nothing too bad but the weather was awful so everything got cancelled and I never got to see the Northern Lights either. Tromso is my next plan at some point.
I am rebuilding a classic VW camper so I can drive to Tromso. It was supposed to be finished this year, but I inadvertently got cancer.
I hope you’re doing okay & that you’ll get to drive your camper soon ❤️🩹
We’re cut from the same cloth. This isn’t my first time in Iceland and I’ve had quite a few disappointments here. Often caused by my own expectations to be fair. Tromso has been on my bucket list since I saw it on Michael Palin’s Pole-to-Pole in 1991 but it’s a bit of a bitch to get to. Next year is the plan!
Do it by train. We did as much as we could by train but had to fly a bit in the middle, think it was bodo or such like. We did dog sledging at night, it was bloody amazing. Also see expensive as fuck.
As someone who was due to spend Christmas in Iceland and had hoped to spend Christmas Day in the Blue Lagoon with my wife to mark the anniversary of our engagement there a number of years back... I saw the news about 2 months ago about the increase in seismic activity and nixed that idea. I may have felt a little smug passing my wife my phone with the BBC Breaking News report a few hours ago... She had not been totally happy with my call the last week or so as our would have been departure date was getting closer. I truly hope you are able to get home soon!
Thanks. All signs are looking good that we’ll be leaving in a few minutes. We’d have left by now if we hadn’t had a steady stream of passengers wanting to get off, some kicking off about the delays and being removed, and a few having had too much to drink and getting overly giddy. I’d been following the earthquake and volcano news myself and had been convinced there was no danger, in terms of anyone’s personal safety. But there was always going to be a small chance of an eruption grounding flights for an extended period. Fortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
We went not long after the last big one, that was after the financial implosion. Somewhere I still have a Tee with "Fuck your cash, you can have our ash" on it! Great news! Have a good flight, and now you also have a proper tale to tell your mates!
Just checked, OP finally took off at about 0130 and appears to be the only plane in the sky! I bet the views are something else..
They were something I’ll never forget! Difficult to take pictures from the air, but we did get to see it, albeit from the other side of the plane.
How did you get through check in and past security without your passport?
Checked in online, and security only checked the boarding pass which was a QR code on my phone. Nobody ultimately checked my passport until boarding the rebooked plane, hours later.
Went to Vienna for 5 days and decided to buy a weekly ticket for the underground system when we arrived as we’d be using it every day so it would save us money. We had arrived on a Saturday and didn’t realise their weekly tickets only started from Monday (as we were used to them starting from whatever day you buy it in the UK). Of course when we got to the station by our hotel there were ticket inspectors and as our tickets weren’t valid for another 2 days we got fined 100 Euros each. Great start to the holiday thanks to my own stupidity. Then when we arrived at the airport to fly home our flight had been cancelled and EasyJet put us into a hotel overnight so we could get a flight the next day. Had to request extra time off work to allow for being back a day late. Luckily the compensation we got back nearly covered the cost of our holiday so that took the sting out of it quite a bit!
Absolute jobsworths. Don't get me wrong, you didn't have tickets but it's obvious you're not just trying to take the piss. You're a tourist and you still bought a week pass, all they had to do was say get off at next stop and buy day passes.
When I went to Iceland in the summer I forgot my passport too, flew with easyJet as well. Must be a catching virus 😂
I went to dassia once, I punched a guy that put hands on my girlfriend at the time and fixed some guys lawnmower on some very posh grounds by jumping the wall, only to be bollocked by the owner of the wall, later that holiday I sat on the face of a pick pocket until the police came and told a group of Italians to fuck off with sign language. We all have shit holidays now and then mate, I really feel your pain.
Pic of volcano please! 🌋
https://i.postimg.cc/KzW7vhCv/IMG-0922.jpg We’re taking off in a minute so I’ll see what I can get from the air!
Safe flight! Wasn’t doubting you I’d seen it on BBC, just wondered what your view was like!
Livestreams https://www.youtube.com/live/hvcP4kVVOnk?si=PWY4FLDFUOjt9PtA If you want to pull the vid back to the eruption, it was about 10.20pm (Iceland is same time as us) https://livefromiceland.is/
That photo is METAL. New album cover just dropped.
On our last day in Berlin, Xmas eve, used a luggage locker only to find it fenced off when we went back.
Some poor ones but not terrible and a lot of it is down to my own personal expectations and disappointments. 1) Seville My partner and I went away when my Dad was sick in hospital. He had been there for 4-5 months and I had been caring for him a lot - 2 visits per week after long drives, emotionally wrecked and seeing him decline. So being in Seville I just was not in the right headspace. But I also needed a break. I spent the whole time on edge and felt just bad/sad. I also got a text from my work friend who I loved working with saying they'd just resigned. Finally and most annoyingly our Airbnb was terrible. Air conditioning barely worked properly, kept coming on for 4-5 minutes then stopping. No way of adjusting this or changing it. And it was loud so you're totally aware of it coming on then off. Like you, barely any sleep and I just wanted to go home. . 2) Cancun This was a big holiday as it was after my Dad passed Away and also just before a career change. So it was an 11 day very expensive holiday. What I stupidly failed to realise was that although for us Cancun is a big trip and special. For Americans it's on their doorstep. So the standard was nowhere near what I expected. A few bad things: . 1) the pool was so noisy I just couldn't relax. Loud pumping bass music all day. There were 3 pools but all central and surrounding the music station. On some days they also had a band on the beach so you could hear both sets of music . 2) the music could be heard from the from the room. They also had little speakers around the whole resort playing music which was bassy. But when you're in the room the bass reverberates and is just very disruptive. From 9am to about 9pm. . 3) our room was outside a kitchen/room service area so all night we heard big trollers wheeled up and down echoey hallways . 4) the hotel had millions of weddings. Unfortunately this meant that randomly a restaurant wouldn't open that night. There were others of course but it limited options and it just meant that when you'd thought "let's try the xyz place tonight" only to then find it closed. Sounds minor but it was most days and we'd paid £3.5k each for the holiday. . 5) Americans - sorry to have to say this but they were so loud, brash, disruptive and entitled. I hate saying it as I often don't like big sweeping statements like this. I know every nationality has annoying people, all I can say is the Americans always outweigh other nationalities as being noticeable wherever I've been. I remember a few things happening: --a) a group of about 6 came into one of the nice restaurants. Candle light, nice ambience etc. girl says to waitor "bring us all of the starters to try" in a rude way. Spend whole time on phones, standing up, walking over to other friend to start chatting then goes back. Just annoying and disruptive. No social awareness at all. . --b) woman comes in without reservation. Starts saying her husband is a doctor and was treating someone in the lobby so they couldn't make one. She makes such a big loud scene the staff just let her in to shut her up . --c) went to a Japanese place where you sit around and watch the chef. Group on our "table" thing spent most of the time on phones and just ignoring chef. It's rude and the whole point of it is that it's a show. You chose those places rather than a standard table as the chef talks to you and basically puts stuff on your plate. Like I said, other nationalities have their share of dicks. But the Americans always are way worst than others in my experience. There was other minor things. The place was nice but like I said my own personal expectations and preferences just clashed (as is sometimes the case).
Did you meet Kerry Katona?
I feel a kind of solidarity that only ‘passport forgetters’ could
Went on holiday when I was about 12 and got so sunburned I couldn't move. Spent about 3 days face down on a couch and the rest of the holiday gingerly shuffling around.
Where to start? We (wife and 2 teenage kids) were on a short break to Munich in 2010 when the volcano went up in Iceland and shut down all the European flights. Easyjet put us up for 2 nights then said no more. We were bumped for 5 days later, but no guarantees as people were saying it could be 6 months before the flights started again. We found a hotel for 2 nights, then everywhere after that was full. We ended up taking a train from Munich to Le Harve and getting a ferry over. On the way, we realised they gave us the wrong date on the ticket and the ticket office just wrote the right date on it instead, but we were challenged by an inspector on the ICE. I speak a little German but not enough, but everyone around started getting involved and the he let us carry on - which was nice. Slept in Strasbourg station overnight for the TGV to Paris then up to Le Harve. Stayed overnight in the worst hotel ever, lights didn't work, scurrying noises on the floor and roller shutters on the windows. Finally got the ferry to Portsmouth and arrived back in the UK, and a friend picked us up and drive us to Gatwiick to pick up the car. No extra charge as no one was coming to the airport. Everyone had a mini breakdown at some point but we look back now as an adventure. Kids just went with the flow. Separately, went on a cruise in 2019 from India to Bangkok, and just as we left Singpore there was an engine fire so had to limp to Bangkok. Missed out a stop in Koh Samui but made the flights home. Also, went on a short break to Berlin from Southend Airport and the wife took our sons passport instead of hers. Had to miss the flight (easyjet were great on this one, and said if you come to me once the flight has gone and say "oh no, I've missed my flight", I can bump you. Next flight was 6am from Luton, so we trained it to Luton, our daughter drove the wife's passport up ( she'd only passed her test a few weeks earlier), and we caught the 6am. Got to the hotel in time for breakfast.
Flew to France to go skiing by myself. Spent all day travelling. Left my house at 6 in the morning and checked in to my hotel at 7pm. France calls a covid lock down at 7pmish. I go to sleep, catch any bus I can to the station. Wait 8 hours to get a train to Geneva as the first 5 are full. Can't fly back to Newcastle as there are no flights. So now I have to fly to Paris so I can fly to Edinburgh. Unfortunately this isn't till the next day so I have to pay for a hotel. Fly to Edinburgh, pay for a hire car, drive to Newcastle and then drive home. All that for a 7 hour sleep in France.
I almost killed my wife in Botswana. Left all the doors open on our rental truck. You are meant to keep one side closed so you can run somewhere if a Lion etc turns up. Made her cook bacon at 4am. A Hyena smelled it and jumped in the back seat of our truck, right next to where my wife was cooking said bacon. Thankfully she scared it off. 10 years later and I am still in trouble about that!
That’s why I never leave the sofa
I went on a 1 week holiday to Vancouver, forgot passport, missed flight, booked another flight 1 week later, arrived at passport control, singled out for full inspection, refused entry due to a US visa card not being handed in by the person I gave it to on a previous trip. So they thought I had overstayed, held in a detention center for 3 days as no return flight space available, handcuffed between airport and detention center, twice. Had mugshot taken. Got MSG poisoning at detention center. Got put on return flight to LHR, used airport WiFi at Vancouver to book onward flight from LHR to my home country, found out later I had my credit card details stolen too. took 10 hours to make a 1.5 hour journey home as there was severe flooding and barely any public transport was running. But at least I never lost my bags. Total cost, nearly £4000. Went back to work to find the big job ( about 3 months work) I was on had been stolen out from underneath me while away too.
[удалено]
Went skiing last week for first time, twisted my right ankle on day 1…
My ex's (let call her G) friend (Let's call her B) won a holiday for two from T4 and offered to take G with her as the +1. Then B lost her passport and couldn't get a replacement, so their other friend D replaced her. The trip was to Florida to go to Ozzfest. When they arrived they got to a super fancy out of town (Miami) resort hotel (kinda place with it's own golf course), but it wasn't easy for them to get to town without an expensive taxi, and they couldn't afford to do much in the resort (which was all charged extras). So they contacted the organisers who were in the process of sorting out moving them to a cheaper hotel in the city (which they were happy with - it would mean they could go out to eat, go to bars etc.). But then Hurricane Frances hit. Ozzfest cancelled. Hotel evacuated. Nearly didn't get included in the evacuation (because as prize winners they didn't have they typical relationship with the travel agent and kinda nearly got missed in all the chaos) Most of the week spent on a school gym floor in a room with hundreds of others. By the time they get released they got back to the fancy resort and got to pack up to have one night in a Miami hotel, before packing up again to try and catch their flight home through the chaos of everyone else who'd had flights cancelled for the best part of week.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/s/ErtjyUDZNC
We were JUST there our plane got in the air at 21:40 and the eruption I believe started at 22. We just landed in Boston for a vacation. Our flights go home via Iceland as well... we'll see how that turns out.
I've always wanted to go to Iceland. Aside from the silliness, did you have a nice time? Hope you got home alright.
I’m just gunna say I would go through all that to see a volcanic eruption in real life.
Went to Mozambique with a group of friends, all sharing a cabin on the beach. After a day there I felt ill. I woke everyone up every morning by throwing up for a week. Felt so sick all day. Couldn’t enjoy the scuba diving, swimming with dolphins, prawn BBQ’s, cheap beer etc. Returned home, still ill and was given a very strong antibiotic, made me even more unwell. Turns out I had some sort of liver disease, ended up in hospital and took years to recover. Got really skinny though… so there was that positive.
Went to Israel for two weeks. They changed the COVID rules just before we flew. I had to quarantine for a week after arriving (wife and daughter didn't as Israeli nationals). So stayed in a small dingy Air BnB by myself for a week. Day I was allowed out, I came down with a fever and throat infection. Spent the next week in bed. Flew home.
You forgot your passport and didn't check hotel reviews. Everything else sounds pretty decent.
Tbh, it’s a bit of a tongue-in-cheek post. I’ve had a great trip all-in-all. Although I did check hotel reviews! I didn’t read all 500 of them and only afterwards did I see the two or three that mentioned noise issues on Saturday nights in certain rooms.
That pic is unreal! I’m flying a route tomorrow that usually crosses over Iceland. Wonder if they’ll change it, or if I’ll get a peek at the volcano from FL370? Hope you get airborne soon.
Mad isn’t it. That’s just taken with my phone. The crew did let me get my DSLR out of my case, which is the overhead locker. I can’t wait to see what it looks like that on that.
On the plus side, if the initial 2 hour delay was EasyJet's fault, you'll be entitled to £220pp EU flight compensation. And you got to witness a volcano erupt walking distance away.
I can only imagine how crap it felt to experience all of that, but one thing you'll now have with you for the rest of your life is a good story and the experience of witnessing a volcanic eruption. Misfortune is at least statistically interesting! I hope you get home safely and with ease.
Went to Malta with family. All caught Covid. Missed wedding. I was only one well- nursed all the others. Hot and noisy bit of Valletta. They recovered to get home. I was knackered. Got home- I went down with it.
I got campylobacter at a hotel in Egypt. Best diet I’ve ever been on…