Canadians just don't trust foreigners.
While I was visiting in Canada last year I was writing for this crappy website and had set up an interview and live review for the band Nashville Pussy. I got there and had my passport (no drivers licence and therefore only form of ID) with me to get in thinking that would be enough. I got to the ticket guy and tell him "we're on the list". He finds our names and asks for my ID to which I bring out my passport. He looks at it and says "and the other one?" I ask "what other one?". Apparently you need 2 forms of ID to get in anywhere where theres alcohol. "This is a passport. I got into the country, through immigration, through border checks with this, but I can't get into this club?"
"nope."
So I go outside and I spot some policemen carting off some drunken offenders and stroll up to them, explain my situation and ask if theres anything they can do to help. One of them has a look at my passport asks me to raise my right hand and put my left over my heart and "repeat after me".
After I went through the whole "I will uphold the laws of this country" etc, etc the 2 policemen then escort me into the club. I was treated very well but with some contempt by the patrons.
(hung_low, Sun 24 Apr 2005, 17:29, Reply)

I reminded my mum many times months before hand
But Did she listen? NO
So we are in the airport checking in
"Um, and your daughters passport?"
"Shes on mine"
"She's too old, she needs her own at 16 (or was I 18?), you cant fly"

Damn!
After hours of crying and stuff from my mum,a guy at the airport said we could go, but we'd get no help from beiond check in.

So bassically I had to be smuggled in and out the contry. I was shit scared id be arrested abroard.
( Blobcat Less Jaffacakes this year, Sun 24 Apr 2005, 16:38, Reply)

Don't Forget Your Toothbrush
When going to America, about 10 years ago now, getting off the plane and wondering through all the security checks.
When checking through hand luggage, they heard something buzzing in my mums bag. Obviously concerned by this, they opened it up. Lo and behold, they found that my mums electric toothbrush had switched itself on (what it was doing in her hand luggage I have no idea).

So, there we were, in an American airport surrounded by about 10 Yanky policemen, all eager to detonate something, only to find it was a toothbrush.

My mum was quite scared by this though.
(sky blue sam, Sun 24 Apr 2005, 13:12, Reply)

eastern europe
After our A-levels I and two friends had a great month long trip around Eastern Europe. Despite a few nights spent sleeping in doorways of hostels that we'd been locked out of things were going well. That is until I get home to discover that I've got fleas and not the doggy type that just hop on and off you these were man fleas. I spent about a week in the bath trying to poison the gits with lethal doses of pantene pro V.
(ghetto soldier, Sun 24 Apr 2005, 13:06, Reply)

Not really a holiday, but...
I’m a musician, and went on a recital tour of Spain last summer. During the trip, the following happened:

I packed a digital metronome in my hand luggage. You can imagine how amused customs were when it switched itself on and started bleeping at 60 beats per minute.

I came down with flu within 24 hours of arrival.

My pianist was suicidal for the entire trip.

My concert organiser was the creepiest man I have ever had the displeasure of meeting - decided early on that I needed a “father figure“ and set about trying to adopt me. I found out later that he hadn’t seen his own daughter since his divorce eight years previously.

On a long journey, we hadn't come across any form of civilisation for hours and I desperately needed to take a piss. Finally we came across a bush, I dashed in there, dropped my trousers, and discovered all too late that it contained a hornets' nest. And hornets don't take kindly to being pissed on.

We were served stewed pigs’ trotters by a naked arts’ councillor.

At the same gig, we were expected to play outside. At 9pm. In the middle of summer. Near a stagnant pond. Cue every biting insect known to man, in addition to a snake who crawled across the stage halfway through a Beethoven Sonata.

As soon as I got over the flu, I got a migraine that lasted the rest of the trip. Cue puking my guts out in the only toilet at a nasty service station in the Pyrenees, with a bunch of disgruntled Spanish truck drivers yelling at me to hurry up.

Nothing could go wrong once we’d got on the plane back home, right? Wrong! Picture the scene: A mad Cuban brandishing a knife and talking about the “extremo del mundo”, a bunch of American tourists screaming, “We’re all gonna diiiiiiee!” and eight Guarda Policias armed with bayonets removing the offending nutcase. God only knows what would have happened if he’d only made an appearance after the plane had left the ground.

Ah well, at least I got paid at the end of it.
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Sun 24 Apr 2005, 12:15, Reply)

Good god where do I start

disclaimer. Not all of these are on the same holiday, if they were I would be in an institution.

Chased by a group of French Foreign Legionnaires in Djibouti, barely escaped with my life.
On a boat that ran out of fuel in the South Atlantic, no radio, no flares, no-one to see them anyway, it's amazing how long you can paddle for if you need to.
A friend diving into the shallow end of a pool in Panama and crushing a vertibra.
A guy I was with being shot in the face with a .22 pistol in Montevideo, Uruguay on Christmas eve, he lived but the pellet was lodged in his sinus.
Falling of a huge motorbike (small moped) while drunk in Corfu, four stitches in my chin by a quack who thought anasthetic was for girls.
Going from Dubai to Abu Dhabi with an Arab driver who spoke no English but laughed manically whenever he braked and the car veered violently off the road and on to the verge (although that was sort of work so it may not count).
Waking up in the morning to find I had gone home with a girl who lived in a favella in Valpariso, Chile and having to find my way out.

Sometimes I wake up screaming and wish that these were just stories but they are all true.

Don't fucking go on holiday with me, and if by any chance you do please look after me.
(monkeypaws maybe I shouldn't..... Oh fuck, too late, Sun 24 Apr 2005, 11:32, Reply)

Fucking Alkmaar
Or "Five Go Mad in (a) Bedford (van)".

When I was younger my father took a year off and his family of five, flew us to London, put us in a converted Bedford van for nine months and toured around Europe.

Us three kids were all under ten. Arriving at Alkmaar, Dad pulls into a camping ground and promptly kicks us kids out for "a bit of fresh air". My younger brothers decided to climb some trees, quickly finding that snapping the branches off and throwing them onto the tents below to be much more satisfying. Failing to be amused, I head back to the van. Only to walk (er, climb) in on my parents having sex.

It went downhill from there. Cue Germans in branch-covered tent coming over to complain to my parents, a thrashing from Dad, who made us go to the irate campground owner to apologise.

No, seeing my parents hard at it in the van we had to live in for nine months is still burned permanently into my memory.
( Udderbelly A tale of four titties, Sun 24 Apr 2005, 10:32, Reply)

There are
quite a few overly friendly Dutchfolk in Tenerife. One looked rather cute, like Tombo from the movie 'Kiki's Delivery Service' but when he wanted me to join his clan of four 40+ year olds for 'some no strings casual fun!' I downed my pint and left.
( Smokey Bacon Crisps smell good, Sun 24 Apr 2005, 9:49, Reply)

Christmas season, 2004
home to enjoy the break, only to have our pet antelope murdered by assholes ( i live on a farm), my cousin commit suicide the week before christmas, and my boyfriend of 10 months dump me over the phone. i began to drink after that.
(spamcicle, Sun 24 Apr 2005, 2:30, Reply)

Disney World
We were on the bus to disney world from the hotel and my sister need the toilet.

She didn't make it. Not even off the bus.

She was 18 *sniff*
(Deiwos - Woo I found my old name!, Sun 24 Apr 2005, 1:48, Reply)

I used to be in the scouts...
...so I know how to pitch a tent. My wife, son and I went camping in Ireland several years ago, with a small ridge tent a friend had lent me. It being Ireland, it rained in the night. It was with that most wonderful of gifts, hindsight, that I remembered that the flysheet should not be touching the inner bit of the tent. Had I jumped into the nearby (v. picturesque) river in my sleeping bag I would not have been any wetter than I was when I awoke at about 4 in morning. Our clothes didn't really dry out for the entirety of the holiday.
(urban_grilla, Sun 24 Apr 2005, 0:05, Reply)

mmm, beer
T'was Leningrad 1989, our tour group were in the hotel drinking beer. On the table next to us was a huge bloke, fast asleep. We thought it hilarious to put our empty glasses on his table. Some time, and much beer, later, matey wakes up, goes "Wooargh" and knocks the table over. The smashing of many glasses is swiftly followed by the arrival of the ever-present KGB who drag our unfortunate neighbour away for a good beating. I felt a bit guilty.
(urban_grilla, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 23:25, Reply)

While on holiday in Norway in 1981,
I discovered a huge transparent sack full of slightly runny peanut butter that somebody had left by the side of the road. I was overjoyed at the time, being a big fan of peanut butter, and ate it slowly over the next three weeks.
(The Ghost of Stephen Foster, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 21:42, Reply)

What's Got A Nut In Every Bite ?
For my sins, I was supervising a bunch of of Scouts camping in Norway way back in 1981 (don't ask !) and discovered that everything there is f'ing expensive (6quid for a pint of piss-weak beer!). Everything except peanuts. So that's all the little buggers bought.

So after a particularly heavy night of 'nut binge, we were on a coach to some glub-forsaken mountain, when one sprout decided to chuck-up.

All we had to contain the barf was a BIG clear plastic bag. So between the mass of peanut gobblers, bumpy roads, smell of combined vomit / peanuts, and sight of clear bag filling up with hurl, soon we had contributions from almost all 24 sprouts. Laugh ?, I almost choked !

Eventually, having emptied their stomachs, the bag was close to bursting, so we tied the top, persuaded the driver to stop, and we left it at the side of the road and drove off.

Returning eight hours later, the bag was still there. I wonder whatever happening to it ?
( Tepid_Halibut felt like a cold, empty shell of a human...until, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 19:52, Reply)

i had to nurse my friend with a split banjo string at 4 in the morning

thats all
( Johno says the chances of anything coming from mars are a million to one But still they come on, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 19:48, Reply)

The Curse of Blackpool
Blackpool, 1976 (I think). Taken there by my mum and grandparents. Weather was awful - gales and lashing rain all week. I'm sure the place was cursed...

The front window at Woolworths got blown out and nearly killed us all. Got dragged up Blackpool Tower and had an attack of the willies (a 5 year old scared of heights and they take him up the tower? Right...) and then the terror of terrors: Bruce Forsyth's singing blaring out from the BBC exhibition on the promenade.

Getting the s**t scared out of me by a Dalek in the exhibition shortly after was nothing in comparison. Even now hearing Bruce Forsyth's voice nearly 30 years later makes me pale and shiver. Davros is nothing after Bruce...
(Jamie and his magic bat You can bump n' grind, it is good for your mind, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 18:07, Reply)

camp... yuck...
overnight... lots of sleeping bags and guys without shirts! yea, you would think this would be fun and everything, you know, if maybe we werent in california, on a hill, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by snakes, bears, ticks, badgers, racoons, bats, etc. Anyways, we're laying out the tarp and what a surprise, there's a little family of ticks! wonderful. So, I figure, being the one who always does the daring things, might as well step on them till they die. So i do. Soon realized that this doesnt work when i felt in my trousers to get a piece of paper (i had no pockets you sicko)..... i walk slowly up to a very hot camp counselor -reluctantly as he was hot and i had something gross in my underwear...
Mr Tickky was making a nice little home quite close to my "warm area" and i was getting quite freaked out.... i managed to get it burned off (its ok, no scars) while i was watching Mr Hotty washing eggs out of his hair with a hose... and without a shirt.. anyways.. that was my crap holiday.. oh yea and then the next morning i found a snake in my bag and i fell in the lake with all my clothes on, having to walk back to camp in my bikini and wet shoes... fun
(bite_me38, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 17:30, Reply)

Notice how family always cause the problems?
Two things come to mind when I think of holidays.

The first being in the french countryside a couple of years ago. My cousin and myself decided that we were going to go out in the middle of the night. We broke into this old house that no one lived in. My cousin got freaked out when she thought she heard voices and the door creaked so we legged it and hid in the woods. It was then we realised she'd took the wrong keys and so we ended up sleeping in my dad's van for the night. Oh the comfort and warmth of a van.

The second was coming back from Cornwall last year when my sister decided she was going to pee her way home to London. It's really no exaggeration when I say that she ended up peeing on the motorway in every frickin county.
(LoLLie, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 17:30, Reply)

Bonn 2000
We've all been there. (We meaning me). Bonn. 2000. Ace. First day, supposed to be at my secondry school at 6:30. Didn't sleep. Up writing a program to control my PC via E-mail. But thats another story (Failed in the end). In the end stayed up 36 hours and became delusional. fun. Spent all my money in calais buying coke (drink not drugs). 2 litre bottles for around £0.80. Spent most of my money there. Packed it all into my bag. When in bonn, confronted with a fucking hooge hill to the mountain, that the bus couldnt manage. 50Kg bag + hill = lots o' fun.
(G.Eusebio ...Fentruk from the long past..., Sat 23 Apr 2005, 16:49, Reply)

Not my holiday
It was before my time but here goes

Before I was born almost 27 years ago and my mother the poor thing spent her honeymoon heavily pregnant in rome with my dad and two friends. One of their friends, Sue was a RE teacher (uck - long story for another board)and was looking forward to a a visit to the Vatican.

Well on the day they decide to visit while my mom is soaking her feet in a fountain Sue comes running over with a italian paper sayin the Pope has died - he only reigned literally weeks my mom says. So that was her worse holiday for both my mom and her friend as she didn't get to go to the Vatican.

My mom blames me - well i'm off to Italy in a couple of weeks - lets see how long the next one lasts ;o)

Also my mom's holiday was almost ruined when my dad got drunk at the airport on her last day of flying.

Would have been great to have been born in italy. nevermind

apologises for length and possible lack of point.
(thesickandwrong, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 16:26, Reply)

Interrail, Greece, 1994
I was travelling with three girls through southern Europe and we came to a small town on the Peloponnes to meet some other friends from home who were travelling independent of us. We had coffee in the afternoon in a cafe in the town centre and one of the girls goes "My, that water tastes like aspirin!" Me, the happy camper that I am, volunteers to take it cause it was friggin hot and I was thirsty. Down it goes in one gulp. Half hour later, the dogpile starts feeling dizzy and sees things that should not be. "bzzzz what the f*ck was in that water?" Turns out it was a popular trick in Greece to seduce stupid foreign girls by dropping a "Greek pill" i.e. acid in their drink. Well, cue me for the first time high on LSD and first experience with psychoactive drugs in general.
Could have been nice you think. Sure it could have been. Thank you vevvy much. Someone decided to spend the night on a castle "how romantic" and stuff, and I was happilly tripping away, saw fireworks, many ants (turned out it was people 100 metres down the gorge, someone grabbed me before i could reach down to them), and was generally quite detached until....
A yell. Someone crying. Many people yelling. One of the girls had been bitten by a snake. And, tadaaa, here comes the horror trip. Rush to the hospital. Many people in white yelling incomprehensibly. I throw up in a sink. Someone calms me down, and tries to stop me panicking. Desperate yell from the exam room "Not in the belly, not in the belly!!" I see horrible scenes before me of doctors pushing huge blades into my friends' tummy. Doctor's face appears in my view (huge) and yells in broken English "Why didn't you catch snake!! We could have given proper antidote!" I panick even more. Pass out.

Next morning: I am lying on a park bench. Alone. A cafe owner takes pity on me and gives me a sandwich and some water. After stumbling around for half hour, I find my friends at the station. Cheerful smiles all around, and everybody is still alive! It turns out the snake was harmless, and the docs let her go after one hour observation and a couple of shots. I was simply forgotten on the way back to the camping site where our stuff was based. "What a night, eh? It was awesome!"
Yeah. Right.
Asshole.
(dogpile, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 16:19, Reply)

Driving holiday to Cornwall
I feel nausous the whole time, but I never actually vomit, which is a shame as I would have at least 10 minutes of feeling fine afterwards.

6 months later my Dad finds a brown disfigured thing under his seat. Turns out to be an apple he lost after he had just got the car (he'd had it for about a year before we went on holiday). 'Ah' he says, 'maybe that's why you were sick the whole time.'

LESSON: If going on a driving holiday, always thoroughly clean your car (inside AND out) beforehand.
( Lightguy hail satan, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 16:19, Reply)

My parents always used to take me to spanish places in the middle of bloody nowhere.
I hated it as there were no computers, the TV was in spanish, and sun doesn't agree with my complexion.
(sqrrl101, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 16:05, Reply)

SO MANY FUCKING LOCK GATES

(A small damp ball of cotton, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 15:03, Reply)

bloody cubs
went on a camping trip to england, thinking this will be great, as you do when your 10. Got there, and managed to get a tent with all my mates, now thinkign this is going to be even better. Next day, got stuck doing the chores because the bloody leaders are lazy bastards keen on child labour, and so after, go back to my tent to fine a leader there saying i had to volunteer for summit. Next thing i know, he's grabbed all my stuff from my tent, and taken it to the tent with the only space left in the camp.

This tent turned out to be filled with a kid who was afraid of the dark, a kid who was afriad of everything and loved to piss when afraid, and two kids who were huge, took up 3 quarters of the tent and loved to play wrestling all night and really really stank. It was also on a bloody slope with an ants nest at the top, so everytime i got up in the morning had a serious blood rush to the head and kept callapsing every 5 minutes for a while.
I very happily quit as soon as i got back
(Calmallama Is keeping this short and sweet, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 14:56, Reply)

marital stress..
Not a holiday, per se, but staying with my gf and her older brother in her house for a month. (it was like a holiday for me, being that I hate travelling)

After a relatively good stay, it all went tits up a few days before I left. After getting hideously drunk on god knows what, gf's brother elected that I should drive us into town to get more booze. Girlfriend took exception to this and spent the whole journey leaning over the backseat, trying to strangle me.

That led to a scene in the off license, I stormed out. Back at her's, she took offence at something her brother said, turned round and punched me in the face. I hit a wall, broke my hand and spent the next few days in utter agony, ice taped to it, with everyone that came to the house refusing to drive me the 20 miles to hospital because it was 'only bruised'.

Five days later, lying in nothing but a surgical gown trying to look good while the insanely attractive nurse asked me questions about my drug use and when my last period was, and I hated the world more than ever.

However I now have three little scars on my hand as a reminder of my lovely NOTHOLIDAY.
(sporky, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 13:21, Reply)

i got sick
oh yeah, that happens to everyone.

well i'll tell it anyways. we fly to nice expensive luxury hotel in tropics.

cue me quickly getting sic (sic) as a dog. and not one of those super dogs from tv. i mean one of those dogs that is lying on the side of the road, dead.

must have caught something on the plane. damn germs.

about two days later (so i overexaggerate, what ya gonna do?), i begin to regain my senses and bowel control. i find out my mum had been spending her hard earned holidaying time (and therefore money, as hotels charge by the day, the fags), having to stay at my bedside, keeping me alive and what not.

the guilt factor was large.

after that i didnt even have too much fun. was really too young to properly enjoy it. i was scared of the fishies so i didnt snorkle either. mum should have really gone by herself and left us at home watching tv.

there.

now i feel even worse.

way to open up old wounds, b3ta.
(riedacher_bertram, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 13:09, Reply)

My brother left his trainers on a tropical island in Fiji
And someone stole my coat in Australia...

Oh and while In Fiji I got banned from the main pool 'cause I almost killed a kid.

Damn Australians stealing my coat. I liked that coat. Lucky it had nuttin in the pockets. I got a new coat though... woo!

One thing that holiday imprinted on me was Shrek. Every plane journey, SHREK! And once Miss Congeniality.
( Rev. Cleo still alive, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 12:09, Reply)

I was young and naive
I was about 11, and there was this lovely Welsh girl that we met. We got on well, but she kept asking me if I wanted to go for a walk. I was getting enough exercise in the swimming pool I told her.

:|
(Lannes, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 11:48, Reply)

Oh oh, one more...
Not really a holiday, but a day trip back in 1991.

Being on a council estate with nothing more to look at than burned-out cars and garages, the local youth club decided to take 50 of us kids to Frontier Land in Morecambe - now, we had a great time, terrorising the provinicials with our thieving scallywag routines and generally causing havoc wherever we could.

Then, I decided to go off on my own and explore a bit. I remember now why they tell kids 'don't go off on your own'.

Basically, whilst I was off exploring, I'd forgotten the time and where the meeting point was, and the doddering old fool who ran the youth club had miscounted the group, piled them on the coach and buggered off back to Sheffield. It was only after my brother, bless him, had realised that no, I wasn't at the other end of the coach, called out to the group leader 'where's our kid?' that the coach did a rapid turn back up the road.

My uncle, who helped out, found me in the entrance to Frontier Land, crying my eyes out and pondering a life on the streets of Morecambe.

No apologies for length or girth...
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Sat 23 Apr 2005, 11:44, Reply)