Negative Travel Experiences

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Run n Spread

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While we all love travelling and nothing beats getting away.

What happens if the s**t hits the fan and things go horribly wrong? And you never want to travel again?

Do you take a rest? Go again? Or take advice?

I really am at the point I never want to go away agian.

So how do you recover so to speak?
 
Run n Spread said:
While we all love travelling and nothing beats getting away.

What happens if the s**t hits the fan and things go horribly wrong? And you never want to travel again?

Do you take a rest? Go again? Or take advice?

I really am at the point I never want to go away agian.

So how do you recover so to speak?
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Had a really shitty experience in Paris. Gave ourselves 2.5 hours to get to the airport with 3 hours to check in - and after packed peak trains, a breakdown and a protest, we made it to the terminal with 10 mins until
Check in closed, only to find that they had swapped gates but not pushed it to our phones. By the time we got to the checkin we were too late by 5 mins, and there was no connecting flights with spare seats for two weeks

Ended up booking two new full fare flights and copping a fair bit of debt for the next two years. Didn’t turn me off travelling - but I still get nervous before any flight


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Had a big night out in London, slept in and missed my flight to Barcelona at 10am.
Had a connecting flight from Barcelona at 1pm that I needed to get to go home. I missed the check-in for that.
I was 19 at the time and traveling solo so I naturally I started having a panic attack in the middle of airport.
Fortunately I was able to pay a fare to get onto another flight a couple hours later and just made it onto my flight in Barcelona.

That and probably the one time I sat in a packed bus holding in my piss for 3 hours wondering when the bus would stop for a toilet break.
 
None thankfully- nothing as major from a cancelled flight to a natural disaster, so I consider myself very lucky.

The worst from my POV was getting incredibly ill during my tour of Europe- like srsly felt ******* awful for over a week. My memories of Italy are not good, put it that way. Almost losing my passport too- that could have been interesting had the driver of the bus not come back.


My friend had his bank account drained- all 8 grand of it. Luckily i had plenty of cash to cover him and myself the rest of the trip and the bank covered it/he paid me back when we got home.
 
I consider myself lucky that I travel on my own and the worst i've been dealt so far is a plane from Chicago to Boston never left the airport and I had to wait 5 hours to get the next flight.

I was very anxious before going on my last holiday that something bad would finally happen to me. I know a few people that have broken bones and been stuck in hospital for months on holidays.
 
travelling from LA to Austin with a 2 & 1/2 year old and a 6 month old. Arrive 2 & 1/2 hours early to avoid any issues. Go to check in and the machine tells me to go to the customer service counter.
A lady in line tells me 'pretty sure your flight is cancelled'.Get the the counter and they say 'no its just been delayed an hour and a half'
Check in and wait 3 or 4 hours when i start to wonder why no one else is near the boarding gate. So i go check the board and what do you know its cancelled.
They finally book me on the last flight that arrives in Austin at 11.40pm which gives me 20 minutes to get to the car hire place or we are sleeping at the airport.
Get to Austin and i had to leave my wife and 2 kids at the baggage claim area so i could sprint to the car hire place. Add in my 2 & 1/2 old is getting shitty and my 6 month old is hungry as we ran out of bottles for him and the rest are in our luggage. We expected to be in transit for 6 hours not 12.
End up getting the car keys so i could come back and get my family. Go back to the car, feed the kids and spend a good hour installing the car seats. Ended up getting to our airbnb at 2am.
Caused us to pretty much write off the next day. Then the day after it stormed for a week in Texas.

* you American Airlines!

PS the only other time I flew with AA they lost my luggage and it took them 3 days to find it

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Boarded a Qantas Sydney to Dallas flight and 4 hours into the flight the captain announces that there is a problem with the 2nd fuel tank and there is only enough fuel to either land in Hawaii or return to Sydney.

We returned to Sydney, so I spent 8 hours in the air only to land back in Sydney.

Qantas did put us up in a Sydney hotel for the night and flew us out the next day to Dallas. No problems with 2nd flight.

The experience didn't really have that negative effect on me. People were freaking out on the plane and harassing the flight attendants for information. But when you're up in the air and can't leave and have no control of the situation. It just seems silly to get worked up about it. Just remain calm. Watch a movie.
 
Peter Sidorkiewicz said:
Boarded a Qantas Sydney to Dallas flight and 4 hours into the flight the captain announces that there is a problem with the 2nd fuel tank and there is only enough fuel to either land in Hawaii or return to Sydney.

We returned to Sydney, so I spent 8 hours in the air only to land back in Sydney.

Qantas did put us up in a Sydney hotel for the night and flew us out the next day to Dallas. No problems with 2nd flight.

The experience didn't really have that negative effect on me. People were freaking out on the plane and harassing the flight attendants for information. But when you're up in the air and can't leave and have no control of the situation. It just seems silly to get worked up about it. Just remain calm. Watch a movie.
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The reason why flying a premium carrier overseas is worth it imo. Have been delayed overnight before and at least with Qantas they'll set you up with a hotel, transfers to and from and vouchers for dinner.
 
Better Loosen Up said:
Bad things seem to happen when I go away. Not to me but just in general.

ie: I returned home from Malaysia the day after Black Saturday. The night that the Malaysian Airline plane went missing, I was flying from Singapore to Phuket.
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I worked with someone who was supposed to be on the Malaysian flight that got shot down in Russia.
She moved her flight forward a week about a month before the accident. Was still on the same flight number just a week earlier.

Fair to say she felt pretty uneasy when she realized

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Better Loosen Up said:
Bad things seem to happen when I go away. Not to me but just in general.

ie: I returned home from Malaysia the day after Black Saturday. The night that the Malaysian Airline plane went missing, I was flying from Singapore to Phuket.
Click to expand...

Same. Not that extreme but is a lottery.
00Stinger said:
I worked with someone who was supposed to be on the Malaysian flight that got shot down in Russia.
She moved her flight forward a week about a month before the accident. Was still on the same flight number just a week earlier.

Fair to say she felt pretty uneasy when she realized

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Again no where near that extreme. But had a weird feeling before I went away that I should call the whole thing off and quit while I was ahead. But I didn't.
 

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craigos said:
The reason why flying a premium carrier overseas is worth it imo. Have been delayed overnight before and at least with Qantas they'll set you up with a hotel, transfers to and from and vouchers for dinner.
Click to expand...

LOL at the Tiger Airline passengers stuck in Adelaide the past 30 hours trying to great their flight to Sydney.

Tiger Airlines only offered thema $5 meal voucher.
 
2 cars and $5000 latter, got home.

Let me explain.

Was in my early 20’s and still dumb as dog s**t. I literally has no idea what life was about except drinking copious amounts of alcohol and trying to slay as many girls as I could but somehow survived this event and learnt many valuable life lessons.

It was late 1990’s and I was with a few friends in the tropical state of Hawaii. The day was stinking bloody hot and the afternoon and early evening sun was not cooling down. Went to bed and decided to leave the balcony sliding doors open. Woke up in the morning to find a few devious types of people had scaled the drainpipe and walked straight into my hotel room. They stole the car keys and the parking pass to get out. The mistake coat me $2500 excess as I was too stupid to purchase travel insurance.

Same trip.

Rang the police and got an incident report number and then went an got a new car. Paid the car rental company the $2500 and hired a new car.

Decided to drive down the coast to the North Shore and just have a swim. Lovely morning sun allowed us to get an hour or so in the water but before we knew it, a bunch of huge black clouds started rolling in. A tropical thunder store was coming in and the weather was turning sour. A bit of rain never hurt anyone right? Well, we were already wet, we had a few towels to dry off and it was still very warm. We didn’t need to get out of the water. We decided to stay in the water. Before we knew it, the thunderstorm was rolling in and huge hail stones were getting pelted down on us the size of a softball. Got back to the car, the front windscreen was smashed, huge dents in the bonet, roof and boot were getting smashed by the hail stones. Another $2500 excess bill a we were stupid and didn’t believe something would happen again. We didn’t get insurance after the first incident. So $5000 in car rental excess was charged my my credit card.

Have traveled many more times to Asia and the United States of America but everytime we now stop foot onto an aeroplane, I get travel insurance and never share a car or hotel with friends as I learn they leave me with the bill.
 
No real problems apart from plenty of long delays or the odd cancellation. Luckily the airlines have always looked after us with transfers or overnight accommodation.
This year our Emirates chauffeur from the airport to the hotel was involved in a collision. No injuries to anyone and a replacement was sent to us within about 10 minutes which was good as it was 44 degrees that day
 
Deliverance said:
Did a Contiki tour once. Thank **** it was only a short one. Bus full of bogans from various countries who wanted to sink piss and go to clubs. Such a mad rush and never got to see or experience anything properly.
Only ever organise my own itinerary since then.
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Having done some seasonal work for Contiki a few years back I sympathise with you. Most of the groups are great but every now and then you would get a tour where the stars aligned and it was packed with idiots that ruined it for the others. I could tell you some stories about some of the crap people get up to
 
Had a 16 hour stop over in China. Decided to wait it out in the airport. Plane was delayed at about the 14th hour. Was stuck in the airport until they decided to drive us out to a hotel in the middle of no where. By the time I laid down in the hotel bed they called to say the plane was ready so had to get on thr bus back to the airport. The whole trip from NY back to Perth via LA and China ended up being about 50 hours in total. I was borderline dead at the end of it all as I cant sleep on planes.
 
Run n Spread said:
While we all love travelling and nothing beats getting away.

What happens if the s**t hits the fan and things go horribly wrong? And you never want to travel again?

Do you take a rest? Go again? Or take advice?

I really am at the point I never want to go away agian.

So how do you recover so to speak?
Click to expand...
Try working. That will cure you.
 
WCErevival said:
Had a 16 hour stop over in China. Decided to wait it out in the airport. Plane was delayed at about the 14th hour. Was stuck in the airport until they decided to drive us out to a hotel in the middle of no where. By the time I laid down in the hotel bed they called to say the plane was ready so had to get on thr bus back to the airport. The whole trip from NY back to Perth via LA and China ended up being about 50 hours in total. I was borderline dead at the end of it all as I cant sleep on planes.
Click to expand...
Always go the shortest route. Not the cheapest route. Long haul plane travel is literally hell.
 
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