Travel experiences that were not funny at the time...

[flagger]

Obviously this will not be cruise related for me.

 

I was working for one of the major US airlines at the time and had of course flight benefits. I had the opportunity to take my father who was in remission on a trip first class to Austria. We travelled from Houston to Newark and then on to Frankfurt. We boarded a train to Innsbruck and found a cab to our hotel.

 

When we got to the hotel after g*d knows how many hours of travelling, it was closed! My father who still could read some basic German said we had to walk five blocks to their sister hotel all the while hauling our luggage and no real sleep since leaving Houston. When we got to the hotel, he enquired as to why the other hotel was closed this morning and was just told "Because it is Tuesday."

 

Well, but of course! We did finally get back to the other hotel and asleep around 14:30.

 

It was not very funny then, but "because it is Tuesday" became the theme of our trip.

 

What are some of your travel experiences that were not funny then but at which you can laugh now.

[Cruise Junky]

MY worst would be a 15 hour plane trip from Montreal to Vancouver. Should have been 5 hours. Plane took off on time and as soon as it got up, back down it came, we had to make an emergency landing....sat on the tarmac for a few hours then they shuttled us into this "secure" area with no cafe or anything...waited another few hours..then they announced the Pilots alone would take the plane up for a test drive...hour later, they went up came back down...said everything was fine...we all got back on (much against my better judgement)...plane was pulling away from the gate...captain comes on..."sorry ladies and gentlemen, it doesn't seem to be our day, we can't get one of the engines started"....URGH... I did finally fly home on that plane scared to death...kept looking out the window to make sure the engine was still running!!

 

I've had a "Spanker" in the next room at the Hilton. We had adjoining rooms so the sound was quite loud..up on the business floor about 2:00 am I started hearing this very strange noise....turned out to be a spank followed by a groan...Yuck!!!

 

I was staying at the Sherton in Toronto during the blackout...ON THE 35TH FLOOR!!!!

[lougee1043]

i guess my worst and we never left the ground was qantas sydney to lax--we boarded and there was a delay because they discovered a cracked windshield on flight deck --while the window was being fixed it was decided to do the dinner food service while still on the ground ---in the middle of dinner it was announced that they couldnt fix the window but there was another plane ready for us ---at the other end of the airport----and that the airport closed at 11.00pm and we had 15 min to make the switch --china-silverware- drinks were put everywhere and anywhere while we all made it off the plane with our carry on- we all ran through the empty airport to the other plane and we were all on board and secured when the captain announced that because of the delay the co pilot would run out of flight time while over the pacific so he couldnt fly with us but that a standby pilot had been called to report --a bit later we were told that the stand by pilot was ill and the flight was now cancelled -- an hour later i found myself back in sydney checking into the same hotel i had checked out of a few hours earlier-- flight went off without a hitch the next day------------but i didnt have the phone number of the woman i had been seeing while on this trip so i couldnt call her for one last drink in sydney--------------lynn where are you now

[judyfssw]

Going to Ixtapa we were to leave on Continental Airlines early in the AM. When we arrived at the airport we were told that the flight had been late in arriving and that the crew couldn't leave until a later time which would make us miss our connection in Houston. They agreed to put us up overnight but said that we would be on standby for the rest of the trip. Almost to Houston, they announced that arrangements were made for people going to Ixtapa through Mexicana Airline via LAX. We were able to get on that plane Waited hours in Los Angeles but made the plane okay. Then, the plane stopped in some airport in Mexico where we escorted off of the plane, put on buses and taken to a little building to go through customs. Finally, we landed about midnight near Ixtapa but no luggage. Filling out the paperwork for the missing luggage caused us to miss our bus to the hotel - But, hey, we're having an "Adventure". So we hop in a cab with a driver who's upset because he has to take us all the way into Ixtapa. But, we survived the ride only to be told that the hotel had no reservation for us. They could put us up for the night but the hotel was full as were all of the other hotels. At this point, it wasn't an adventure but a nightmare and I finally broke down. After spending a sleepless night, we found that we did have a reservation and we went on to have a wonderful vacation.

[woodofpine]

Driving the 20 miles monday morning from the Charlotte County Judicial Center on the water in Punta Gorda through Port Charlotte to my office in North Port (Charlotte).

[OCruisers]

:p FUNNY! The Cruises and Shore Excursions where "Something Went Wrong" are the ones our "Now Adult Children" do REMEMBER Most and LOVE to RE-LIVE when we are together!!! :p

 

Happy Sailing! OCruisers :)

[theawesome1]

Both of our lst Princess cruises has unbelievable lack of attention or care towards Platinum members of the Captains Circle.

 

#1 Thanksgiving S Carib cruise. A month prior we got our air tickets & NWA was chosen to carry us, CLE-DTW-San Juan & reverse. On CNN, Fix News, even local news is the report that NWA will be on strike over the 4 day Thanksgiving holiday. So I phone rincess to inquire & am told that if air changes we will have new tix in our stateroom. Great cruise on the Dawn, plenty of crew friends including Captain. No tix in stateroom, so we board bus to airport to over 20K folks from every cruiseline there & NO FLIGHTS! I immediatly phone Princess to be told that it is Saturday & air is closed til Monday to call back then. So I get a boss at CO, to see our tix on NWA, give him my CPD ID too, he tells me that NWA has to change us to CO for us to fly home. So we wait for anyone working at the ticket counter, NONE! So I phoned AMEX, to my Exec friend, who called NWA & got us changed to CO to CLE. When we got home, I wrote a complaint to the CEO of Princess on what had happened. I get a return letter 2 months later stating that we didn't purchase their insurance so there is nothing they can do for us.

 

#2 End of Med cruise in Barcelona, flying Lufthansa to Chicago O'hare. We stop in Frankfurt Germany first. We are told we need to get boarding passes in Frankfurt, the agent in Barcelona can't give them. We have seats 33 A & C, but the agent at the ticket counter in Frankfurt tells us we have STANDBY TIX, along with 8 other cruisers not all Princess. We did purchase insurance, stated as twice the benefits for Platinum members. So we phone a company called Berley Insurance who has Princess. They tell us that we do have standby tix, tho the tickets do not state that. We were not standby in Barcelona, why here? So again I phone AMEX collect. Again they get us the plane, as we are not standy by the code on the tix.

 

So twice Princess did -0-, and AMEX saved us. And we bought their insurance which is useless.....

 

But they are gone from our itinerary, Celebrity would not do this to us, so I am told. The way it should be.

[starsjohn]

We were at the airport in Osaka, Japan to return home from our trans-pacific trip on the Pacific Princess. JAL airlines took our ticket vochers and passed us through immigration. We were at the boarding gate shortly before flight time when we heard an announcement on the PA for us to return to Japanese immigration. There, JAL reps told us that our Princess issued vochers were not good.

 

We had to fork over 2,000. a ticket to get home on that flight. Being a weekend the Princess offices for flights was closed. Staying in Japan was not an option due to medical reasons.

 

Upon return home we checked in with our great TA and he said that our vouchers were correct and that was what the package included from Princess. Princess is denying the claim saying that paper tickets were issued, but their inventory does not show that. As we and the TA have no record of paper tickets, and the voucher clearly states that this voucher serves as an E-ticket in absence of paper tickets, we clearly are owed a refund by Princess.

 

Meanwhile the TA has refunded our ticket money from agency funds. The president of Princess denies that they are reponsible and that missing ticket reports will have to be made which takes up to a year, and that a sizeable service charge will result. It looks like the TA is left holding the bag.

 

I will never use JAL airlines again, for charging extortionary rates as the original tickets were only 600.00, why charge 2000.

 

Princess will hear from the Attorney General of California, and will not be in our travel plans next year.

 

John

[RSteele]

Many years ago...I was traveling with 3 other girls from Nice, France to Madrid Spain by train. The train was several hours late and finally arrived around midnight. We had made reservations (which everyone said we really needed) in passenger car 32. Got on the train...with all our luggage and started looking for car 32. After about an hour..or longer..walking up and down the aisle, we gave up and then started looking for any open seats...none. By this time it's probably 2:00 in the morning and we just lay down in the outside aisle of the train (picture compartments...not just seats). Were awaken by a French train conductor..literally kicking us, telling us we couldn't block the aisle. We explained that we couldn't find car 32...well, that was because there had been a train wreck (hence the train being late) and car 32 had been damaged and they had to take it off the line. By that time there had been several stops and we started looking for a compartment again...found a sleeper car that had open beds...I never really wanted to know who had been in those beds before me. :o

[OCruisers]

RSteele ... Now that it's long over -- TOO FUNNY! Bet "the girls" will always remember and NOW laugh about that one! :D

 

Many that were our WORST experiences are NOW our most fond memories! :rolleyes:

 

Happy Sailing! OCruisers :)

[polodad]

Remember National Lampoon's "Vacation" movie? Wallyworld was closed after their trek from Chicago. We were moving from NY to San Francisco & detoured to LA in order to see Disneyland (mid Jan, 1975). We only had 1 day in La & our view of the Matterhorn ride was from a Denny's restaurant as Disneyland was closed for "maintenance".

Believe in heredity? I missed seeing Morocco when I was a student traveling in Europe because my alarm clock didn't go off & I missed the train to the twice per week ferry. My son just returned from Europe. He missed the real Matterhorn in Switzerland because the conductor misheard him ask to be awakened at Brig.

[hajekfam]

Our experience was on the maiden voyage of the Century. To start with the story, you had your choice of taking the maiden voyage from New York or Fort Lauderdale. We opted for the extra days and really wanted to be the first passengers aboard the ship so we chose New York. Celebrity had arranged air and hotel the day before as the ship was sailing late morning. We had a 6 am flight out of Chicago to LaGuardia and arrived in New York to snow and more snow. We were the last flight in because of the blizzard. The transfer driver got lost driving us and the other passengers to the hotels and we ended up in Harlem. We finally arrived at our hotel - settled in for the night as it was snowing heavily. Next morning we got up to take the transfer to the ship. Got to the pier and check in was a mess - nearly all passengers were suites or Captain's Club and they were trying out a new computer system. Thank goodness, only about half of those that selected the cruise from New York were able to make it to the ship. (Those that didn't picked up the ship in Ft. Lauderdale 3 days later.) We finally boarded and realized that there were only 300 passengers to the entire crew.

We started to explore the new ship. Up in the Navigator's lounge there were these posts that looked like they were there for mounting a camera. My hubby went up to the bar and asked about getting a foot to fit the camera. He was told that those were telescope mounts and that the TA's who had spent the night before aboard as a promotion had taken them home as souvenirs.

The electronics were a mess. We would be watching a movie and it would get to the critical part and suddenly you were watching a different movie in a foreign language. The interactive map that was supposed to show where we were showed that we never left the port of New York.

At dinner a light fell fromt the ceiling and was hanging by its wires.

The corker was when I accused my hubby of not shutting the shower curtain and flooding the room. The rug was wet. He insisted he closed the curtain and reminded me that there is a lip on the shower. We left the room to report it to guest relations only to find a number of crew standing outside our door and looking toward our room and then looking at the wall across from us. Turned out a pipe burst in the wall and flooded our room and the one next to us. I could just imagine what it did to the rooms below us. We had asked about being put in a different room but the only room they had was way forward and we had specifically picked out our room because of its location mid ship the day bookings opened for this cruise. Would you believe the ship did not have a wet-dry vac? Celebrity's remedy was to have a crew member come each day with a blower. He would enter our room when we left and sit there with the door open and the blower running. When we would come back to our room, he would go out in the hall with the blower and wait for us to leave again.

We could not eat lunch in the dining room in Port Canaveral as there was a luncheon being served on the main level for TA's. There were just 300 passengers on board and we had open seating on the upper level for those three days. They couldn't accomodate us paying passengers because they were giving a freebie to the TA's?

The absolute final problem was the fact that those US citizens who boarded in New York had to disembark in Naussau because of federal regulations. We were bused to the airport where we found out that we had to pay an exit fee to leave. It was never told to us that this required and since we had purchased air from Celebrity, it should have been included. There were no Celebrity reps at the airport. Of course we paid as we wanted to get home but it was an unexpected expense.

The experience soured us on cruising. After a few years, the stories became funny dinner tales and we were ready to cruise again - back on Celebrity.

[Cruisechik]

We moved to Sweden and packed many huge boxes of belongings. We paid extra at the ticket counter in the US. We were flying to Malmo via Stockholm, Philadelphia and Frankfurt. I don't know what my TA was thinking!!! The flight to Philly was fine, but the flight to Frankfurt was terrible. We had a group of very drunk, smoking fiends in the seats behind us. They fought with each other constantly. Any time my husband got up to use the restroom, they kept hitting on me. I didn't say anything to my husband (to keep the "relative" peace). When we got to Frankfurt SAS airline went on strike. Luckily, after 12 hours stuck in the airport (no sleep for 2 days now) we boarded a plane for Stockholm. Once in Stockholm, they refused to fly our extra stuff. Then, they relented and wanted an additional $600. Well, I argued & finally they gave in. Our stuff looked like it had been roughed up. Boxes torn, stuff hanging out. Anywa, we flew to Malmo. My husband's colleague picked us up at the airport & drove us to our apartment. The owner gave him the wrong key to the outside of the building. We were tired, hungry, and freezing (this was November). He finally just took us to a hotel. We were so exhausted.

 

The next day we heard pounding on the door & my husband answered. It was after noon. It was his colleague. They assumed he would be coming into work. It was a Friday. We got dressed and went to the apartment. My husband went to get a rental car and we went to get something to eat. When we returned, we realized the apartment had no blankets, pillows, towels, etc. Well, Sweden has limited store hours, so we were out of luck. We froze all night. But the best thing is the note one of the local employees left us. It was a long letter about how we have to buy our booze before the weekend or we wouldn't be able to purchase any on the weekend. It gave specific instructions on where to get beer, wine, and hard liquor and the rules of purchase. The last line said "Oh, if you want to get food, look around, you should be able to find a corner market somewhere". We still laugh about it. No blankets, no food, but as long as we know where to get the booze! LOL!

[pvangordon]

Way back when I was about 12, my best friend invited me to go to family camp with her, her mom, her older sister and her sister's best friend. The camp was about 4 hrs away in the Sierra mountains. They pick me up around 7 am, so we could arrive by lunch time. On the way from my house back to their house to pick up the sister and friend, mom finds the car brakes aren't working right. She drops us off to take the car to the mechanic. We finally leave town around noon.

 

About 2/3 of the way there, right in the mountains and not close to anything, the car breaks down. It's the middle of summer, blazing heat, no shade, and we're totally not prepared for this. Five women stuck on the side of the road.

 

A nice person in a passing car stops to help. He agrees to go to the next "major" town to get a tow truck for us (this was long before cell phones were in common use, although we probably wouldn't even have had service out there). Tow truck shows up a couple hours later and IT breaks down.

 

So here we are, 5 women and 1 tow truck driver, waiting another couple hours for TWO tow trucks. They finally came, towed us to town, and mom's boyfriend (who was planning to come later that day anyway) picked us up. We made it to camp about 9 pm.

[sueclark]

I guess this might not compare with the others but it does relate to cruising....

 

We ended our transatlantic sailing in Barcelona, our original cruiseline booked flight was canceled the night before. We were notified to be in a certain meeting place onboard at 7:00 am for our newly scheduled flight. Since we were in a RS, I checked the flight online from the cabin and knew what to expect. The next morning we went to the meeting place and found at least 200 people .... hmmmm, there were only about 20 open seats showing on the flight. OK, we're game so we board the bus and go to the airport in Barcelona and dragging our luggage get in the snaking line. The agents are already yelling in Spainglish "Anyone who wants can get hotel and credit.... to take a flight tomorrow.

 

Being the frugal traveler I am, I tell my husband that if they are still offering it when we reach that point in line we are staying. We were given a very nice hotel and meals and one phone call home. We spent the afternoon exploring Barcelona (exceptional!).

 

Our flights the next day involved several changes, but we dealt with them quite well until we landed in New York. We had some time between flights and went outside for a cigarette and my husband called his HQ to check in.......... and all the secretary could say was "you might as well get back on the ship". He is a superintendant for a caisson drilling company and the job that just started involved drilling from a barge. She said "the rig is at the bottom of the lake." Needless to say, the next 4 hour flight was in silence.

[dmarch@islc.net]

I was in Botswana at a Safari camp. While at dinner a pride of Lions came through the camp, scratching the trees in preparation for the evening hunt. I talked Deluxe (our fearless African guide, tracker, and man about the bush) into taking a little drive. We tracked the pride for hours. Then off in the woods we hear an antelope cry out. We knew they had a kill. Deluxe says "I break my rule" (don't go off road at night) and off road we go until we get to a very thick tree line. The lions are probably about 50 feet inside the tree line. All of a sudden we hear a huge roar of a male lion. About five lionesses jump out of tree line and surrounded our Rover (you know, the kind without doors). I had one about eight feet from me crouched down and looking me straight in the eye. Our Rover is off and so are the lights. Deluxe just sits there, scared that if starts the truck it might cause a knee jerk reaction ( we die). They were just frozen, crouched down and (looking) ready to jump. I'm whispering to Deluxe (while not loosing eye contact with the lion) lets go, lets go. Finally Deluxe cranks up the truck and heads off. Just on problem, we're now lost in a field, can't go fast do to terrain, and oh ya the lions are following us! Finally we found the road. When we got back to camp, Deluxe and the camp manager said "we were perfectly safe". I always wondered. I usually don't feel like I'm going to die while perfectly safe. Several years latter, on a return trip, we invited the camp manager to dinner. She had now quit her job at the camp and told us real story. She said it was the first time Deluxe had turned white and he never "broke his rule" again.

 

 

Tomorrow I'll tell you about the revolution in Katmandu!