What's the worst start to a vacation you have had?

[Reecejackox 477]

Having to call maintenance out within 10 minutes of arriving due to no electricity

[Longhaul 9,741]

Having the shower in my apartment break just as I was getting ready to go.

[Avery 1,257]

Oh boy… Japan.

I landed in Osaka after a grueling 12-hour flight from the US, already stressed from the journey and under the effects of my anxiety medication. I was not at my best. Everywhere I turned, it was packed—pure chaos with rush-hour crowds in every direction. Trying to navigate to the right station and figure out how their entire transit system worked only added to my anxiety. So, imagine being medicated for anxiety yet thrown straight into culture shock—it was far from an ideal experience.

When we finally arrived at our destination, I completely crashed until the next morning… but that rest was cut short when we had to wake up at 4 a.m. I was grumpy for the entire two-day Japan trip. It got so bad that, while I was trying to sleep, I thought I could hear crowds talking—but it was all in my head. That’s how high my stress level was.

Honestly, it left a pretty sour impression of Japan for me.

 

[Clawdeen 25,181]

I’ve had a lot of bad ones. There’s a reason why I’m once again the only family member not going on vacation next week….

[Snoopy Fan 11,850]

Walt Disney World 2004. We didn’t get to our hotel until 10:00 at night.

[MidnightFire1222 2,328]

Getting stuck in Detroit overnight (on my own!) after they couldn't fix whatever what wrong with the airplane for like 5 hours. Worst sleep of my life, AND had to catch a flight there at five in the morning.

[ExplosionMare 26,170]

We arrived at our Disney hotel room and it was filthy! The bedsheets were overturned and there were some smoke stains too. Mom about had a panic attack because she's such a clean freak, herself. We did at least get some of our money back for that inconvenience, though. I think that was also the trip where my sister was sick for most of it.

[SharpWit 2,965]

Ooh, the start? I have to think for a sec because we're usually hit by challenges on the way back.

Honestly, I don't think we've had any real bad starts. Being tired from having to get up early sure, but that comes with the turf of timely travel, and no incidents that I can recall within the first hour or up till arriving at our destination.

[Envy 6,477]

When I was really little, my family took a trip to the Carolinas. On the way there I was looking out the window of our van and saw a tire fly into a swamp on the side of the road and I was like "Hm... Weird. Interesting". There were lots of cars around so it wasn't for sure ours, but it turned out it was one of ours. >.<

That probably takes the cake from my memory. 

A couple more, though:

My first plane flight we were flying into San Antonio, TX and there was a Tornado Warning so the plane couldn't land yet and had to circle around for a while and then when did land the turbulence was crazy. My parents and grandparents who had flown many times before say it was the worst they've experienced. And that was my first flight. 

Another time, when we were flying to California, we had a stop in Texas. Yup, Texas.  And once again there was a storm and it ended up delaying our plane flight. But then there was a problem with the lavatory on the plane and that ended up delaying it again, IIRC. 

[Dreambiscuit 12,170]

My first trip to Walt Disney World in 2013. The flight was delayed, and our hotel (which was advertised with beautiful photos taken when it was new back in 1975) was now an infested uninhabitable dump. We had to look for another hotel, without a reservation, and all the ‘fancy’ local resorts looked just as bad as the first dilapidated one. Finally looked for on-property Disney hotels, getting lost in the messy Disney highway system, and all hotels were booked until we finally lucked out on our fifth try, but with a pretty expensive room. By then it was late at night and we couldn’t get to any of the parks, most of the restaurants were closed and we ate vending machine snacks. We didn’t know our way around the vast, needlessly convoluted and poorly laid out Disney World complex, and we were exhausted. Even the fridge in out room was taped off with a notice telling us it was not to be used. After that initial experience it was a great vacation, but a very bad start.