Holiday nightmares

Thewper1 said:
We were canny skint in the late 90's having not that long been married and having to be sensible home owners etc.

Saw an advert for an Italian holiday via Shearings Coaches. All inclusive, nice little coastal resort (San Remo iirc)....seemed like a really good option.

Coach picked us up at park lane, made a couple of other stops and by the time we were on the A1, was only maybe 20 people on and loads of room....class I thought!

Couple of hours later, we went to what I recall being similar to sheep holding pen somewhere in the midlands, where we left the NE coach and were herded onto the one for our trip, along with the similar groups from over the UK.....coach was rammed, and it was another 24 hrs to the destination.

The novelty had well and truly worn off at about 4am, somewhere in France, stuck on that coach, hot, stinking and uncomfortable, sick of my life, everyone else seemed to be akip including the Mrs ($19.99) who'd had a nytol.....It got so bad that I wanted the driver to pull over and let me off, fuck my luggage, fuck the holiday, fuck Italy.....but persevered and once it got light and we stopped for a bit, I rallied and toughed out the remaining 12 hours.

The Holiday itself was ace....small hotel, great food with a load of seafood, and unlimited Moretti (before it was available over here) on tap...oh and also found a little shop that stocked Stone Island (PM if want knocking out) so I was content....but....couldn't really enjoy the last couple of days due to the impending journey home.

That day came, and I decided to join the Mrs on the Nytol and Red wine diet on the coach......got about an hour down the road, supped me wine, took me nytol and waited.....started actually feeling sleepy, and before long was akip......next thing I know, we were stopping...it was light...gerrin I thought, I've slept through the night and we're 12hrs closer to home.......NAH MATE....we're at a f***ing famous Nougat shop about 2 hrs in, wasn't even out of cunting Italy....wanted to strangle the driver and gan proper Michael Douglas in falling down!

The rest of the journey home, was the same as the journey there, and when we were stood at a stop somewhere in Middle England, waiting for the feeder coach to the North East, I made the Mrs promise, that no matter how poor we were, no matter how much we wanted to go somewhere, and no matter how good the price seemed, we would never ever ever ever consider that type of holiday again.

I still shudder when I see a blue Shearings coach to this day.
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i've done the bus trips twice in the 80's. once with the lads to a place called canet plage and once to estartit with the mrs. both times left ferryhill full of excitement that slowly waned till there was nothing left but dread the journey home. absolutely soul destroying. should've known better after the first one but it was cheap as owt and like you we were watching the pennies.
 


humbug said:
i've done the bus trips twice in the 80's. once with the lads to a place called canet plage and once to estartit with the mrs. both times left ferryhill full of excitement that slowly waned till there was nothing left but dread the journey home. absolutely soul destroying. should've known better after the first one but it was cheap as owt and like you we were watching the pennies.
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I flew to the south of france, but a day after I arrived the coach turned up from the UK.
They were getting off and could hardly walk in their tracksuits.
Swollen ankles, looking ill, tired, sweating etc

The bus lot had to leave 2 days before us and they were trying anything to to bus it back.
Paying for an upgrade to flights, but there was only a handful of seats
Hiring a car to drive to a different airport and paying for flights from there
Paying to stay on at the hotel and catch later flights etc.
It must have been pretty grim!
 
League Wan said:
We went to Malta all inclusive and the hotel was like faulty towers. When we got there one room wasn't ready and they wanted to split the 4 of us into two rooms just for the night, when we went to the first room the ceiling fan was hanging off so we piled into the one room. The place looked like Beirut even on the photos but it was paid for by me mar so couldn't really say owt. The food was awful so we ate out every day. It's the only bad hotel I've had, the actual holiday was fine though

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I stayed in a hotel in St Julians about 25 years ago. Hotel pool had so much chlorine in it bleached your clobber and made your eyes sting. It was above an Irish karaoke bar that was open til 2 in the morning anarl. We only paid £100 each though at the airport desk for Thomas Cook at Gatwick. I enjoyed Malta though tbf.
 
a1970man said:
I flew to the south of france, but a day after I arrived the coach turned up from the UK.
They were getting off and could hardly walk in their tracksuits.
Swollen ankles, looking ill, tired, sweating etc

The bus lot had to leave 2 days before us and they were trying anything to to bus it back.
Paying for an upgrade to flights, but there was only a handful of seats
Hiring a car to drive to a different airport and paying for flights from there
Paying to stay on at the hotel and catch later flights etc.
It must have been pretty grim!
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it was terrible looking back but it was dirt cheap.
 
Big Duke Six said:
How about Tony McFee?
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Heard of him. Nice bloke. Had tea with him. Haven’t heard a lot of his stuff except for, as is typical of blokes of my age “Thank Christ For The Bomb” and especially “Split” (the album and the song - Split part 2) and the song ‘Cherry Red’ that a load of club bands covered in CIU clubs in the early 70s.
 
Dave Herbal said:
Arrived in Benidorm, sitting round the pool on the first day, heard a scream and turned to see a lad falling off the 8th floor balcony and landing on the concrete beside us. We had to comfort him, get an ambulance, find the rep and deal with the local TV when they arrived. He died in hospital.
Actually the rep was a Sunderland lad, might post on here?
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Okay I think we have a winner.
 
Magaluf when I was 21, I split my head open and had to get stitches, we had a fight with a load of cockneys which resulted in yet another fucked top, a lad got kicked through a glass door by a security guard, there was a meningitis outbreak, pretty much all of the bars were English fun pub type places playing Madness and Dexy's Midnight Runners. Only holiday I've ever had that I never really enjoyed funnily enough.
 
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The trouble is....now I know about (and have experienced) many of the possible pitfalls, I get paranoid about booking holidays.

Even a couple of 'terrible' ratings on Trip advisor is likely to put me off an hotel.

I usually do a google streetview of the location of any target accommodation these days.....often very revealing!
 
Metro Man said:
The trouble is....now I know about (and have experienced) many of the possible pitfalls, I get paranoid about booking holidays.

Even a couple of 'terrible' ratings on Trip advisor is likely to put me off an hotel.

I usually do a google streetview of the location of any target accommodation these days.....often very revealing!
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I've probably had more misses than hits with Airbnbs over the years come to think of it.
 
Dave Herbal said:
Arrived in Benidorm, sitting round the pool on the first day, heard a scream and turned to see a lad falling off the 8th floor balcony and landing on the concrete beside us. We had to comfort him, get an ambulance, find the rep and deal with the local TV when they arrived. He died in hospital.
Actually the rep was a Sunderland lad, might post on here?
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Worse than cycling across the lakes with the scurge of japan?
 

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