@Momof3sons, I had exactly that same kind of kid go along on a day at King’s Dominion for my middle son’s birthday!! The guest kid refused to do anything my son wanted to, insisted we do what he said, ordered lots of food, snacks, drinks etc. and complained every step of the way. He was horrible.
We were stuck on the tarmac at Dulles once and our 20 month old went nutso. Seatbelt light on, there was absolutely nothing I could to to calm him or distract him. I really felt terrible.
Typhoid, malaria, “holding it in” and a “morally skewed” brother… InfinityMan, that was a trip for the ages…
I had a vacation that started out as the trip from hell but actually became fun a few days in.
I took my D on a cruise when she was nine. Shortly after the boat sailed, we noticed that a lot of people were wearing name tags with the logo of a travel agency. Then people started asking us if we’d booked our vacation through “__ Travel.”
Half the passengers on the ship were followers of a radio minister who was on the cruise. He had advertised the cruise on his show and all of his followers had booked though the same travel agency.So asking if you’d book through that agency was a way of finding out if you were one of Reverend Jim’s flock. At each stop, they’d get on buses and go off to rallies where he’d preach… Announcements were made during dinner about when the buses would be leaving and what time the prayer meetings would be and where to wait for pick up after the prayer meeting. If anyone else spoke during these announcements his followers got really angry. No movies were shown in the theater on board because he and his followers took it over for their prayer meetings.
Now, some of them were very, very nice people. One young couple befriended us and were incredibly kind to my D, helping her do some more strenuous things during the expeditions that I just couldn’t manage. But…
Some saw this as the opportunity to convert the rest of us. The Jews on the ship were pursued very rigorously and were especially annoyed. We sat at dinner with an older couple–married 50 years. They loved to dance. The wanna be missionaries saw them dancing and confronted them, saying they were going to hell for dancing. (And it was about 20 people against one elderly couple.) If you ordered a wine with dinner half a dozen people would loudly say that drinking was a sin. I’d get extra comments to the effect that drinking a glass of wine in front of my child meant I was an unfit mother, etc. They all signed up to “perform” in the talent show, during which they sung hymns—and none of them could sing.
But then, everyone else got so angry that it turned into this incredible bonding experience. The night club turned into the meeting place for the “sinners.” My D was much too young to enter, but the entertainers insisted she be allowed in. The entertainers were even more outraged than the passengers since the “missionaries” saw them as horrible sinners–especially the dancers–the Rev Jim’s followers would tell them they were going to hell for showing so much skin–and, as staff, they couldn’t just tell off the customers. They said there was no way they were leaving me and my kid all alone in the other public lounges. (My D was literally the only English speaking child on the ship who wasn’t part of the minister’s entourage.)
All the “sinners” soon knew my D and spoiled her rotten. Each night, the singers would sing at least one children’s song and dedicate it to her.There was a sort of “Kiddie Olympics.” The cheers for the followers were divided among them. Each and every “sinner” was screaming his/her lungs off cheering for my kid–it was kind of “Go, __ Beat the Born Agains!”
So, while the first 2-3 days were miserable, after that we had a great time! But I really wouldn’t want to relive the experience. Looking back, I am positively flabbergasted that there weren’t any fist fights
Another reason to avoid cruises! I’m already afraid of listeria, boats breaking down, bad weather, claustrophobia, and just falling overboard. Never would have thought of being trapped by a bunch of overzealous religious loons!
@greenwitch I remember the first time I went on a cruise. I didn’t know what to expect. I was scared and excited.
The only knowledge I had about cruising was from the Titanic movie so wouldn’t you know the first thing I did was look for the lifeboats when boarding the ship. Thought to myself I hope there are enough lifeboats for all the passengers. It ended up being a lot of fun.
Just came back from a fabulous vacation, but had the guest from hell. DH invited a friend on our family vacation- he didn’t get off his fat butt, seemed to expect to be waited on hand and foot, drank too much, and didn’t contribute a penny to the cost of the expensive condo. I could go on, but it will get my blood pressure up.
@jym628 Sounds like hubby owes you another vacation. 
Any trip where my DH visits his parents is the trip from Hell
This story has actually become a favorite memory. Dh and I (kids were with grandma) decided to go to the Adirondack Mountains. One day, we decided to hike a trail to see a waterfall. We started way to late in the day. The trail started off very wide and easy and then became narrow and finally was fairly tricky but there were trail markers every twenty feet or more. We get to the waterfall (which was rather disappointing) and it is becoming dusk. We have no flashlight but we do have a can of pop, an umbrella and some paper towels in our backpack. We are very prepared! We knew that the trail was a loop so we decided to keep going as the trail was pretty iffy near the waterfall.
Well, it gets dark fast in the forest of the mountains and pretty soon we could barely see straight ahead. Thank goodness for those little trail markers…but then there was a pond. We realized that if we kept going, we risked getting wet and we weren’t sure if we could do the reverse trip. We ended up staying the night there and it was about 45 degrees out. Dh and I kept getting up and “dancing” every so often as we were so cold. Oh, and on top of this, I had my period- more added fun. The pond was obviously a beaver pond as we heard the beavers slap the water every so often. We also heard coyotes in the distance and had seen signs of bears before it got dark.
Anyhow the next morning, we could see the trail markers marching across the new beaver pond. We were able to skirt around the pond and managed to get back to the trailhead. We were both sore and crabby. We then started to drive around to find a motel that had a bathtub as we both really wanted one. We finally found a place and I am sure the innkeeper wondered about us. We checked in at 9:30 am and never came out of the room. Little did he know that we kept taking turns soaking in the big clawfoot tub.
My extended family + family friends and their 2 kids and I took a trip to Kauai. I was a preteen and had sibs who were toddlers and infants. We were told by a ranger about a lovely EASY trail to a waterfall, so we set off. There were 4 adults and 9 kids. The trail was actually pretty challenging, especially as we were carrying a watermelon, picnic and infant/toddlers as they refused to walk. We finally reached the waterfall exhausted, but revived after a good rest and consuming the watermelon and picnic. The walk back was slightly easier, since we had less to carry.
Another hike I went on was in a dessert–we went the wrong way and ended up without any water or beverages. We stopped as night fell and had a light meal for dinner and another light meal for breakfast before retracing our steps and going back to where we had parked the car. We found a stream and boiled and sterilized a few quarts of water before doing anything else. The rest of the trip was fine.
We were returning from Jamaica, and the flight was full. Announced 2 seats left. My little kid at the time started to cry, “but granddaddy is waiting for us”. So, guess who,got those seats, out of 75 people? We weren’t seated together, but son was calm the whole trip. We avoided a 12+ layover .
You are right, doschicos! Family only!! He actually invited 2 stragglers on tis trip (without asking me first). He had the pleasure of uninviting one of the 2 as there was no room. And one was bad enough!
JYM, I do hope your hubby spoke up,to his guest.
Not his style 
He (DH) finally asked him to put his lunch plate in the dishwasher one day. And this guest and one of my s’s have the same first name. At one point, when I was emptying the dishwasher for the umpteenth time, I said “shared first name”, can you give me a hand with the dishes? Only one said “sure” and got up to help. Three guesses…
Once, in grad school, my BF and another couple decided to hike to bottom of Havasu Canyon (side canyon of South Rim of Grand Canyon). It was an OK hike, but when we got there, it rained much of the week and the other couple was pretty miserable with each other and us. On the way back, we had planned to camp in Death Valkey but it started snowing, so they insisted we get motel rooms. We had an ok time, but they were annoyed with us for a long time for reasons I never understood.
@somemom, you can’t tease us like that. Details! We want the gory details!
katliamom, I would have to start a blog and post all year, FIL is a bad person, DH & his brother are honorable men, trying to do their best for him and nothing is good enough, he makes them miserable. Essentially when anyone sees his name on the phone as the incoming call, we are awash in a hot flash, not wanting to answer. Sad, very sad.
Wow…have a few hours :)) One that stands out is the time we decided to take a cruise in the North Sea. There were only two lines on the route we wanted to visit so we selected MSC. Oh boy, when a friend relayed the food was ok on MSC but Costa (same year the accident happened) was a little better, she was not kidding! This friend is so sweet so that should have been my indication we were in for trouble.
The food was absolutely, without a doubt, impossible to eat! It was for lack of better words, “disgusting”! Even the lettuce was horrible and to this day cannot figure out how that was even possible. Every family member lost weight on that cruise. When we hit our daily excursions, everyone raced off the ship to go eat. We referred to it as the Floating Motel 6 Cruise!
Also, after three days they decided to have the muster drill! Yeah, the spouse was already freaking by then. They had us all go to a bar on our floor, sit with a life vest on for thirty minutes and leave. That was the extent of the safety briefing. Needless to say, we made sure to find the closest lifeboat if the ship was going down.
The people on the ship were the most obnoxious individuals I have ever met. They were pushing and shoving to get to the buffet. Every show they made it a point to announce how there were only 9 Americans on board but a bunch of Russians so they hoped there would not be any scuffles…SPEECHLESS!
One of the shows they reenacted life in different countries and in the US. They took great pride in showing how the cowboys mowed down the natives on stage.
Finally, After a week and a half of hearing constant announcements in 5 different languages, I thought our family was going to lose their mind! My spouse speaks 4 of the 5 and he could recite all of them by the time we had disembarked the ship.
When it was all said and done, one of my older kiddos decided not to apply to the Naval Academy because of that experience
One positive was the housekeeper and floor attendant were WONDERFUL! MSC automatically charges you tips on your bill at the end. We asked that all the money go to these two individuals as they made up for the above.
My question is if I were to be able to convince my family to take a cruise in the US out of Florida, what is more of an upscale line to avoid these issues? Extended family years ago took a Holland American Cruise and they loved it but said everyone was old on the ship 
I once went on a road trip where I was driving my friend’s 5 speed manual transmission, even tho I was (and sadly remain) awful at manual.
There were supposed to be 3 of us rotating driving but her friend decided it was fine to speed while dozing and wake up when you hit the bumps that indicated you were driving on the shoulder!
We opted to ban him from driving, which left just 2 of us to drive. I had no idea where we were going and had NO experience in driving and navigating at the same time. My friend planned all the places we were going, so I’d drive to the turn off for national park she said we were staying at and then pull over and say, “ok, now what?” She had to be woken to let me know where we were supposed to be going. It was a crazy 2 weeks, but we saw a lot and had an interesting trip.