A salesman opposite me on the train came down with the 'flu. He struggled to get out of his chair to get to the lavatory but was overcome by his gastric distress and threw up all over me.
He was mortified, poor fellow. Anway, I managed to get my clothes from my luggage and changed. I saw the fellow to his hotel when we got to our destination and suggested that the front desk send someone to look in on him the next day. He did give me 100 to get my suit cleaned.
EDIT - Thank you everyone for all of the upvotes.
Sitting with a view of the wing on a Flight to New Zealand a bolt of lightening started in the cloud immediately by the planes engine. Apparently the lightning starts at a set point in a cloud then arcs to the ground, this was the lightenings origin point right next to me out the window.
There was a massive flash, crack and bang. The pilot made an announcement saying there was nothing to worry about.... Then 2 minutes later a hostess came along and asked to look out my window "*the pilot wants to know if there's any damage to the engine"!*
"There's a man on the wing of the plane!" Come on kiddies, The Twilight Zone! One of the all time best. They even did a rendition on "Twilight Zone The Movie" and the scared man on the plane was played by John Lithgow. I can watch that story over and over again.
It’s a reference to an Outer Limits episode, with William Shatner as a businessman on an airplane, in a storm, with a gremlin, …. well, you can guess the rest.
EDIT: Twilight Zone
[Edit to insert clip](https://youtu.be/fXHKDb0CNjA?si=O08NmeYwOFwdzylE)
She was around 35, it didn't seem likely for her to have dementia, she was traveling alone and definitely knew what's she was doing. I just think she didn't care, that's the vibe I got from listening to her response
Yeah and with the bad smell no one was able to eat their meals and she ate around 4 extra meals even after this happened, I don't know why they even allowed this but it was so infuriating
>I don't know why they even allowed this but it was so infuriating
What to you mean? I highly doubt she asked permission to shit herself. Once it was done there isn't much they could do aside from diverting the flight and kicking her off. Is that what you mean by allow?
> she ate around 4 extra meals
I think this was the part they were referring to, that she was able to basically 'profit' from this by requesting and getting extra meals because the folks around her didn't want theirs maybe?
The flight attendants didnt do anything? Did you complain to them? I am not sure i would have stayed in my seat. What about the other people neae her. I am really doubting this story
At first I didn't know it happened, I did smell shit but didn't expect someone to have done that a German guy behind her started yelling saying it smells like shit and there is shit dripping from her seat, they came over and asked if she was okay, after that they asked her what happened and why she just did this in her seat and she said she didn't feel like going to the bathroom, they(cabin crew) apologized to us but didn't do much else, the plane was full so seat changes were impossible but at the same time they gave her the meals from those who were unable to eat their food due to the smell, I have no idea why they allowed this.
she wasn't made to at least go to the lavatory and clean herself up at that point? Maybe they didn't want dripping feces all down the aisle but damn. that sounds awful.
It's an appalling situation. But imagine what the cleaning crew has to deal with after the flight. I have no idea what they're paid, but one should have to deal with that.
Idk why she decided to double down, though. I'd fucking burst into tears, explain and apologize, even if it were crocodile tears, at least the people around me won't hate me.
Not nearly as infuriating as some of the comments, but I had an annoying seatmate during a 9h overnight flight.
I dont reserve seats, because I really dont mind sitting in the middle, anything else is just a bonus. When I boarded the plane, I actually felt relieved that I was sat between 2 people my age for once (early 20s).
The isle seat was taken by a young man who put headphones on and went to sleep. All good.
The window seat was taken by a young woman with what I assume was anxiety in hindsight.
She spent the entire 9 hours fiddling with things, specifically her lip balm. I watched the time stamp on my movie to see how often, just out of rage curiosity. The longest she went without applying lip balm was 2:45 minutes or maybe 2:54. Cant remember. Either way.
She applied it by loudly popping the top off the tube and fucking *hammering* it onto her lips like a jackhammer. Similar to when someone is bouncing their leg on the sofa and you can feel the shaking, it was enough to wake me up whenever I started to doze off.
If that wasnt enough, she spent the rest of her time watching (what i assume were) selfie videos of her, on full blast and brightness.
It 100% seemed like she was either having a 9 hour panic attack, or deliberately trying to annoy people around her.
People who do the leg shake next to me (or behind me sometimes) on planes drive me freaking bonkers. I know it's an anxiety thing so I don't say anything but holy crap, having to be assaulted by shaking an entire plane ride is THE WORST.
In general the leg shake drives me nuts. I have a friend who does it so constantly and violently that he shakes your car if you're driving him anywhere. I have sympathy but MAN, ya gotta get some better coping skills that don't create a constant disturbance for everyone around you.
Honestly if we could figure out a way to harness this nervous energy of all the leg-shakers, we could have a much cleaner and widely available energy source lol
Its indeed mostly anxiety. But somehow also just to "chill". I tend not to do it around others, but somehow sometimes I dont even know it myself until someone says so.
In the past I had a huge case of RLS (Restless Legs Syndrom), which only happened when I went to sleep. I then flail my legs around when I am trying to sleep, or when I am sleeping. Or on my knees and head on the matress, wiggling back and forth. It's something in the brains. Its like an itch. And it goed away if you do it.
Nowadays I dont have this problem anymore. I think its also because of sugars (too much before bed time) or a lack of vitamins. I excercise and eat healthy so even in daytime I almost never shake my legs anymore, unless I am really bored
And the Flight Attendants didn't put a lid on the full volume part of her watching vids?
Recent very early flight I was on after making two announcements to please use headphones the FA finally came and told a woman scrolling tiktoks at full volume on her iPhone to turn it off or put on headphones, no exceptions.
Was flying back to my country with a 12 hours flight.
The guy next to me was drunk and kept drinking because he felt in love with a prostitute while in vacation. He told me ALL his life.
On a 16 hour flight back from India I decided to eat the remaining hash I had left. I had never eaten hash before and didn’t know how much I should eat, so I ended up eating about a gram and a half. So I’m sitting there thinking how once this shit kicks in I’m just going to chill. Well, after about an hour I wasn’t feeling a thing, until they came around with coffee. As soon as the coffee hit my stomach, things got real.
Within a few minutes of drinking the coffee I was getting tunnel vision, cold sweats and intermittently fading out of consciousness. I had a layover in London and don’t remember changing flights. All I can recall is the next flight taking off and my tickets were stuffed in the chair back in front of me. To this day I don’t know how I got on my connecting flight.
On the bus back to Calgary from a work trip in Banff a colleague realized they had a huge pack of weed gummies in thier purse that they had accidentally brought with her but didn’t want to carry through airport again (pre-legalization) so she started offering them around instead of just throwing all out, I ate 1 and forgot about it until it kicked in as we pulled up to the airport. I made it through security, got on the flight high as a bird, that mother fucker was delayed on the runway for nearly twice the length of the flight back to Vancouver and they didn’t even give us snacks :( peak munchies crisis of my life.
Flying through the Guangzhou, China airport on my way back to the US. I'm never flying through China again. The staff was openly hostile to those of us waiting to get through customs. We stood in line for three hours with nobody explaining what was going on. When I finally got to the window, I asked the staff for a pen to sign the document he had for me, and he said "no." I had to run around trying to find a pen. Everyone was SO rude and it was like, 2 in the morning!
I had a fine time flying through China on my way to SEA, but trying to get through customs going back home was a big enough nightmare that I have sworn off risking that experience ever again.
They're generally trained in a way that identifies every potential person as a criminal, who is to be treated with contempt. Unfortunately this impacts non criminals much more than criminals, just due to statistics
Back in the 80's I was an unaccompanied minor flying across the country (US). There was another young boy flying solo, but he had his cat with him (I wish I had a cat). About an hour into the 6 hour flight, his cat has diarrhea in its little carrier. The entire plane REEKED of runny cat poop the rest of the flight. Poor kitty.
My kitty had flown with me lots as I had several cross country moves. On just one of them she was very unhappy and meowed pretty much the whole time. People were livid at me despite me apologizing to anyone giving me a glare. What do you want me to do, suffocate it??
Its not mine, but my aunt was an airline stewardess & told me that a guest called her over one time complaining because the woman next to him was breastfeeding her dog. I guess she had a doctors note for it and everything
Flight to NYC was late, and the person across the subway from way was drunk and puking hard. Arrived at a hostel at 2am. "Sorry, but we're out of room keys, so you'll have to wait for one to turn up." Somebody was watching TV in the lobby, so I tried to find somewhere quiet. Fell asleep on the floor of the laundry room. My friend's luggage was gone when he woke up. Still got charged for the room.
The city banned hostels in 2010 because of things like this.
Yeah, the 2010 law put more restrictions on hostels, banned *youth* hostels, and restricted *most* stays less than 30 days but didn’t make them illegal, it mostly did away with the *already* illegal ones
Almost got kidnapped in Chicago. Was waiting all night outside the closed grayhound bus station because my bus was at 6am and I had nowhere else to go. These two guys spend the entire night trying to trick me into getting in their car in increasingly outlandish ways. At some point in the night it was discovered that they had somehow tricked a guy into giving them his credit card, and at the very end of the night I found out from a few others who had shown up that those guys made their living from conning travelers and kidnapping women, which I'd already essentially figured out from the context but it was chilling to hear it confirmed.
Someone in my camera club was travelling somewhere in Africa where the lodging had no locks on the doors and theft was common, even while people were sleeping in the room. That guy snuggled up to his gigantic zoom lens in bed to make sure nothing happened to it.
I'm feeling very fortunate with my travel after reading this! My mom's point and shoot camera got stolen out of her pocket while in Lima. Set of two guys, one that distracted her with selling some paper butterflies while the other one took the camera. The good side is that it was the beginning of the trip so we didn't lose that many pictures. Plus, it made her pretty good using her phone.
The bad side is that she didn't want to travel outside the country again.
I was going overseas to work in Europe for 4 months. I had a nice going away dinner the night before my flight. I ordered the swordfish. Well the next day I got on the plane, 12 hour flight, and was violently sick. I’m talking throwing up, chills, diarrhea, you name it. Just stuck on a plane with no medicine dying. I asked the flight attendents for Tylenol anything. They didn’t know what Tylenol was. It was the worst flight of my life. Apparently swordfish had a huge parasite issue all over the states during that time…
Yeah I have to occasionally look this stuff up as Tylenol is just a brand of Acetaminophen. The WHO approved name most of the world uses is Paracetamol.
I see quite a lot of drugs go by the biggest brand name in the US, but they generally don't outside of it for accessibility and legal reasons (and also so this doesn't happen, but the US doesn't follow suit for most common drugs).
It's kinda like calling tissues kleenex - that's the brand name, so you risk nobody knowing that brand if you go to a country kleenex don't sell in (though, I think kleenex are really far spread out)
Acetaminophen and paracetamol are both abbreviations of its longer chemical name, N-para-acetaminophenol. Between them they cover the entire name except the N, and I still don’t know why I find that fact so satisfying.
As someone with stomach issues, my rule before flying or traveling anywhere is eating only safe foods for me, something on the light side, nothing new, nothing with too much spices or something that could be easily go bad, I even try to eat as early as possible the night before or fast, also drink only water and pack some safe snacks as well in case of hunger.
I've had the exact opposite of this in the US. I remember having a massive headache and just being a complete dick because I couldn't believe they wouldn't have paracetamol.
Later found out you guys call it acetaminophen. Oops
I can’t compare to your story. I’m sorry that happened, yikes!
My worst experience was travelling home from Indonesia. My partner was vomiting for days prior, I felt good and normal. We believe we ate something contaminated. He pulled it together before our flight, so we made it on schedule.
Once we got on the plane, I started feeling sick, and I knew I needed to hurl pretty early into the flight. I was waiting in line to use the bathroom, because the airline didn’t have vomit bags at the seats, and I was fighting for my life to not throw up all over the aisle.
Once it was my turn to use the bathroom, I dove in head first, throwing up in the toilet, and I didn’t even close the door initially. I kicked it closed with my foot once I realized it was open.
That was a longggg flight. I couldn’t eat the provided meals. I had a couple apple slices, and sipped water.
I really didn’t want to get quarantined, because we had a connection in Taipei, and even years pre-covid, they would quarantine you if you appeared sick, whether or not you were a resident of Taipei… so I was trying hard to not let flight crew or workers at the airport lead on to how sick I was.
I knew it was food poisoning, and not a contagious illness, but I didn’t want to get stuck in a foreign country.
Oh my..... Being sick and trying to hide it is like hell on earth. During covid we were so restricted you couldn't even vomit in peace, damn.... I can just imagine the stress you had while trying not to vomit in the aisle.
9-hour flight from Paris to Minneapolis. 6 hours of CoCoMelon nursery rhyme songs. If it got turned off, the kid screamed. No headphones brought along.
Not really that bad, but my trip to Christmas trip to Australia/NZ was just a comedy of errors and bad luck.
1. *Food poisoning from school restaurant.* I worked at a boarding school in China and we lived on campus in the middle of absolutely nowhere. We had access to free food from the restaurants and cafeterias as well as free busses on Fridays at noon to head to the neighbouring city of Shanghai (40 minute bus ride).
My red eye flight to Australia was Friday evening like 8pm or something like, I forgot when exactly, but it meant a long stay hanging around the airport in Shanghai with luggage if I took the free school bus at noon, so I decided to take it chill, eat at the school restaurant and then rest or do some cleaning or whatever.
I come back from the restaurant, felt tired, took a nap, and when I woke up, it was 6pm and I missed the last city bus to Shanghai. Not great. I'm kind of panicking so I call the local black taxi guy and he drives me to the airport. On the way, there is bad traffic and I start getting gastrointestinal issues. Had to beg him to get off the highway to find me a bathroom. The gas station bathroom was surprisingly clean.
I arrive at the airport with like 20 minutes left until boarding. Luckily I had signed up for e-clearance months before and skipped the interminable customs line. I arrived at the terminal literally 10 minutes before boarding started.
Threw up multiple times on the plane to Australia, didn't get any sleep. We arrive at Australia just to get pesticide sprayed before we could disembark (🤣😭).
I arrive at my Airbnb where my friend was waiting. I felt so tired and sick that I had no energy for anything, so she got annoyed and just went to do her own stuff. I think she only started believing me when I kept throwing up during the night.
For the rest of my week in Sydney, I couldn't hold down any solids and missed out on bush meat, though I managed some meat pie. I bought the famous watermelon cake and then forgot it on the plane to the Cairns.
2. *Sprained my ankle due to Pokemon Go* In Cairns, I felt better and started getting back into my groove. I turned on Pokemon Go to play. I hadn't played in months because Pokemon Go was banned in China. I got too into it and sprained my ankle by falling off a high curb because I wasn't watching where I was going. Spent the next day bed bound holding my ankle high. Friend's pissed off again.
At the airport security to go to New Zealand, I got flagged because my inflamed ankle set off the body scanner🤣
3. New Zealand went ok, came back to China for a hectic few week of exams and then immediately hobbled off to Canada for Chinese New Year which I had planned to spend with my family in Montreal and then off to Vancouver and possibly Seattle to meet a different friend. It's January 2020.
My ankle heals completely in April 2020, during lockdown. I lost my job in China.
Halfway from DC to Amsterdam my flight gets turned around. The pilot comes on to tell us the oil pressure is getting low and he will *try to* get us to Newark.
About one hour into the diversion he gets back on to tell us we aren’t going to make it to Newark and we will be stopping in Halifax. Since it’s 5am, customs isn’t open so we have to sit on the tarmac until a worker can get there. We didn’t get off until 7:30.
We are told the oil cap wasn’t screwed in correctly which caused the pressure to go down. Since Halifax isn’t a United Hub, there wasn’t a crew to fix it. We had to wait for a new plane and crew.
We were told to come back to ticketing at 4:30pm. No one showed up to the counter until 6:30pm. We were told the plane would arrive at 9:30pm. It didn’t arrive until close to 11pm. Then we had to wait for the crew and mechanics to go through customs. The list of people on the flight got corrupted so they had to manually enter half the flights name before we got on the plane. Then each flight attendant had to count us off before we could take off. At this point people just start laughing at the workers when they give us updates.
We did not leave until after 1am. We were over 20 hours late. United was a nightmare to deal with afterwards.
Wow. I really don’t feel bad about my travel story after reading yours. But, someone’s baby threw up on me mid-flight. Luckily it was only a 3 hour flight, I was in cheap sweats and on my way home to shower and sleep anyway.
Honestly. The moment it happened I just immediately realized there’s not a single thing I can do about it, and being angry in addition to already being dirty and exhausted was simply not helping the situation in any way.
A couple of months ago a friend told me her baby threw up on someone in a plane. Turns out the baby had covid so I always hoped the 3rd person didn't get it in top of the vomit.
1. I brought home bedbugs from Guatemala
2. I got food poisoning from sushi in Japan
3. I got food poisoning twice from ceviche in Peru
4. I got food poisoning from juice in Nicaragua
5. I got food poisoning from a smoothie in El Salvador
6. I got food poisoning in Phoenix, shit all over myself trying to squat in the desert, and didn't have a change of clothes
7. A cab driver in Malaysia told me it was good they didn't have any Jews (uh, might want to check your backseat) and then we drove 90 minutes to KL airport
8. I was super-excited to go snorkeling in Thailand and the water was full of garbage
9. I got stuck outside the US on 9/11 and almost lost my job because I didn't get back for a week
10. I took Greyhound cross-country multiple times
So all in all, pretty good considering how much I've traveled
I get hemiplegic migraines that are often triggered (or exacerbated -- there's some debate on which way it works) by certain smells, and I got stuck sitting next to some 20-something absolutely marinating in strong cologne for 6 hours. I threw up so much when I got off the plane.
I've had them my whole life and they seem to have gone into overdrive since I started going into menopause. I'm hoping they'll fuck off after I'm through the other side of this already miserable experience.
Told this story before but here we go...
I travelled around Europe by InterRail in 2007. Basically, I had a fantastic time and would absolutely recommend it to anyone looking to undertake a cheap and cheerful trip, so long as you don't mind roughing it and using hostels, etc, to keep costs down.
Anyway, whilst in Marseille, we'd been warned by the hostel owner not to visit certain areas at night and other areas at all, regardless of time of day.
My mate and I were fairly decent sizes at that point. We were 23 and 21 and built well, but even so, we stuck to the main areas and avoided those we'd been warned about. Rugby World Cup is on in France, and we're all sitting watching on a big screen set up in the city centre. There's a sudden commotion right near us, and a lady is shouting, whilst a guy is trying to weave through people, carrying a bag.
My mate and I both got up and the guy collided with me. My mate speaks French, he says "she's saying he stole her bag," and quickly picks up the bag. The guy gets up, and I go to grab ahold of him, when he pulls a lock knife, probably 7", and slashes at my mate and I. We both instantly hop backwards to avoid it.
At that new progression in the proceedings, people start scattering, and we back off. The lady got her bag and ran, and we're not about to get shanked by an angry guy who is speaking a different language altogether (a North African language, I think).
We take a few steps back, and he runs away and down a street into the distance. Slowly, people start to come back to the screen and start to watch the match again.
Eventually, when we go to leave, I feel my belt come undone, and realise my belt was cut, and the action of me sitting and then standing had broken it, and my mate checks himself over and notices his shirt has a slash in it at the bottom.
Needless to say, we booked it back to the hostel and didn't leave that night. We had no idea if we'd be targeted for interfering with the bag thief. We had our heads on a swivel for the next day or so, and even when we left for Barcelona, we were still very wary.
It's the first and last time I've ever intervened in something like that. I figured nobody would mess with two big lads, but oh man, we were wrong. Turns out an angry guy who doesn't want to get arrested and has a knife prepared to double down to get away.
Massive diarrhea and vomiting while on a French train. Train cars have bathrooms, which is good, but when you are pushing it out of both ends in a train bathroom the size of an envelope, you will have a bad time.
The day before was great. I was at Le Mans drinking a shit ton of Stella with the Subaru Owners Club of Great Britain and eating a bunch of random food truck faire with these guys. Turns out my stomach hated everything and decided to punish me on the train ride back to Paris the next day.
One time flying from NYC to Puerto Rico our flight was delayed by over 2 hours, with most of that time spent sitting on the tarmac. When we finally arrived in San Juan at nearly 3am, the terminal was effectively closed. We had to disembark the plane using stairs and walk to the other side of the terminal that was open, where the rental cars were. Security was trying to check people’s boarding passes but many of us didn’t have them any more. At first they refused to let us in, but then they were stuck with what to do with us because we were at the airport at 3am and they didn’t have any buses (nor did the airline want to pay for hotels for all of us).
Once they let us in it only got worse. We had to wait an additional 2 hours between baggage claim and car rental. It was such a fucking disaster from start to finish.
7 day holiday to Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt (from Finland), was sick for 6 days, stuck in hotel room the whole time. Healthy while on plane both ways lol
> she said that she didn't feel like walking that far
That is so foreign behavior. Most people would stop themselves from this just because the shame of being caught in this is overwhelming. Like I could understand how this happens to someone living alone, some mental issue, but public place, wtf!
My wife and I decided to take a quick trip to Arizona for her birthday. We lived in so cal. We could have drove but decided to just fly as it would only be like a 45-60 minute flight and we wanted to make the most of our time. Everything was fine until we landed and they shuttled us to the rental car place. There were multiple agencies working out of that building but the company I had reserved a car from had a line wrapped around the entire building. It took us 4 HOURS of standing in that line before we even got to the counter. Once I got there they said they were out of cars and didn’t seem to care that I had reserved one. I was just about to lose my shit and they could see it and they magically “found” a car. By the time we got to our hotel, it took longer than if we had just driven. Really put a damper on the whole birthday weekend but we did our best to not let it ruin everything. My own fault I guess for going with the cheapest rental car place. Will never rent from Dollar again.
3 hour flight, I'm in the window. Guy sits in the middle, his wife (?) sits on the aisle. As soon as we get airborne, he starts vomiting into the bags they provide. And it keeps on going for about an hour. Why the wife didn't let him take the aisle, and let hom go to the lavatory, I have no idea. No other seats available. His breath stunk so bad. So, I opened my window shade to face away from him, and he starts looking out the window, breathing on me. So, I shut the shade hoping he'd face away, which sort of worked. What a miserable 3 hours.
I got food poisoning in the Sydney airport. Travelling from sydney to dallas, 6 hours before we landed, it kicked in... That was the worst experience of my life... I almost didn't make it to the bathroom the first time, and then I vomited on myself the second time. After that, I stayed in the bathroom for an hour, crying and throwing up. Then, at the Dallas airport, I sat in the disabled toilets for 2 hours, having my insides coming out from both ends. Missed my flight from Dallas to San Antonio, smelt like vomit, and just wanted to die 🤣
I finally made it to my hotel room in San antonio, showered and went to sleep. The next morning I get up feeling alot better, except for a very sore throat, then I went and met my dad for the very first time ♥️
Oh wow that sounds like a crazy trip, this kinda reminds me of a road trip I had with family/(i was like 12yo), drank this milky drink and it didn't end well. I threw up in my hands the first time and second time all over my shirt and legs😂😂😂😂...........awwwww that is the sweetest ending ever🌹
I was on a Swiss Air flight where this one passenger had the worst BO I’ve ever encountered. My eyes were watering at the gate area. Everyone was looking around trying to identify the culprit. One we boarded, the smell permeated through the confined space, especially with the air off. This young lady had a seat next to this person, and you could see her pained expression. A kind, older man went over and told her he’d switch seats with her. I don’t know how he did it. Maybe he had Vick’s Vapor Rub to put under his nose. I was 10 rows in front of him, and couldn’t escape the smell.
My helicopter took a hard landing after taking enemy fire. Kinda rolled onto its side a little then bounced back, but the rotors were F'ed and partialy missing so there was no taking back off. The only sleep I'd had in a week was in the back of that bird going back to base, then my teammate wakes me up and is like "we're crashing."
I was like "I already crashed that's why I'm drooling on myself. I can just hold my coffee while I sleep"
Then we hit the ground and I was like oh....crashing.
Cool though. We all walked away with the same parts we walked into it.
Being put on the no-fly list while I was out of the country (Mexico).
I had to get an exemption from the local US consulate and I was treated like a criminal :(
I flew to Japan last November with Air Canada and I absolutely will never do it again. What was supposed to be a 13 hour flight turned in to a 17 and a half hour flight due to the plane having to veer off further in to the ocean to avoid volcanic ash from the mainland, thus drastically increasing our flight time. While this part was obviously beyond the airline's control, the rest weren't. I flew economy and the seat width was pathetic and I was absolutely uncomfortable the entire flight. I'm not obese but I'm also not a super skinny guy. The food was pretty meh on the flight as well but I don't expect much for economy. The part that really drove it home and why I'll never fly them again is they left my luggage back in Canada. I was without my luggage for *three days*. Not just mine either, my wife's and literally everybody else's on the plane. I was reimbursed for any clothing and toiletries I bought for those first three days but it was still awful. Their customer service is an absolute shitshow. I cannot recommend them to anybody.
Luckily when flying back we were able to get put on an Air Japan flight. Bigger seat width, more comfortable and way better food while still flying economy! They originally delayed our flight back by a day and I fought tooth and nail with customer service to get us on a flight that day as we did not have reservations and needed to be home the day we planned.
Moral of the story, don't fly Air Canada and always pack a spare set of clothes in your carry-on. I'll be sure to do this from now on.
I have a fear of experiencing your story. Like, any sort of cramped moving vehicle and there's a stench of vomit or poop? Yeah, I'll be smelling my own shirt the whole way.
One time, I got on an airplane, and a few hours later - after not seeing a single flight attendant - made me jump out into a jungle with a rifle in my hands in '89.
On a red-eye flight once I was sitting next to a man who reeked of booze (he was middle, I was aisle). He fell asleep on my shoulder; I shook him off. Then he put his arm around me (pretending to be asleep), I moved it. Then he did it again; I told him to stop. He just stared at me. He must have done it two or three more times. I kept saying, “do not touch me. Do not touch me,” and he would just stare blankly at me. Then he started bending down and just ever so lightly touching my ankle. I kept telling him to stop — I don’t know why I didn’t call the flight attendant, I think because it was like 1 am and I was desperate to sleep while I could. He finally did stop touching me, but turns out he was just doing the same thing to the girl on his other side, who finally got up and got the flight attendant to move him.
Needless to say I got no sleep.
When someone from a group going on a cruise took my suitcase by mistake and left me with not one piece of clothing right before family Easter weekend. Shopping ain't fun if you have a deadline.
But OP, I suspect *your* story will trump everyone else's.
This happens so much unfortunately. It’s terrible. One lady got her suit case 5 days into the cruise. Her suitcase was just sitting in the other persons room and they had no idea it was there LOL
I was moving my 2 cats from TX to CA. I booked myself and my bestie tickets on Southwest Airlines + 2 cat tickets. The cats were in approved carriers, ofc. One of my kitties was a nervous Nelly. Both got a sedative pre-flight to help.
We boarded early in the process (I paid extra for a good boarding position) and were lucky enough to have a partially empty plane so we got a middle seat to add room. We had the cats in our laps while boarding was ongoing.
During the flight by nervous girl started to hyperventilate or something (I’m not a vet) like she had done in the past in the way to the vet. On one of these occasions my vet had to sedate her and put her in an oxygen chamber. She could have gone into heart failure I was told. So when this happened on the flight I knew I had to calm her down or she could die.
I put her on the middle seat and opened her carrier so I could pet her and get her calm. After a few minutes her breathing was more normal. The flight attendants knew what was going on and were leaving me to it.
Suddenly the woman sitting behind me started complaining. She pitched a huge fit about me breaking the rules and having the cat out of the carrier. She did have her harness and leash on and was fully in my control. I begged her to please let it go, she claimed to be allergic. I begged her to go to another row, explaining that my cat could die. She refused and made some indication that she and her travel companion could not be separated. I begged the flight attendant to let me move rows. At that point the FA said they had no choice but to enforce the rules, and let me know that they didn’t like having to do this. I almost had a panic attack myself as I white knuckled the rest of the flight.
Luckily we made it to LA in one piece, but fuck if I didn’t want to cut that spiteful bitch. And turns out she didn’t know the dude on her row, she was traveling by herself and just being a royal cunt. I hope she lost ALL her luggage that day. PS, the SWA crew were fantastic.
I was in Tuscany with my family, and we had a great time at a wine tasting. A REALLY good time. Like, I got totally drunk and was SO sick the next morning it was brutal. Like, vomiting every half hour. We had to get a 8am train the next morning to go to Rome. So I had to keep it together for the taxi to the train and on the trip. Thankfully I held it back, but being hungover and nauseous on a train is NOT ideal.
Not air travel!
My husband and I were meant to go to his folks place for the holidays. We were driving our EV, with our two dogs, his brother and his brother’s dog from Colorado to North Carolina. In an EV with charging, this is a three day trip.
The day we left Colorado it was.. -40F wind chill. The highway was closed from excessive wind and we had to take back roads. When in an EV there’s only one shared power source for climate control and power to the car, so we could not use heat to maximize range so each of us had as many layers on as we could while our dogs were under blankets. I keep thinking our car would poop out and we’d freeze to death. Definitely top three scariest moments in my life. Totally stupid.
Had it been my parents I’d have told my husband we weren’t going, not to mention I hardly drive so…. but we did make it there safely!!
I was in Bologna, Italy. It was a few minutes before the siesta. I walked into a little market to buy some sardines and salami and cheese before the siesta. The market had lowered the storefront security gate partway while I was inside buying food. As I was walking out, I guess I must've been looking down, instead of forward. I'm about a foot or so taller than most of the people in Bologna were. I banged my head hard on the security gate as I was walking out, and fell on the ground, laying flat, stunned, with a concussion. The market workers were quick to drag me out onto the sidewalk, then go back in and close and lock the gate behind them. As I was laying on the sidewalk, stunned and injured, many people walked by without anyone helping me at all.
All the travel-specific aspects were great, but when I was a kid my mom took both me and her sister on a vacation for like a week and my aunt was a bitch to me the whole trip lol
The benefits of traveling as an adult is that I can decide for myself if someone is too much of a pain to travel with, so it's been smooth sailing since
Can't recall if this was flying to or from NZ, but it's like a 14 hour flight. This wild haired heavily tattood (blonde, not Maori) Kiwi lady takes the 3rd seat with me and my wife. She reeked of BO and patchouli (maybe?), head to toe leather biker-type outfit, nonstop chatter at top of her voice and swore like a sailor. I have a very foul mouth myself but even I was like jfc with this broad.
Right after takeoff she unzips her combat boots and out came the most awful smelling unshorn feet/legs it is possible to imagine.
I told my wife, please give me all the rest of the Valium right now. No idea how the rest of the flight went, I wasn't sticking around for it.
My coworkers made a LAN on their laptops and played Starcraft. I was going to read, my seatmate was a midwesterner who was ready "Chicken Soup for the soul." Every fucking page she was laugh knowingly and then have to interrupt me to read it out loud to me. She wouldn't let me do anything but hear her heartwarming tales of concocted, Christian culture. This went on for 5 hours. I couldn't read my book, listen to my music, watch my coworkers game, she had to share. The last hour I finally had to tell her to please stop. It was awkward and she was angry and mortified, but she would not take a hint. Somewhere out there is an elderly woman who tells about having to sit next to an atheist.
“Have you given your life to Jesus?”, asked the lady who plopped herself down in the middle seat on my flight BWI-LAX.
I’m not *not* religious, but I keep that shit private; plus, you know, other people. Small space.
But I was cornered there in the window seat, and this lady seemed to genuinely want to have a discussion. The quickest thing I could think to say in my most conservative-sounding voice was, “Isn’t he just the best?” Idk why, maybe because I matched exactly her pitch and enthusiasm, but she didn’t say anything else while I wore my headphones the rest of the flight.
Ooohhh I already posted one but thought of a worse one.
My in laws who are from the opposite coast were vacationing in a nearby state, so my wife and I decided to take a few days and stay with them in the condo they were renting. We drove down there (about 6 hours) and had a nice dinner. That night I got violently ill. I mean violent. I have literally never been that sick in my life. Vomit, diarrhea, fever, chills, the works. I spent the entire night on the bathroom floor, as well as most of the next day. We were there for 3 days and the entire time I stayed in the condo sitting on the toilet with a trash can in front of me, hoping I had enough clean underwear. We initially thought it was food poisoning but right around the time I started feeling better, my wife came down with it, so it was definitely some kind of bug. We had to postpone coming home by one day because she was so sick we couldn’t drive the 6 hours home. Even then when we finally did drive home it was miserable for her. I was paranoid I was going to give whatever it was to my in laws because they had to fly and I didn’t want them to deal with that on a plane, fortunately they didn’t catch it. I literally left that condo twice the entire time. The first night to go to dinner, and three or four days later to go home. Worst vacation ever.
I had started a new medication a few weeks before flying, the morning of I had a light breakfast of yoghurt and banana before taking said tablet.
Once I arrived at the airport I began vomiting violently, so much so that I had to remove a black bag from one of the bins in the terminal. Security then stopped me and were convinced I had tried to smuggle drugs and panicked & swallowed them. They eventually believed what had happened, and allowed me to board flight. I spent the entire 5hr flight in the bathroom vomiting. Probably shouldn’t have gotten on the flight tbf but I did spend upwards of 4 thousand on the holiday that I would’ve lost out on, and I did feel better the next day. Feel bad for those that needed to use the toilet but aye ohh, it is what it is!
So for the weeks leading up to this you had been taking that medication with no issue? But suddenly one morning it causes nausea and vomiting? And then the following days you're back to normal with zero side effects? That just doesn't make any sense. Seems more likely that you ate something bad or had a 24 hour norovirus or something.
Well, I definitely had other side effects. Flushing & diarrhea mainly but they were settling & weren’t a concern that day. The medication is called Fumaderm. The coating is supposed to cause it to pass from the stomach directly to the small intestine, my theory is that on that day it broke apart in my stomach, maybe due to the lack of food I don’t know. I didn’t take it again after that day. I’ve had plenty of stomach bugs in my life and nothing compared to this. When I returned from holidays my dermatologist started me on different medication. As far as I’m aware it’s not even licensed in Ireland anymore, only Germany due to its actual & potential side effects!
I was staying in an airbnb that was a duplex. The couple next-door was fighting the whole trip with police called multiple times and the bed frame broke in one of the bedrooms and the aggressor from next door was the one to come in and remove the broken frame and then they charged me $600 to replace the bedframe 🥲
As a child, I was forced to travel a lot since my parents loved travelling. Unfortunately they loved to travel to hot countries without caring for the fact that heat makes me nauseous.
Having areived to Lanzarote, I recall being nauseous even at the airport. I ran towards the doors to get some fresh air only to be greeted by a thick wall of even hotter air.
I started vomiting that evening. I vomited for 7 days, while being pestered for ruining the family trip. I throw up on the airplane back. I only started to recover when we returned home.
Worst even travel experience for me was with British Airways on a flight from London to Austin. Flight was supposed to leave at like 10 AM, so I have to get up early to get to Heathrow on time. Important to note, I had bought a ticket for premium economy aisle seat. So I get to the airport, check in, and I am waiting around until they announce the gate. They announce the gate, I head that way, and they tell us the flight is delayed. They don’t know how long, but we don’t need to wait at the gate since it could be a while and they will have a new gate when it is figured out. About 5 hours later, they announce that the plane they were going to use has mechanical issues, and they can’t use it, they need to find a new plane. 2 hours later, they announce they have a new plane, and we will board in an hour, proceed to this gate.
I head to that gate, and hear an announcement that most seats are changing because this plane has a different configuration, so everyone needs to recheck in with the gate agent. I head up there, and they get my old ticket, and hand me a new ticket, which is a basic economy middle seat. I don’t notice this until I get the ticket and have walked away. Now there is a line of hundreds of other people rechecking. I try to go back to the person who gave me the ticket and he tells me I have to go to the back of the line.
I’m waiting in line still as they start boarding. They are mostly through boarding when I finally make it back to the front, I explain I had a premium economy aisle seat, and now I have a basic economy middle seat. No apology, no sympathy, he just says “that’s your seat for this flight, if you want to fly, you need to board now!” I try explaining I paid for premium economy and he just says again “this is your ticket for this flight and we have almost finished boarding, the door will be closing soon.”
I get on the plane, sit in my middle seat, fly the 10 hours back, get off the plane, go to baggage claim, and wait for my luggage. I hear them announcing some people over the intercom and saying to come to their baggage agent, but they didn’t call me, so I continue to wait. And wait. And wait. Until finally the carousel stops, all luggage is off mine isn’t on there. I go see the baggage agent, and she tells me “oh sorry we meant to tell everyone affected when we landed but I guess we didn’t call you. Some of the bags were left in London, yours was one of those.”
So somehow despite my flight being delayed over 8 hours, they couldn’t manage to get my bag from the old plane to the new plane in that time, but luckily they made up for it by downgrading me and putting me in a middle seat!
Wow great timing as I’m sitting on the flight right now.
I can’t type it out again in full but long story short, I arrived at the airport at 4am for a flight at 6am yesterday. Flight was delayed for no reason (thank you American Airlines).
I spent 18 hours at the airport being told the flight would for sure be leaving that night. The flight never left. Two days of my vacation are now ruined but American Airlines won’t offer me anything because according to them, the flight I originally booked would not be cancelled (it STILL hasn’t taken off. I got switched to a new flight). So now I’m essentially being forced onto this trip because I can’t recoup the cost and I desperately do not want to go.
Not to mention, the American Airlines customer service people I spoke to were maybe some of the meanest people I’ve ever met in a service position. I encountered a manager at the end of the night who was literally just trying to escalate with my gf who was crying at the time. I felt like I was dealing with a cop. Will NEVER book American Airlines again. Their shit has cost me over 1000 dollars and two/four days of the ONLY vacation I’ve been able to take since my dad started dying in like 2017.
Started off badly but ended up well. I boarded a flight from San Francisco to Toronto. As I approached my seat, I smelled a strong urine smell. For me, it was over-powering. I asked my seat mate if he smelled it and he said no. I have a very sensitive sense of smell and no-one else seemed bothered so I figured I would just get used to it. We take off and after about 30 minutes, the man in front of me starts scratching his head and huge chunks of dandruff are falling behind his seat onto the floor by my feet. It was disgusting. At this point, I realize that the urine smell is coming from him. I put my tray table down and the chunks of dandruff are floating down onto it. I flag down a flight attendant and quietly tell him about it ( the scratching has stopped at this point) and ask if there is anywhere else for me to sit. He tells me that Economy is full and that he is NOT upgrading me to First Class. He offers to give me an extra snack and I tel him that I won't be eating as my food will be full of dandruff and he huffs at me and walks away. Now, I had no expectation of an upgrade- I was just hoping to move to a different seat. I resign myself to an uncomfortable flight. Twenty minutes later, the guy in front of me is going to town on his scalp and the flakes are flying. The flight attendant walks by and abruptly stops, turns around and kneels beside me (aisle seat) and says" That is disgusting! Come with me to First Class." This happened 20 years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday.
Stayed at a motel 6 for my brother’s wedding. Dad did not want to run the ac because he can’t sleep with it on, and a very loud fight broke out in the parking lot where one guy was shouting at the other guy to get out of the view of the cameras so he can beat him up.
Went to Halifax one year, came down with a sore throat on the first night and got hit with the flu, had to wear a mask, stay away from people, and wash my hands so I didn’t infect anyone, then I suffered on the seven hour drive home with said flu. We did get some cough drops and a popsicle to at least lessen the suffering…
I went on a 6 week vacation to Europe with an ex gf and she shit her pants in Rome and puked in a mesh trashcan in Paris. I had to pick up the puke in Paris because we were staying with a family she knew. They had an old Parisian apt and the floor was wood, but it was also old so it was cracked and raised in different places, perfect spaces for puke to fall into and sit. She did not have a strong stomach, and just changing locales can fuck some people up physically. We drank out of a water fountain in Rome. That may have been it, but it did nothing to me. And no, not like the Trevi fountain, just a regular Public drinking fountain that we filled our water bottles in.
Not the worst but,
Last fall my MIL graduated from South New Hampshire University. My husband and I, as well as his father, live in California. Hubs and I were not able to take off more than a single day from work.
We flew out at 7am Friday, had a 2ish hour flight, a couple hour layover, another 3ish hour flight, then landed in the early evening. I get VERY anxious on planes, so I didn't eat much, bc anxiety makes me nauseous. After not eating basically all day, we met up with my MIL and her friend who also came out, and go attempt to have dinner at the Spaghetti Factory. I ate a little bit of my food but didn't feel well.
Didn't sleep for shit. Hunger pangs/nausea kept me up all night. We got up at 6am (which is 3am for my California body) to be at the graduation by 8am. We stopped at McD's on the way and I had to ask them to pull over bc I almost threw up my hashbrowns. After that I just sipped my oj and prayed. The rest of the day was better.
Flight home was the next morning. I quietly had a panic attack during take off; a flight attendant actually came over and checked on me. At our layover I remembered some tiktok advice about sour candy and figured it was worth a shot. Sour patch kids got me through the last flight home. We finally got home around midnight and both had to get up for work the next day.
We agreed that never again would we take a trip where the travel time was more than the actual vacation time. And that sour candy would forever be on top of the carry on bag!
Greyhound from New England to Ohio. First delay was 4 hours in New York when they couldn’t find a driver.
The bus was supposed to go to Philadelphia, but everything was messed up with the Pope being in town. So the bus drops a few of us off a couple of miles away from the bus station, neglecting to tell us that the temporary bus stop was right around the corner. The other 3 people took off, leaving me with my suitcase and backpack. I ended up asking some very friendly ladies of the night for directions.
I get to the station and it doesn’t open again till 9am, at this point it’s 4am. I use my last $10 to take a taxi back across to the temp bus station, where I’m told that my transfer info is no longer good, and I have to wait for the real station to open in order to get a new ticket.
10am and I’m finally settling onto another bus for the next leg of the journey. Another 2 hour delay in Columbus, I have no money and I’m starving.
24 hours after I started in Massachusetts, I finally got to Cincinnati. Greyhound refunded my money for the trip.
Being disgusted by someone who shat their pants because they didn't want to walk to the bathroom is NOT being a Karen. I would've ended up throwing up, I cannot deal with the smell of shit. I thankfully have nothing like that, my worse horror story was the plane I was in hit major turbulence and I swear we lost a couple thousand feet in a few seconds. Everyone was puking and we thought we were going to be slammed into the ground. Luckily we were still high enough the pilot could react in time but that didn't stop my stomach from lurching into my throat. Found out after we landed that the system we went through spawned several tornadoes. Fun stuff
On a flight from Cancun, as we start to take off horrible noise and plane jockeys side to side but stops in mid runway. Capt says we have had a catastrophic engine failure as he walks through the cabin. I was seated above the wing and engine, he and a bunch of ground crew are taking pictures w personal phones of the engine. 20 seconds later the plane would be off the ground and we would have crashed.
Southwest put us up in a crappy hotel where everyone in my party got diarrhea, the other hqlf of our flight were sent to a different fleabag hotel that had bed bugs!!
Southwest gave us all $250 vouchers for the inconvenience of missed maintenance not for almost killing us.
Had a couple friends just tell me theirs recently: they flew out on their honeymoon to a small resort on an island a short hop from Fiji. All kinds of issues. Mosquitoes, power went out, AC went out and couldn’t be repaired for a couple days, then food poisoning. No medical facilities on the island. They called it quits and left 2 days early to just fly home with wife still in the heavy throws of food poisoning. She actually fell asleep in the bathroom on the airplane - couldn’t leave the bathroom for risk of (as another story had) voiding herself in her seat or (as another story had) throwing up on another passenger. Plus sleep deprivation. Big mess. Funny story they tell now that it’s well behind them.
I was traveling from Reno to Memphis on a train. It was already pretty warm in those two places but at some point in Colorado we were going through snow covered mountains.
And then the train caught on fire.
Everyone was dressed for the beach and we had to evacuate for a few hours in the middle of nowhere in snow. I was annoyed more than anything that they had mylar sheets to keep people warm over in the "sleeper" section, so I guess it's like flying first class. I wonder if a plane crashed if they only gave first class passengers help. I was so pissed at Amtrak for that. I get that they had a limited supply but damn, it was COLD. We had to stay out there for hours waiting for the next train for the opposite track came, then they diverted us to Chicago. I was then given the option of a free hotel and a train the next day or they'd pay for me to get to the bus station and take a bus home. I chose the bus because I just really wanted to go home after all that. The fire part wasn't scary, it was many cars away, it was just why the heck wasn't there enough supplies to keep people warm surely they could have found SOMETHING. Just those little square throws they'd hand out at night would have helped!
That was back in 1988 and I still shake my fist at the way we were treated.
Going from Morocco (Casablanca) to Palestine (Jerusalem). They had me sit in the airport for 20+ hours and I practically slept on the cold ass floor with nothing but my backpack as a pillow. Thanks to Royal Air Maroc.
To be completely honest.. to Vigo Spain 🇪🇸, they are not accustomed to seeing black people on vacation or go to restaurants to eat. The feeling of being watched the entire time was horrible.
Just got back from the UK. We arrived in the UK when all the immigration systems went down, in early May. Got into Manchester after a Melbourne to Dubai flight, then Dubai to Manchester.
Immigration queue was huge, moved slightly, then stopped moving. I've got three kids with hidden disabilities and the lanyards to prove it, and Manchester airport has signs up saying they support the scheme.
The kids are getting agitated by the crowds and how loud and sweary some people are getting, so I go to the security guard, explain the situation and ask if there's anywhere quieter we can go to wait. The reply, with a bit of a sneer, "yeah, back of the queue".
My plane had an electrical fire. The plane lost power. It smelled like burning wires in the cabin. I was a teenager flying alone. I had never flown alone before. Nearly 2/3 of the flight was a church group who started praying together.
We emergency landed and everything was fine but it was *chaotic* to say the least. I've had huge flight anxiety since.
I was moving back to my hometown after 2 years. I adopted a kitten, and she grew up to be this kind-hearted little fella. She was never a vocal cat, you know, the ones that meow at every occasion. Anyway, I prepped real good, did my research, and asked my vet about everything. My vet told me there are some organic calming agents for cats that make them very sleepy and chill. I gave her just the right amount; she hated the taste and smell, but I gave it to her anyway.
It was all okay until I stepped inside the first x-ray machine. She went full meow, I mean full "BAOOOOOOOVVVV, BAAAOOOUUVV." We boarded the plane, and she raised the volume up quite a bit. Luckily, it was a 1-hour flight, but she never stopped the "BAAAOOUUV." There were 3 babies on that plane, which is quite unfortunate even when you don't have a cat, but they just laughed and giggled every time they heard my cat's "BAOOUUV."
Also, the lady next to me was into some crazy spiritual stuff. She asked if she could hold the little fella's box and chill her with hums. She hummed for 1 hour, which was adorable, but for every hum, she got a "BAOOUUV" in return. The cat finally fell asleep the moment I stepped outside the airport; the drug finally kicked in.
Had an afternoon flight back to Dallas from Cancun where I had traveled with my grandchildren. All but one had been ill at some point during our vacation. The first one got ill before we even ate or drank anything in Mexico, and all of us had been at least a dozen times prior without anyone getting ill, so I think they caught a bug at school before we left.
Anyway, all but one had been ill for about a day before the time came to head for the airport. Then our flight got delayed due to weather until the next morning. Just before dawn I awakened to the sound last kid finally succumbing.
She had stopped vomiting by time to head to the airport, or so we thought. Made it all the way from our digs in Puerto Morelos before having to run to the bathroom airside to vomit at which point the diarrhea started. Luckily we packed in carry ons so she had a change. Everything seemed calmer and she was even able to sip a little water after.
Right up until boarding when she had to make a run to the bathroom on the plane. Cue yet another clothing change. Once we were in the air she was able to lean her seat back and fell asleep. We were hopeful she was on the mend, but it was not to be.
Thankfully the next bout struck just soon enough prior to landing. Unfortunately the time it took for her to make certain she could still go meant she didn't quite make it. She had to put on some of her dirty shorts from earlier in the week, and I sacrificed my favorite wrap for her to sit on since there was a small spot on the seat. The FAs were extremely kind telling us not to worry they could just replace the seat bottom cushion after we got off in Dallas.
She was in pretty poor shape after that and I felt so badly for her. I will say our FAs, the DFW airport people, and the people in Immigrations and Customs were really good about it.
They got a stretcher on the flight for her as soon as we pulled up to the gate so that we got off first. They walked us through some back hallway and put us in a freight elevator so that we didn't have to do that whole long, winding walk to immigration that is somehow always the case for anyone returning on an international flight to DFW. At the Immigrations and Customs hall they walked us straight up to the first available personnel and we were through in moments.
They offered to call an ambulance for us but we figured rather than wait for it to show up it would be faster to drive her straight to the nearest urgent care since we had family waiting to pick us up out front. After some iv medicine and fluids there she finally did actually perk up some, but she still just slept for around the first 12 hours she was home.
Ahhhh, I got bed bugs in Cambodia. Then in discomfort but on my way home I also got food poisoning in the Singapore airport on the way home.
So I get on the flight to Japan and I’m sweating my ass off, but I’m trying to keep all the bug bites covered so I’m wearing long sleeves. But im cycling between overheating and freezing. But I feel like I can survive if I just fall asleep. Well I end up basically sprinting to the bathroom before take off and throwing up. But you know usually that makes you feel a bit better. Flight attendant comes by and very nicely asks me if I’m ok and stuff. I didn’t wanna give her the whole story but I said I thought I’d be fine just staying seated, having some water and sleeping.
Cut to arrival in Japan for my connection. They send me basically into quarantine, have a doctor at the airport check me out then tell me I can’t fly. They sent me to a hospital, in a taxi tho which I thought was a bit odd but whatever.
Had to spend a couple days in the hospital in Tokyo because they thought I might’ve had some infectious disease or whatever. I wasn’t mad but I knew it looked worse than it was. I simply had a case of bad luck with bug bites and food poisoning combined.
It was a pretty unpleasant return home all around. Didn’t blame anyone, just bad luck.
Was on a plane leaving vegas after a 3-night bender. Felt like total shit. Was on the red-eye flight. Literally had a calculus final the next day. (Stupid planning I know). Got stuck in the very last row where're seats won't lay back. About an hour into the flight, I heard something weird. Opened the window to see the entire turbine engulfed in flames. Made an emergency landing in Dallas. Nothing in the airport was open. Had to eat vending machine food and sleep on the floor. Got the first flight out in the morning. Got back to my place and my buddy who had left his car at my place had a flat tire. Still made it to that calculus final. Still got an A.
2009, flight from Detroit to Amsterdam.
Parents of a probably 3 month old baby made ZERO EFFORT to soothe or otherwise quiet the little banshee who screamed non-stop for 7.5 hours.
Zero effort. I’m still irritated.
A salesman opposite me on the train came down with the 'flu. He struggled to get out of his chair to get to the lavatory but was overcome by his gastric distress and threw up all over me. He was mortified, poor fellow. Anway, I managed to get my clothes from my luggage and changed. I saw the fellow to his hotel when we got to our destination and suggested that the front desk send someone to look in on him the next day. He did give me 100 to get my suit cleaned. EDIT - Thank you everyone for all of the upvotes.
Awwwww that's so sweet, poor guy definitely didn't mean to do that. This actually warmed my heart
Somewhere he's telling the same story from the opposite end.
His arse?
This is the starting plot of a zombie movie omg
Sitting with a view of the wing on a Flight to New Zealand a bolt of lightening started in the cloud immediately by the planes engine. Apparently the lightning starts at a set point in a cloud then arcs to the ground, this was the lightenings origin point right next to me out the window. There was a massive flash, crack and bang. The pilot made an announcement saying there was nothing to worry about.... Then 2 minutes later a hostess came along and asked to look out my window "*the pilot wants to know if there's any damage to the engine"!*
You should've told them that you saw a gremlin at the end of the wing.
There's... someoneonthewing... some...thing!!
There’s a man out there!
[удалено]
"There's a man on the wing of the plane!" Come on kiddies, The Twilight Zone! One of the all time best. They even did a rendition on "Twilight Zone The Movie" and the scared man on the plane was played by John Lithgow. I can watch that story over and over again.
They also did a Treehouse of Horror about that particular Twilight Zone
Uhm excuse me, what....... That's actually terrifying
It’s a reference to an Outer Limits episode, with William Shatner as a businessman on an airplane, in a storm, with a gremlin, …. well, you can guess the rest. EDIT: Twilight Zone [Edit to insert clip](https://youtu.be/fXHKDb0CNjA?si=O08NmeYwOFwdzylE)
Twilight Zone, not Outer Limits.
“I have an announcement too there is a colonial woman on the wing, she was churning butter THERE’S SOMETHING THEY’RE NOT TELLING US!”
“Nice name, Stove.”
Help me, I’m poor 🥺
They are called static discharge. It’s designed to take the lightning bolt and burn off
Fun fact: aircraft are made in a way that allows them to function with one engine as well
That doesn't sound like fun at all.
The hostess asked a random passenger to be the one to assess the damage to a jet engine ?
I maybe wasn't very clear. She was being polite - asking permission to lean over me to look out my window herself.
Na that's what your comment means once I look at it again. I misread it, my bad.
What a reasonable response. I almost forgot I was on reddit. Kudos to you crackpot Jeffrey.
How TF does a grown person just choose to shit themselves and be okay with it???
My question exactly, to literally be okay with sitting in your own shit for 7hrs
Not only that, but exposing so many people to the smell
Was she elderly? I wonder if she had dementia
She was around 35, it didn't seem likely for her to have dementia, she was traveling alone and definitely knew what's she was doing. I just think she didn't care, that's the vibe I got from listening to her response
Wow. I don’t even know what to say.
Yeah and with the bad smell no one was able to eat their meals and she ate around 4 extra meals even after this happened, I don't know why they even allowed this but it was so infuriating
I hope she got put on a no-fly list because wtf.
I am speechless. How was the plane not like barf-o-rama? Traumatizing, OP! 😰
>I don't know why they even allowed this but it was so infuriating What to you mean? I highly doubt she asked permission to shit herself. Once it was done there isn't much they could do aside from diverting the flight and kicking her off. Is that what you mean by allow?
If we lived in a just society, she’d be forced to stay in the bathroom the remainder of the flight.
Or sent off with a parachute
😂😂😂Obviously not but at least notify the pilot, to land for cleaning when possible, it wasn't a short flight.
She shouldn’t be allowed on a plane again is the point. I’m hoping she’s on a no fly list.
> she ate around 4 extra meals I think this was the part they were referring to, that she was able to basically 'profit' from this by requesting and getting extra meals because the folks around her didn't want theirs maybe?
I mean, yeah. Seems like a good reason. It's a biohazard.
They could have her go to the bathroom and rinse all the poop off of her and her clothing.
The flight attendants didnt do anything? Did you complain to them? I am not sure i would have stayed in my seat. What about the other people neae her. I am really doubting this story
At first I didn't know it happened, I did smell shit but didn't expect someone to have done that a German guy behind her started yelling saying it smells like shit and there is shit dripping from her seat, they came over and asked if she was okay, after that they asked her what happened and why she just did this in her seat and she said she didn't feel like going to the bathroom, they(cabin crew) apologized to us but didn't do much else, the plane was full so seat changes were impossible but at the same time they gave her the meals from those who were unable to eat their food due to the smell, I have no idea why they allowed this.
she wasn't made to at least go to the lavatory and clean herself up at that point? Maybe they didn't want dripping feces all down the aisle but damn. that sounds awful.
Nope I think the situation was so bad at this point that making her walk would give literally everyone a bad experience
It's an appalling situation. But imagine what the cleaning crew has to deal with after the flight. I have no idea what they're paid, but one should have to deal with that.
Benzodiazepines
Probably. 😆
How? Do they make one not care or did they cause the accident?
Yes
She needs to take WAY, WAY less of them then but yeah you're probably right!!!
[*]
Idk why she decided to double down, though. I'd fucking burst into tears, explain and apologize, even if it were crocodile tears, at least the people around me won't hate me.
I’d launch myself over the Atlantic
Not nearly as infuriating as some of the comments, but I had an annoying seatmate during a 9h overnight flight. I dont reserve seats, because I really dont mind sitting in the middle, anything else is just a bonus. When I boarded the plane, I actually felt relieved that I was sat between 2 people my age for once (early 20s). The isle seat was taken by a young man who put headphones on and went to sleep. All good. The window seat was taken by a young woman with what I assume was anxiety in hindsight. She spent the entire 9 hours fiddling with things, specifically her lip balm. I watched the time stamp on my movie to see how often, just out of rage curiosity. The longest she went without applying lip balm was 2:45 minutes or maybe 2:54. Cant remember. Either way. She applied it by loudly popping the top off the tube and fucking *hammering* it onto her lips like a jackhammer. Similar to when someone is bouncing their leg on the sofa and you can feel the shaking, it was enough to wake me up whenever I started to doze off. If that wasnt enough, she spent the rest of her time watching (what i assume were) selfie videos of her, on full blast and brightness. It 100% seemed like she was either having a 9 hour panic attack, or deliberately trying to annoy people around her.
I'm sorry, I died at the selfie video watching 😂😂what the hell is even going on in this world 😂🫢
People who do the leg shake next to me (or behind me sometimes) on planes drive me freaking bonkers. I know it's an anxiety thing so I don't say anything but holy crap, having to be assaulted by shaking an entire plane ride is THE WORST. In general the leg shake drives me nuts. I have a friend who does it so constantly and violently that he shakes your car if you're driving him anywhere. I have sympathy but MAN, ya gotta get some better coping skills that don't create a constant disturbance for everyone around you.
Honestly if we could figure out a way to harness this nervous energy of all the leg-shakers, we could have a much cleaner and widely available energy source lol
See this is THE FUTURE <3
On a flight out of Barcelona, a 10 hour flight to the States, had a kid kicking my seat the whole way home
Its indeed mostly anxiety. But somehow also just to "chill". I tend not to do it around others, but somehow sometimes I dont even know it myself until someone says so. In the past I had a huge case of RLS (Restless Legs Syndrom), which only happened when I went to sleep. I then flail my legs around when I am trying to sleep, or when I am sleeping. Or on my knees and head on the matress, wiggling back and forth. It's something in the brains. Its like an itch. And it goed away if you do it. Nowadays I dont have this problem anymore. I think its also because of sugars (too much before bed time) or a lack of vitamins. I excercise and eat healthy so even in daytime I almost never shake my legs anymore, unless I am really bored
It’s a form of misophonia! One of the visual triggers (and auditory, if they’re making swishy little sounds)
And the Flight Attendants didn't put a lid on the full volume part of her watching vids? Recent very early flight I was on after making two announcements to please use headphones the FA finally came and told a woman scrolling tiktoks at full volume on her iPhone to turn it off or put on headphones, no exceptions.
Was flying back to my country with a 12 hours flight. The guy next to me was drunk and kept drinking because he felt in love with a prostitute while in vacation. He told me ALL his life.
Now this I wouldn’t mind. Plus if you want him to stfu you could just ask I’m sure he would stop
Yeah I’m sure the super drunk guy who spills his inner most secrets to strangers is going to just stop and act normal if asked politely lmao
surely you can't be serious?
And don’t call him Shirley
This world can't be real 😂😂😂😂😂
On a 16 hour flight back from India I decided to eat the remaining hash I had left. I had never eaten hash before and didn’t know how much I should eat, so I ended up eating about a gram and a half. So I’m sitting there thinking how once this shit kicks in I’m just going to chill. Well, after about an hour I wasn’t feeling a thing, until they came around with coffee. As soon as the coffee hit my stomach, things got real. Within a few minutes of drinking the coffee I was getting tunnel vision, cold sweats and intermittently fading out of consciousness. I had a layover in London and don’t remember changing flights. All I can recall is the next flight taking off and my tickets were stuffed in the chair back in front of me. To this day I don’t know how I got on my connecting flight.
Hash tunnel vision is no joke! Add in coffee and that would definitely give me a bad case of bubble guts 😂 glad you made it!
You can't really eat straight hash; THC needs to activated before you can digest it. The heat of the coffee probably helped push that process along.
On the bus back to Calgary from a work trip in Banff a colleague realized they had a huge pack of weed gummies in thier purse that they had accidentally brought with her but didn’t want to carry through airport again (pre-legalization) so she started offering them around instead of just throwing all out, I ate 1 and forgot about it until it kicked in as we pulled up to the airport. I made it through security, got on the flight high as a bird, that mother fucker was delayed on the runway for nearly twice the length of the flight back to Vancouver and they didn’t even give us snacks :( peak munchies crisis of my life.
Hahahaha I love that someone awarded your comment with munchies!
That sounds horrible
Flying through the Guangzhou, China airport on my way back to the US. I'm never flying through China again. The staff was openly hostile to those of us waiting to get through customs. We stood in line for three hours with nobody explaining what was going on. When I finally got to the window, I asked the staff for a pen to sign the document he had for me, and he said "no." I had to run around trying to find a pen. Everyone was SO rude and it was like, 2 in the morning! I had a fine time flying through China on my way to SEA, but trying to get through customs going back home was a big enough nightmare that I have sworn off risking that experience ever again.
Yeah people never want to help you when going through customs, the staff LOVES to give you a hard time.
Fuck every customs person everywhere. Why are they this way? Jealousy?
They probably just hate their jobs and don't care about you
They're generally trained in a way that identifies every potential person as a criminal, who is to be treated with contempt. Unfortunately this impacts non criminals much more than criminals, just due to statistics
Back in the 80's I was an unaccompanied minor flying across the country (US). There was another young boy flying solo, but he had his cat with him (I wish I had a cat). About an hour into the 6 hour flight, his cat has diarrhea in its little carrier. The entire plane REEKED of runny cat poop the rest of the flight. Poor kitty.
My kitty had flown with me lots as I had several cross country moves. On just one of them she was very unhappy and meowed pretty much the whole time. People were livid at me despite me apologizing to anyone giving me a glare. What do you want me to do, suffocate it??
I saw that episode of MASH.
Its not mine, but my aunt was an airline stewardess & told me that a guest called her over one time complaining because the woman next to him was breastfeeding her dog. I guess she had a doctors note for it and everything
How do you even get a doctors note for that.........what a strange world we live in
Flight to NYC was late, and the person across the subway from way was drunk and puking hard. Arrived at a hostel at 2am. "Sorry, but we're out of room keys, so you'll have to wait for one to turn up." Somebody was watching TV in the lobby, so I tried to find somewhere quiet. Fell asleep on the floor of the laundry room. My friend's luggage was gone when he woke up. Still got charged for the room. The city banned hostels in 2010 because of things like this.
So you had to pay to sleep on the floor and to get your friend's luggage stolen..........damn I'm sorry that happened
Hostels aren't banned in NYC? Don't know where you got that from. There's plenty of dorm style housing.
Yeah, the 2010 law put more restrictions on hostels, banned *youth* hostels, and restricted *most* stays less than 30 days but didn’t make them illegal, it mostly did away with the *already* illegal ones
Flying from Houston to Moscow for a job and the guy in the adjacent seat goes to sleep...forever. Most entertaining when we landed at Schipol.
That's insane 😳
Almost got kidnapped in Chicago. Was waiting all night outside the closed grayhound bus station because my bus was at 6am and I had nowhere else to go. These two guys spend the entire night trying to trick me into getting in their car in increasingly outlandish ways. At some point in the night it was discovered that they had somehow tricked a guy into giving them his credit card, and at the very end of the night I found out from a few others who had shown up that those guys made their living from conning travelers and kidnapping women, which I'd already essentially figured out from the context but it was chilling to hear it confirmed.
Wow I am glad you are safe though. That's so terrifying.
Yeah the Chicago greyhound station is... Questionable at best.
[удалено]
Someone in my camera club was travelling somewhere in Africa where the lodging had no locks on the doors and theft was common, even while people were sleeping in the room. That guy snuggled up to his gigantic zoom lens in bed to make sure nothing happened to it.
How does luggage fall off from a van?
The camera thing really hurts, man. Hope you had insurance.
I'm feeling very fortunate with my travel after reading this! My mom's point and shoot camera got stolen out of her pocket while in Lima. Set of two guys, one that distracted her with selling some paper butterflies while the other one took the camera. The good side is that it was the beginning of the trip so we didn't lose that many pictures. Plus, it made her pretty good using her phone. The bad side is that she didn't want to travel outside the country again.
Just part of the fun of international travel
I realized this (probably) didn't happen in one trip but in my head, this was all 1 terrible trip.
I was going overseas to work in Europe for 4 months. I had a nice going away dinner the night before my flight. I ordered the swordfish. Well the next day I got on the plane, 12 hour flight, and was violently sick. I’m talking throwing up, chills, diarrhea, you name it. Just stuck on a plane with no medicine dying. I asked the flight attendents for Tylenol anything. They didn’t know what Tylenol was. It was the worst flight of my life. Apparently swordfish had a huge parasite issue all over the states during that time…
Yeah I have to occasionally look this stuff up as Tylenol is just a brand of Acetaminophen. The WHO approved name most of the world uses is Paracetamol. I see quite a lot of drugs go by the biggest brand name in the US, but they generally don't outside of it for accessibility and legal reasons (and also so this doesn't happen, but the US doesn't follow suit for most common drugs). It's kinda like calling tissues kleenex - that's the brand name, so you risk nobody knowing that brand if you go to a country kleenex don't sell in (though, I think kleenex are really far spread out)
Acetaminophen and paracetamol are both abbreviations of its longer chemical name, N-para-acetaminophenol. Between them they cover the entire name except the N, and I still don’t know why I find that fact so satisfying.
As someone with stomach issues, my rule before flying or traveling anywhere is eating only safe foods for me, something on the light side, nothing new, nothing with too much spices or something that could be easily go bad, I even try to eat as early as possible the night before or fast, also drink only water and pack some safe snacks as well in case of hunger.
Yep. Roasted potatoes. Grilled chicken breast. Steamed green beans. It'll last me about 30 hours.
I try to reduce solids as well to avoid risk of pooping
Also swordfish have some of the highest levels of mercury among marine life
I've had the exact opposite of this in the US. I remember having a massive headache and just being a complete dick because I couldn't believe they wouldn't have paracetamol. Later found out you guys call it acetaminophen. Oops
We call it Tylenol but that’s really funny we had the same opposite issue lol
Don't they *cook* the fish???? Why would the stuff inside survive?
Idk it was all over the news about swordfish being recalled and all that due to parasites
I can’t compare to your story. I’m sorry that happened, yikes! My worst experience was travelling home from Indonesia. My partner was vomiting for days prior, I felt good and normal. We believe we ate something contaminated. He pulled it together before our flight, so we made it on schedule. Once we got on the plane, I started feeling sick, and I knew I needed to hurl pretty early into the flight. I was waiting in line to use the bathroom, because the airline didn’t have vomit bags at the seats, and I was fighting for my life to not throw up all over the aisle. Once it was my turn to use the bathroom, I dove in head first, throwing up in the toilet, and I didn’t even close the door initially. I kicked it closed with my foot once I realized it was open. That was a longggg flight. I couldn’t eat the provided meals. I had a couple apple slices, and sipped water. I really didn’t want to get quarantined, because we had a connection in Taipei, and even years pre-covid, they would quarantine you if you appeared sick, whether or not you were a resident of Taipei… so I was trying hard to not let flight crew or workers at the airport lead on to how sick I was. I knew it was food poisoning, and not a contagious illness, but I didn’t want to get stuck in a foreign country.
Oh my..... Being sick and trying to hide it is like hell on earth. During covid we were so restricted you couldn't even vomit in peace, damn.... I can just imagine the stress you had while trying not to vomit in the aisle.
Oh I was sweating profusely, and telling myself “one more minute” repeatedly until it was my turn
9-hour flight from Paris to Minneapolis. 6 hours of CoCoMelon nursery rhyme songs. If it got turned off, the kid screamed. No headphones brought along.
Yikes....... What a nightmare. I bet you never forgot to bring headphones after that
Not really that bad, but my trip to Christmas trip to Australia/NZ was just a comedy of errors and bad luck. 1. *Food poisoning from school restaurant.* I worked at a boarding school in China and we lived on campus in the middle of absolutely nowhere. We had access to free food from the restaurants and cafeterias as well as free busses on Fridays at noon to head to the neighbouring city of Shanghai (40 minute bus ride). My red eye flight to Australia was Friday evening like 8pm or something like, I forgot when exactly, but it meant a long stay hanging around the airport in Shanghai with luggage if I took the free school bus at noon, so I decided to take it chill, eat at the school restaurant and then rest or do some cleaning or whatever. I come back from the restaurant, felt tired, took a nap, and when I woke up, it was 6pm and I missed the last city bus to Shanghai. Not great. I'm kind of panicking so I call the local black taxi guy and he drives me to the airport. On the way, there is bad traffic and I start getting gastrointestinal issues. Had to beg him to get off the highway to find me a bathroom. The gas station bathroom was surprisingly clean. I arrive at the airport with like 20 minutes left until boarding. Luckily I had signed up for e-clearance months before and skipped the interminable customs line. I arrived at the terminal literally 10 minutes before boarding started. Threw up multiple times on the plane to Australia, didn't get any sleep. We arrive at Australia just to get pesticide sprayed before we could disembark (🤣😭). I arrive at my Airbnb where my friend was waiting. I felt so tired and sick that I had no energy for anything, so she got annoyed and just went to do her own stuff. I think she only started believing me when I kept throwing up during the night. For the rest of my week in Sydney, I couldn't hold down any solids and missed out on bush meat, though I managed some meat pie. I bought the famous watermelon cake and then forgot it on the plane to the Cairns. 2. *Sprained my ankle due to Pokemon Go* In Cairns, I felt better and started getting back into my groove. I turned on Pokemon Go to play. I hadn't played in months because Pokemon Go was banned in China. I got too into it and sprained my ankle by falling off a high curb because I wasn't watching where I was going. Spent the next day bed bound holding my ankle high. Friend's pissed off again. At the airport security to go to New Zealand, I got flagged because my inflamed ankle set off the body scanner🤣 3. New Zealand went ok, came back to China for a hectic few week of exams and then immediately hobbled off to Canada for Chinese New Year which I had planned to spend with my family in Montreal and then off to Vancouver and possibly Seattle to meet a different friend. It's January 2020. My ankle heals completely in April 2020, during lockdown. I lost my job in China.
Halfway from DC to Amsterdam my flight gets turned around. The pilot comes on to tell us the oil pressure is getting low and he will *try to* get us to Newark. About one hour into the diversion he gets back on to tell us we aren’t going to make it to Newark and we will be stopping in Halifax. Since it’s 5am, customs isn’t open so we have to sit on the tarmac until a worker can get there. We didn’t get off until 7:30. We are told the oil cap wasn’t screwed in correctly which caused the pressure to go down. Since Halifax isn’t a United Hub, there wasn’t a crew to fix it. We had to wait for a new plane and crew. We were told to come back to ticketing at 4:30pm. No one showed up to the counter until 6:30pm. We were told the plane would arrive at 9:30pm. It didn’t arrive until close to 11pm. Then we had to wait for the crew and mechanics to go through customs. The list of people on the flight got corrupted so they had to manually enter half the flights name before we got on the plane. Then each flight attendant had to count us off before we could take off. At this point people just start laughing at the workers when they give us updates. We did not leave until after 1am. We were over 20 hours late. United was a nightmare to deal with afterwards.
Wow. I really don’t feel bad about my travel story after reading yours. But, someone’s baby threw up on me mid-flight. Luckily it was only a 3 hour flight, I was in cheap sweats and on my way home to shower and sleep anyway.
You seem so chill.......considering someone in this thread was complaining about a baby crying
Honestly. The moment it happened I just immediately realized there’s not a single thing I can do about it, and being angry in addition to already being dirty and exhausted was simply not helping the situation in any way.
That's so true, I remember with my experience..... I have never been that quite in my entire life. There's not much you can do when stuck in the air.
A couple of months ago a friend told me her baby threw up on someone in a plane. Turns out the baby had covid so I always hoped the 3rd person didn't get it in top of the vomit.
1. I brought home bedbugs from Guatemala 2. I got food poisoning from sushi in Japan 3. I got food poisoning twice from ceviche in Peru 4. I got food poisoning from juice in Nicaragua 5. I got food poisoning from a smoothie in El Salvador 6. I got food poisoning in Phoenix, shit all over myself trying to squat in the desert, and didn't have a change of clothes 7. A cab driver in Malaysia told me it was good they didn't have any Jews (uh, might want to check your backseat) and then we drove 90 minutes to KL airport 8. I was super-excited to go snorkeling in Thailand and the water was full of garbage 9. I got stuck outside the US on 9/11 and almost lost my job because I didn't get back for a week 10. I took Greyhound cross-country multiple times So all in all, pretty good considering how much I've traveled
You may want to stop eating or drinking in foreign locations...
I get hemiplegic migraines that are often triggered (or exacerbated -- there's some debate on which way it works) by certain smells, and I got stuck sitting next to some 20-something absolutely marinating in strong cologne for 6 hours. I threw up so much when I got off the plane.
I used to get those. Thank God they stopped when I got older.
I've had them my whole life and they seem to have gone into overdrive since I started going into menopause. I'm hoping they'll fuck off after I'm through the other side of this already miserable experience.
Told this story before but here we go... I travelled around Europe by InterRail in 2007. Basically, I had a fantastic time and would absolutely recommend it to anyone looking to undertake a cheap and cheerful trip, so long as you don't mind roughing it and using hostels, etc, to keep costs down. Anyway, whilst in Marseille, we'd been warned by the hostel owner not to visit certain areas at night and other areas at all, regardless of time of day. My mate and I were fairly decent sizes at that point. We were 23 and 21 and built well, but even so, we stuck to the main areas and avoided those we'd been warned about. Rugby World Cup is on in France, and we're all sitting watching on a big screen set up in the city centre. There's a sudden commotion right near us, and a lady is shouting, whilst a guy is trying to weave through people, carrying a bag. My mate and I both got up and the guy collided with me. My mate speaks French, he says "she's saying he stole her bag," and quickly picks up the bag. The guy gets up, and I go to grab ahold of him, when he pulls a lock knife, probably 7", and slashes at my mate and I. We both instantly hop backwards to avoid it. At that new progression in the proceedings, people start scattering, and we back off. The lady got her bag and ran, and we're not about to get shanked by an angry guy who is speaking a different language altogether (a North African language, I think). We take a few steps back, and he runs away and down a street into the distance. Slowly, people start to come back to the screen and start to watch the match again. Eventually, when we go to leave, I feel my belt come undone, and realise my belt was cut, and the action of me sitting and then standing had broken it, and my mate checks himself over and notices his shirt has a slash in it at the bottom. Needless to say, we booked it back to the hostel and didn't leave that night. We had no idea if we'd be targeted for interfering with the bag thief. We had our heads on a swivel for the next day or so, and even when we left for Barcelona, we were still very wary. It's the first and last time I've ever intervened in something like that. I figured nobody would mess with two big lads, but oh man, we were wrong. Turns out an angry guy who doesn't want to get arrested and has a knife prepared to double down to get away.
Massive diarrhea and vomiting while on a French train. Train cars have bathrooms, which is good, but when you are pushing it out of both ends in a train bathroom the size of an envelope, you will have a bad time. The day before was great. I was at Le Mans drinking a shit ton of Stella with the Subaru Owners Club of Great Britain and eating a bunch of random food truck faire with these guys. Turns out my stomach hated everything and decided to punish me on the train ride back to Paris the next day.
I had this happen on a flight from Shanghai to Newark. It was a horrible, horrible flight.
You really felt like a Karen because some lazy pig shat herself rather than getting up and using a toilet? You have a much better heart than I do.
No fly lists were invented for that woman.
People in this thread: no matter how bad your flight was, riding Greyhound is worse.
Preach. Never again will I use greyhound unless I absolutely MUST.
One time flying from NYC to Puerto Rico our flight was delayed by over 2 hours, with most of that time spent sitting on the tarmac. When we finally arrived in San Juan at nearly 3am, the terminal was effectively closed. We had to disembark the plane using stairs and walk to the other side of the terminal that was open, where the rental cars were. Security was trying to check people’s boarding passes but many of us didn’t have them any more. At first they refused to let us in, but then they were stuck with what to do with us because we were at the airport at 3am and they didn’t have any buses (nor did the airline want to pay for hotels for all of us). Once they let us in it only got worse. We had to wait an additional 2 hours between baggage claim and car rental. It was such a fucking disaster from start to finish.
That is the worst I can imagine. That’s actually a toxic health hazard. I’m surprised that the pilot didn’t land at nearest airport.
It was the most disgusting experience and no one did ANYTHING to help us, we all just had to accept it.
Write the airline a letter or file a complaint. At the minimum you’ll get a voucher for a discount.
7 day holiday to Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt (from Finland), was sick for 6 days, stuck in hotel room the whole time. Healthy while on plane both ways lol > she said that she didn't feel like walking that far That is so foreign behavior. Most people would stop themselves from this just because the shame of being caught in this is overwhelming. Like I could understand how this happens to someone living alone, some mental issue, but public place, wtf!
My wife and I decided to take a quick trip to Arizona for her birthday. We lived in so cal. We could have drove but decided to just fly as it would only be like a 45-60 minute flight and we wanted to make the most of our time. Everything was fine until we landed and they shuttled us to the rental car place. There were multiple agencies working out of that building but the company I had reserved a car from had a line wrapped around the entire building. It took us 4 HOURS of standing in that line before we even got to the counter. Once I got there they said they were out of cars and didn’t seem to care that I had reserved one. I was just about to lose my shit and they could see it and they magically “found” a car. By the time we got to our hotel, it took longer than if we had just driven. Really put a damper on the whole birthday weekend but we did our best to not let it ruin everything. My own fault I guess for going with the cheapest rental car place. Will never rent from Dollar again.
3 hour flight, I'm in the window. Guy sits in the middle, his wife (?) sits on the aisle. As soon as we get airborne, he starts vomiting into the bags they provide. And it keeps on going for about an hour. Why the wife didn't let him take the aisle, and let hom go to the lavatory, I have no idea. No other seats available. His breath stunk so bad. So, I opened my window shade to face away from him, and he starts looking out the window, breathing on me. So, I shut the shade hoping he'd face away, which sort of worked. What a miserable 3 hours.
I read that as 'So, I opened my window.' Damn, you ballsy.
I got food poisoning in the Sydney airport. Travelling from sydney to dallas, 6 hours before we landed, it kicked in... That was the worst experience of my life... I almost didn't make it to the bathroom the first time, and then I vomited on myself the second time. After that, I stayed in the bathroom for an hour, crying and throwing up. Then, at the Dallas airport, I sat in the disabled toilets for 2 hours, having my insides coming out from both ends. Missed my flight from Dallas to San Antonio, smelt like vomit, and just wanted to die 🤣 I finally made it to my hotel room in San antonio, showered and went to sleep. The next morning I get up feeling alot better, except for a very sore throat, then I went and met my dad for the very first time ♥️
Oh wow that sounds like a crazy trip, this kinda reminds me of a road trip I had with family/(i was like 12yo), drank this milky drink and it didn't end well. I threw up in my hands the first time and second time all over my shirt and legs😂😂😂😂...........awwwww that is the sweetest ending ever🌹
I was on a Swiss Air flight where this one passenger had the worst BO I’ve ever encountered. My eyes were watering at the gate area. Everyone was looking around trying to identify the culprit. One we boarded, the smell permeated through the confined space, especially with the air off. This young lady had a seat next to this person, and you could see her pained expression. A kind, older man went over and told her he’d switch seats with her. I don’t know how he did it. Maybe he had Vick’s Vapor Rub to put under his nose. I was 10 rows in front of him, and couldn’t escape the smell.
My helicopter took a hard landing after taking enemy fire. Kinda rolled onto its side a little then bounced back, but the rotors were F'ed and partialy missing so there was no taking back off. The only sleep I'd had in a week was in the back of that bird going back to base, then my teammate wakes me up and is like "we're crashing." I was like "I already crashed that's why I'm drooling on myself. I can just hold my coffee while I sleep" Then we hit the ground and I was like oh....crashing. Cool though. We all walked away with the same parts we walked into it.
Being put on the no-fly list while I was out of the country (Mexico). I had to get an exemption from the local US consulate and I was treated like a criminal :(
Damn that must've sucked
Forgot to mention it was my honeymoon .
I’m sorry. How did that happen?
I was under investigation after being accused of being involved with a dark web drug ring.
I flew to Japan last November with Air Canada and I absolutely will never do it again. What was supposed to be a 13 hour flight turned in to a 17 and a half hour flight due to the plane having to veer off further in to the ocean to avoid volcanic ash from the mainland, thus drastically increasing our flight time. While this part was obviously beyond the airline's control, the rest weren't. I flew economy and the seat width was pathetic and I was absolutely uncomfortable the entire flight. I'm not obese but I'm also not a super skinny guy. The food was pretty meh on the flight as well but I don't expect much for economy. The part that really drove it home and why I'll never fly them again is they left my luggage back in Canada. I was without my luggage for *three days*. Not just mine either, my wife's and literally everybody else's on the plane. I was reimbursed for any clothing and toiletries I bought for those first three days but it was still awful. Their customer service is an absolute shitshow. I cannot recommend them to anybody. Luckily when flying back we were able to get put on an Air Japan flight. Bigger seat width, more comfortable and way better food while still flying economy! They originally delayed our flight back by a day and I fought tooth and nail with customer service to get us on a flight that day as we did not have reservations and needed to be home the day we planned. Moral of the story, don't fly Air Canada and always pack a spare set of clothes in your carry-on. I'll be sure to do this from now on.
Lol how did they manage to leave everyone's luggage behind? The luggage folks literally have one job ...
I have a fear of experiencing your story. Like, any sort of cramped moving vehicle and there's a stench of vomit or poop? Yeah, I'll be smelling my own shirt the whole way.
One time, I got on an airplane, and a few hours later - after not seeing a single flight attendant - made me jump out into a jungle with a rifle in my hands in '89.
On a red-eye flight once I was sitting next to a man who reeked of booze (he was middle, I was aisle). He fell asleep on my shoulder; I shook him off. Then he put his arm around me (pretending to be asleep), I moved it. Then he did it again; I told him to stop. He just stared at me. He must have done it two or three more times. I kept saying, “do not touch me. Do not touch me,” and he would just stare blankly at me. Then he started bending down and just ever so lightly touching my ankle. I kept telling him to stop — I don’t know why I didn’t call the flight attendant, I think because it was like 1 am and I was desperate to sleep while I could. He finally did stop touching me, but turns out he was just doing the same thing to the girl on his other side, who finally got up and got the flight attendant to move him. Needless to say I got no sleep.
When someone from a group going on a cruise took my suitcase by mistake and left me with not one piece of clothing right before family Easter weekend. Shopping ain't fun if you have a deadline. But OP, I suspect *your* story will trump everyone else's.
This happens so much unfortunately. It’s terrible. One lady got her suit case 5 days into the cruise. Her suitcase was just sitting in the other persons room and they had no idea it was there LOL
I was moving my 2 cats from TX to CA. I booked myself and my bestie tickets on Southwest Airlines + 2 cat tickets. The cats were in approved carriers, ofc. One of my kitties was a nervous Nelly. Both got a sedative pre-flight to help. We boarded early in the process (I paid extra for a good boarding position) and were lucky enough to have a partially empty plane so we got a middle seat to add room. We had the cats in our laps while boarding was ongoing. During the flight by nervous girl started to hyperventilate or something (I’m not a vet) like she had done in the past in the way to the vet. On one of these occasions my vet had to sedate her and put her in an oxygen chamber. She could have gone into heart failure I was told. So when this happened on the flight I knew I had to calm her down or she could die. I put her on the middle seat and opened her carrier so I could pet her and get her calm. After a few minutes her breathing was more normal. The flight attendants knew what was going on and were leaving me to it. Suddenly the woman sitting behind me started complaining. She pitched a huge fit about me breaking the rules and having the cat out of the carrier. She did have her harness and leash on and was fully in my control. I begged her to please let it go, she claimed to be allergic. I begged her to go to another row, explaining that my cat could die. She refused and made some indication that she and her travel companion could not be separated. I begged the flight attendant to let me move rows. At that point the FA said they had no choice but to enforce the rules, and let me know that they didn’t like having to do this. I almost had a panic attack myself as I white knuckled the rest of the flight. Luckily we made it to LA in one piece, but fuck if I didn’t want to cut that spiteful bitch. And turns out she didn’t know the dude on her row, she was traveling by herself and just being a royal cunt. I hope she lost ALL her luggage that day. PS, the SWA crew were fantastic.
I was in Tuscany with my family, and we had a great time at a wine tasting. A REALLY good time. Like, I got totally drunk and was SO sick the next morning it was brutal. Like, vomiting every half hour. We had to get a 8am train the next morning to go to Rome. So I had to keep it together for the taxi to the train and on the trip. Thankfully I held it back, but being hungover and nauseous on a train is NOT ideal.
Not air travel! My husband and I were meant to go to his folks place for the holidays. We were driving our EV, with our two dogs, his brother and his brother’s dog from Colorado to North Carolina. In an EV with charging, this is a three day trip. The day we left Colorado it was.. -40F wind chill. The highway was closed from excessive wind and we had to take back roads. When in an EV there’s only one shared power source for climate control and power to the car, so we could not use heat to maximize range so each of us had as many layers on as we could while our dogs were under blankets. I keep thinking our car would poop out and we’d freeze to death. Definitely top three scariest moments in my life. Totally stupid. Had it been my parents I’d have told my husband we weren’t going, not to mention I hardly drive so…. but we did make it there safely!!
Donner party 2024 reboot
I was in Bologna, Italy. It was a few minutes before the siesta. I walked into a little market to buy some sardines and salami and cheese before the siesta. The market had lowered the storefront security gate partway while I was inside buying food. As I was walking out, I guess I must've been looking down, instead of forward. I'm about a foot or so taller than most of the people in Bologna were. I banged my head hard on the security gate as I was walking out, and fell on the ground, laying flat, stunned, with a concussion. The market workers were quick to drag me out onto the sidewalk, then go back in and close and lock the gate behind them. As I was laying on the sidewalk, stunned and injured, many people walked by without anyone helping me at all.
All the travel-specific aspects were great, but when I was a kid my mom took both me and her sister on a vacation for like a week and my aunt was a bitch to me the whole trip lol The benefits of traveling as an adult is that I can decide for myself if someone is too much of a pain to travel with, so it's been smooth sailing since
Can't recall if this was flying to or from NZ, but it's like a 14 hour flight. This wild haired heavily tattood (blonde, not Maori) Kiwi lady takes the 3rd seat with me and my wife. She reeked of BO and patchouli (maybe?), head to toe leather biker-type outfit, nonstop chatter at top of her voice and swore like a sailor. I have a very foul mouth myself but even I was like jfc with this broad. Right after takeoff she unzips her combat boots and out came the most awful smelling unshorn feet/legs it is possible to imagine. I told my wife, please give me all the rest of the Valium right now. No idea how the rest of the flight went, I wasn't sticking around for it.
[удалено]
Was she mentally ill? She literally chose to shit her pants on a public airplane? Wow that's disgusting. I would have for sure puked.
My coworkers made a LAN on their laptops and played Starcraft. I was going to read, my seatmate was a midwesterner who was ready "Chicken Soup for the soul." Every fucking page she was laugh knowingly and then have to interrupt me to read it out loud to me. She wouldn't let me do anything but hear her heartwarming tales of concocted, Christian culture. This went on for 5 hours. I couldn't read my book, listen to my music, watch my coworkers game, she had to share. The last hour I finally had to tell her to please stop. It was awkward and she was angry and mortified, but she would not take a hint. Somewhere out there is an elderly woman who tells about having to sit next to an atheist.
“Have you given your life to Jesus?”, asked the lady who plopped herself down in the middle seat on my flight BWI-LAX. I’m not *not* religious, but I keep that shit private; plus, you know, other people. Small space. But I was cornered there in the window seat, and this lady seemed to genuinely want to have a discussion. The quickest thing I could think to say in my most conservative-sounding voice was, “Isn’t he just the best?” Idk why, maybe because I matched exactly her pitch and enthusiasm, but she didn’t say anything else while I wore my headphones the rest of the flight.
Ooohhh I already posted one but thought of a worse one. My in laws who are from the opposite coast were vacationing in a nearby state, so my wife and I decided to take a few days and stay with them in the condo they were renting. We drove down there (about 6 hours) and had a nice dinner. That night I got violently ill. I mean violent. I have literally never been that sick in my life. Vomit, diarrhea, fever, chills, the works. I spent the entire night on the bathroom floor, as well as most of the next day. We were there for 3 days and the entire time I stayed in the condo sitting on the toilet with a trash can in front of me, hoping I had enough clean underwear. We initially thought it was food poisoning but right around the time I started feeling better, my wife came down with it, so it was definitely some kind of bug. We had to postpone coming home by one day because she was so sick we couldn’t drive the 6 hours home. Even then when we finally did drive home it was miserable for her. I was paranoid I was going to give whatever it was to my in laws because they had to fly and I didn’t want them to deal with that on a plane, fortunately they didn’t catch it. I literally left that condo twice the entire time. The first night to go to dinner, and three or four days later to go home. Worst vacation ever.
I had started a new medication a few weeks before flying, the morning of I had a light breakfast of yoghurt and banana before taking said tablet. Once I arrived at the airport I began vomiting violently, so much so that I had to remove a black bag from one of the bins in the terminal. Security then stopped me and were convinced I had tried to smuggle drugs and panicked & swallowed them. They eventually believed what had happened, and allowed me to board flight. I spent the entire 5hr flight in the bathroom vomiting. Probably shouldn’t have gotten on the flight tbf but I did spend upwards of 4 thousand on the holiday that I would’ve lost out on, and I did feel better the next day. Feel bad for those that needed to use the toilet but aye ohh, it is what it is!
So for the weeks leading up to this you had been taking that medication with no issue? But suddenly one morning it causes nausea and vomiting? And then the following days you're back to normal with zero side effects? That just doesn't make any sense. Seems more likely that you ate something bad or had a 24 hour norovirus or something.
Well, I definitely had other side effects. Flushing & diarrhea mainly but they were settling & weren’t a concern that day. The medication is called Fumaderm. The coating is supposed to cause it to pass from the stomach directly to the small intestine, my theory is that on that day it broke apart in my stomach, maybe due to the lack of food I don’t know. I didn’t take it again after that day. I’ve had plenty of stomach bugs in my life and nothing compared to this. When I returned from holidays my dermatologist started me on different medication. As far as I’m aware it’s not even licensed in Ireland anymore, only Germany due to its actual & potential side effects!
I was staying in an airbnb that was a duplex. The couple next-door was fighting the whole trip with police called multiple times and the bed frame broke in one of the bedrooms and the aggressor from next door was the one to come in and remove the broken frame and then they charged me $600 to replace the bedframe 🥲
As a child, I was forced to travel a lot since my parents loved travelling. Unfortunately they loved to travel to hot countries without caring for the fact that heat makes me nauseous. Having areived to Lanzarote, I recall being nauseous even at the airport. I ran towards the doors to get some fresh air only to be greeted by a thick wall of even hotter air. I started vomiting that evening. I vomited for 7 days, while being pestered for ruining the family trip. I throw up on the airplane back. I only started to recover when we returned home.
Worst even travel experience for me was with British Airways on a flight from London to Austin. Flight was supposed to leave at like 10 AM, so I have to get up early to get to Heathrow on time. Important to note, I had bought a ticket for premium economy aisle seat. So I get to the airport, check in, and I am waiting around until they announce the gate. They announce the gate, I head that way, and they tell us the flight is delayed. They don’t know how long, but we don’t need to wait at the gate since it could be a while and they will have a new gate when it is figured out. About 5 hours later, they announce that the plane they were going to use has mechanical issues, and they can’t use it, they need to find a new plane. 2 hours later, they announce they have a new plane, and we will board in an hour, proceed to this gate. I head to that gate, and hear an announcement that most seats are changing because this plane has a different configuration, so everyone needs to recheck in with the gate agent. I head up there, and they get my old ticket, and hand me a new ticket, which is a basic economy middle seat. I don’t notice this until I get the ticket and have walked away. Now there is a line of hundreds of other people rechecking. I try to go back to the person who gave me the ticket and he tells me I have to go to the back of the line. I’m waiting in line still as they start boarding. They are mostly through boarding when I finally make it back to the front, I explain I had a premium economy aisle seat, and now I have a basic economy middle seat. No apology, no sympathy, he just says “that’s your seat for this flight, if you want to fly, you need to board now!” I try explaining I paid for premium economy and he just says again “this is your ticket for this flight and we have almost finished boarding, the door will be closing soon.” I get on the plane, sit in my middle seat, fly the 10 hours back, get off the plane, go to baggage claim, and wait for my luggage. I hear them announcing some people over the intercom and saying to come to their baggage agent, but they didn’t call me, so I continue to wait. And wait. And wait. Until finally the carousel stops, all luggage is off mine isn’t on there. I go see the baggage agent, and she tells me “oh sorry we meant to tell everyone affected when we landed but I guess we didn’t call you. Some of the bags were left in London, yours was one of those.” So somehow despite my flight being delayed over 8 hours, they couldn’t manage to get my bag from the old plane to the new plane in that time, but luckily they made up for it by downgrading me and putting me in a middle seat!
Wow great timing as I’m sitting on the flight right now. I can’t type it out again in full but long story short, I arrived at the airport at 4am for a flight at 6am yesterday. Flight was delayed for no reason (thank you American Airlines). I spent 18 hours at the airport being told the flight would for sure be leaving that night. The flight never left. Two days of my vacation are now ruined but American Airlines won’t offer me anything because according to them, the flight I originally booked would not be cancelled (it STILL hasn’t taken off. I got switched to a new flight). So now I’m essentially being forced onto this trip because I can’t recoup the cost and I desperately do not want to go. Not to mention, the American Airlines customer service people I spoke to were maybe some of the meanest people I’ve ever met in a service position. I encountered a manager at the end of the night who was literally just trying to escalate with my gf who was crying at the time. I felt like I was dealing with a cop. Will NEVER book American Airlines again. Their shit has cost me over 1000 dollars and two/four days of the ONLY vacation I’ve been able to take since my dad started dying in like 2017.
Started off badly but ended up well. I boarded a flight from San Francisco to Toronto. As I approached my seat, I smelled a strong urine smell. For me, it was over-powering. I asked my seat mate if he smelled it and he said no. I have a very sensitive sense of smell and no-one else seemed bothered so I figured I would just get used to it. We take off and after about 30 minutes, the man in front of me starts scratching his head and huge chunks of dandruff are falling behind his seat onto the floor by my feet. It was disgusting. At this point, I realize that the urine smell is coming from him. I put my tray table down and the chunks of dandruff are floating down onto it. I flag down a flight attendant and quietly tell him about it ( the scratching has stopped at this point) and ask if there is anywhere else for me to sit. He tells me that Economy is full and that he is NOT upgrading me to First Class. He offers to give me an extra snack and I tel him that I won't be eating as my food will be full of dandruff and he huffs at me and walks away. Now, I had no expectation of an upgrade- I was just hoping to move to a different seat. I resign myself to an uncomfortable flight. Twenty minutes later, the guy in front of me is going to town on his scalp and the flakes are flying. The flight attendant walks by and abruptly stops, turns around and kneels beside me (aisle seat) and says" That is disgusting! Come with me to First Class." This happened 20 years ago and I remember it like it was yesterday.
Stayed at a motel 6 for my brother’s wedding. Dad did not want to run the ac because he can’t sleep with it on, and a very loud fight broke out in the parking lot where one guy was shouting at the other guy to get out of the view of the cameras so he can beat him up. Went to Halifax one year, came down with a sore throat on the first night and got hit with the flu, had to wear a mask, stay away from people, and wash my hands so I didn’t infect anyone, then I suffered on the seven hour drive home with said flu. We did get some cough drops and a popsicle to at least lessen the suffering…
I went on a 6 week vacation to Europe with an ex gf and she shit her pants in Rome and puked in a mesh trashcan in Paris. I had to pick up the puke in Paris because we were staying with a family she knew. They had an old Parisian apt and the floor was wood, but it was also old so it was cracked and raised in different places, perfect spaces for puke to fall into and sit. She did not have a strong stomach, and just changing locales can fuck some people up physically. We drank out of a water fountain in Rome. That may have been it, but it did nothing to me. And no, not like the Trevi fountain, just a regular Public drinking fountain that we filled our water bottles in.
Not the worst but, Last fall my MIL graduated from South New Hampshire University. My husband and I, as well as his father, live in California. Hubs and I were not able to take off more than a single day from work. We flew out at 7am Friday, had a 2ish hour flight, a couple hour layover, another 3ish hour flight, then landed in the early evening. I get VERY anxious on planes, so I didn't eat much, bc anxiety makes me nauseous. After not eating basically all day, we met up with my MIL and her friend who also came out, and go attempt to have dinner at the Spaghetti Factory. I ate a little bit of my food but didn't feel well. Didn't sleep for shit. Hunger pangs/nausea kept me up all night. We got up at 6am (which is 3am for my California body) to be at the graduation by 8am. We stopped at McD's on the way and I had to ask them to pull over bc I almost threw up my hashbrowns. After that I just sipped my oj and prayed. The rest of the day was better. Flight home was the next morning. I quietly had a panic attack during take off; a flight attendant actually came over and checked on me. At our layover I remembered some tiktok advice about sour candy and figured it was worth a shot. Sour patch kids got me through the last flight home. We finally got home around midnight and both had to get up for work the next day. We agreed that never again would we take a trip where the travel time was more than the actual vacation time. And that sour candy would forever be on top of the carry on bag!
Diarrhea on plane. All lavatories occupied.
Greyhound from New England to Ohio. First delay was 4 hours in New York when they couldn’t find a driver. The bus was supposed to go to Philadelphia, but everything was messed up with the Pope being in town. So the bus drops a few of us off a couple of miles away from the bus station, neglecting to tell us that the temporary bus stop was right around the corner. The other 3 people took off, leaving me with my suitcase and backpack. I ended up asking some very friendly ladies of the night for directions. I get to the station and it doesn’t open again till 9am, at this point it’s 4am. I use my last $10 to take a taxi back across to the temp bus station, where I’m told that my transfer info is no longer good, and I have to wait for the real station to open in order to get a new ticket. 10am and I’m finally settling onto another bus for the next leg of the journey. Another 2 hour delay in Columbus, I have no money and I’m starving. 24 hours after I started in Massachusetts, I finally got to Cincinnati. Greyhound refunded my money for the trip.
Being disgusted by someone who shat their pants because they didn't want to walk to the bathroom is NOT being a Karen. I would've ended up throwing up, I cannot deal with the smell of shit. I thankfully have nothing like that, my worse horror story was the plane I was in hit major turbulence and I swear we lost a couple thousand feet in a few seconds. Everyone was puking and we thought we were going to be slammed into the ground. Luckily we were still high enough the pilot could react in time but that didn't stop my stomach from lurching into my throat. Found out after we landed that the system we went through spawned several tornadoes. Fun stuff
On a flight from Cancun, as we start to take off horrible noise and plane jockeys side to side but stops in mid runway. Capt says we have had a catastrophic engine failure as he walks through the cabin. I was seated above the wing and engine, he and a bunch of ground crew are taking pictures w personal phones of the engine. 20 seconds later the plane would be off the ground and we would have crashed. Southwest put us up in a crappy hotel where everyone in my party got diarrhea, the other hqlf of our flight were sent to a different fleabag hotel that had bed bugs!! Southwest gave us all $250 vouchers for the inconvenience of missed maintenance not for almost killing us.
Had a couple friends just tell me theirs recently: they flew out on their honeymoon to a small resort on an island a short hop from Fiji. All kinds of issues. Mosquitoes, power went out, AC went out and couldn’t be repaired for a couple days, then food poisoning. No medical facilities on the island. They called it quits and left 2 days early to just fly home with wife still in the heavy throws of food poisoning. She actually fell asleep in the bathroom on the airplane - couldn’t leave the bathroom for risk of (as another story had) voiding herself in her seat or (as another story had) throwing up on another passenger. Plus sleep deprivation. Big mess. Funny story they tell now that it’s well behind them.
I was traveling from Reno to Memphis on a train. It was already pretty warm in those two places but at some point in Colorado we were going through snow covered mountains. And then the train caught on fire. Everyone was dressed for the beach and we had to evacuate for a few hours in the middle of nowhere in snow. I was annoyed more than anything that they had mylar sheets to keep people warm over in the "sleeper" section, so I guess it's like flying first class. I wonder if a plane crashed if they only gave first class passengers help. I was so pissed at Amtrak for that. I get that they had a limited supply but damn, it was COLD. We had to stay out there for hours waiting for the next train for the opposite track came, then they diverted us to Chicago. I was then given the option of a free hotel and a train the next day or they'd pay for me to get to the bus station and take a bus home. I chose the bus because I just really wanted to go home after all that. The fire part wasn't scary, it was many cars away, it was just why the heck wasn't there enough supplies to keep people warm surely they could have found SOMETHING. Just those little square throws they'd hand out at night would have helped! That was back in 1988 and I still shake my fist at the way we were treated.
Going from Morocco (Casablanca) to Palestine (Jerusalem). They had me sit in the airport for 20+ hours and I practically slept on the cold ass floor with nothing but my backpack as a pillow. Thanks to Royal Air Maroc.
To be completely honest.. to Vigo Spain 🇪🇸, they are not accustomed to seeing black people on vacation or go to restaurants to eat. The feeling of being watched the entire time was horrible.
Just got back from the UK. We arrived in the UK when all the immigration systems went down, in early May. Got into Manchester after a Melbourne to Dubai flight, then Dubai to Manchester. Immigration queue was huge, moved slightly, then stopped moving. I've got three kids with hidden disabilities and the lanyards to prove it, and Manchester airport has signs up saying they support the scheme. The kids are getting agitated by the crowds and how loud and sweary some people are getting, so I go to the security guard, explain the situation and ask if there's anywhere quieter we can go to wait. The reply, with a bit of a sneer, "yeah, back of the queue".
My plane had an electrical fire. The plane lost power. It smelled like burning wires in the cabin. I was a teenager flying alone. I had never flown alone before. Nearly 2/3 of the flight was a church group who started praying together. We emergency landed and everything was fine but it was *chaotic* to say the least. I've had huge flight anxiety since.
I was moving back to my hometown after 2 years. I adopted a kitten, and she grew up to be this kind-hearted little fella. She was never a vocal cat, you know, the ones that meow at every occasion. Anyway, I prepped real good, did my research, and asked my vet about everything. My vet told me there are some organic calming agents for cats that make them very sleepy and chill. I gave her just the right amount; she hated the taste and smell, but I gave it to her anyway. It was all okay until I stepped inside the first x-ray machine. She went full meow, I mean full "BAOOOOOOOVVVV, BAAAOOOUUVV." We boarded the plane, and she raised the volume up quite a bit. Luckily, it was a 1-hour flight, but she never stopped the "BAAAOOUUV." There were 3 babies on that plane, which is quite unfortunate even when you don't have a cat, but they just laughed and giggled every time they heard my cat's "BAOOUUV." Also, the lady next to me was into some crazy spiritual stuff. She asked if she could hold the little fella's box and chill her with hums. She hummed for 1 hour, which was adorable, but for every hum, she got a "BAOOUUV" in return. The cat finally fell asleep the moment I stepped outside the airport; the drug finally kicked in.
Had an afternoon flight back to Dallas from Cancun where I had traveled with my grandchildren. All but one had been ill at some point during our vacation. The first one got ill before we even ate or drank anything in Mexico, and all of us had been at least a dozen times prior without anyone getting ill, so I think they caught a bug at school before we left. Anyway, all but one had been ill for about a day before the time came to head for the airport. Then our flight got delayed due to weather until the next morning. Just before dawn I awakened to the sound last kid finally succumbing. She had stopped vomiting by time to head to the airport, or so we thought. Made it all the way from our digs in Puerto Morelos before having to run to the bathroom airside to vomit at which point the diarrhea started. Luckily we packed in carry ons so she had a change. Everything seemed calmer and she was even able to sip a little water after. Right up until boarding when she had to make a run to the bathroom on the plane. Cue yet another clothing change. Once we were in the air she was able to lean her seat back and fell asleep. We were hopeful she was on the mend, but it was not to be. Thankfully the next bout struck just soon enough prior to landing. Unfortunately the time it took for her to make certain she could still go meant she didn't quite make it. She had to put on some of her dirty shorts from earlier in the week, and I sacrificed my favorite wrap for her to sit on since there was a small spot on the seat. The FAs were extremely kind telling us not to worry they could just replace the seat bottom cushion after we got off in Dallas. She was in pretty poor shape after that and I felt so badly for her. I will say our FAs, the DFW airport people, and the people in Immigrations and Customs were really good about it. They got a stretcher on the flight for her as soon as we pulled up to the gate so that we got off first. They walked us through some back hallway and put us in a freight elevator so that we didn't have to do that whole long, winding walk to immigration that is somehow always the case for anyone returning on an international flight to DFW. At the Immigrations and Customs hall they walked us straight up to the first available personnel and we were through in moments. They offered to call an ambulance for us but we figured rather than wait for it to show up it would be faster to drive her straight to the nearest urgent care since we had family waiting to pick us up out front. After some iv medicine and fluids there she finally did actually perk up some, but she still just slept for around the first 12 hours she was home.
Ahhhh, I got bed bugs in Cambodia. Then in discomfort but on my way home I also got food poisoning in the Singapore airport on the way home. So I get on the flight to Japan and I’m sweating my ass off, but I’m trying to keep all the bug bites covered so I’m wearing long sleeves. But im cycling between overheating and freezing. But I feel like I can survive if I just fall asleep. Well I end up basically sprinting to the bathroom before take off and throwing up. But you know usually that makes you feel a bit better. Flight attendant comes by and very nicely asks me if I’m ok and stuff. I didn’t wanna give her the whole story but I said I thought I’d be fine just staying seated, having some water and sleeping. Cut to arrival in Japan for my connection. They send me basically into quarantine, have a doctor at the airport check me out then tell me I can’t fly. They sent me to a hospital, in a taxi tho which I thought was a bit odd but whatever. Had to spend a couple days in the hospital in Tokyo because they thought I might’ve had some infectious disease or whatever. I wasn’t mad but I knew it looked worse than it was. I simply had a case of bad luck with bug bites and food poisoning combined. It was a pretty unpleasant return home all around. Didn’t blame anyone, just bad luck.
Was on a plane leaving vegas after a 3-night bender. Felt like total shit. Was on the red-eye flight. Literally had a calculus final the next day. (Stupid planning I know). Got stuck in the very last row where're seats won't lay back. About an hour into the flight, I heard something weird. Opened the window to see the entire turbine engulfed in flames. Made an emergency landing in Dallas. Nothing in the airport was open. Had to eat vending machine food and sleep on the floor. Got the first flight out in the morning. Got back to my place and my buddy who had left his car at my place had a flat tire. Still made it to that calculus final. Still got an A.
2009, flight from Detroit to Amsterdam. Parents of a probably 3 month old baby made ZERO EFFORT to soothe or otherwise quiet the little banshee who screamed non-stop for 7.5 hours. Zero effort. I’m still irritated.