The absolute worst (read: stupid) travel mistake I’ve made is not computing that a 12:05 flight from LAX to Bangkok (via Hong Kong) was A.M., not P.M. I was a day late! But apparently not the only person who ever made that mistake because I was accommodated on the next flight without penalty.

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This probably shouldn’t be shared, but…
My stag weekend in Brussels, after a long day of beers of many flavours at the Grand Place, three of us headed back to our hotel in the wee small hours.

We got directions from a local to the Novotel, found our way there and spent 20 minutes in the card operated elevator trying to work out why it wouldn’t let us select our floors.

The night porter / receptionist eventually came to our rescue, pointing out that the key-cards were unlikely to work as they were for the OTHER Novotel, at the opposite side of the Grand Place! He sent us on our way with a nice map

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Gotta say I wasn’t as lucky as Joan Nova. Fresh out of university, poor as church mice, my girlfriend and I had booked a last minute trip to St. Pete’s- Clearwater, Florida.

Thing was we had to fly in and out of Orlando, a good two hours away from St Pete’s. Driving back into Orlando, we took a wrong turn then got bum directions to a commuter airport and ended up missing our charter flight back to Canada.

We had about $20 between the two of us and no credit cards so my poor dad had to drive a couple of hours into Montreal to pay full freight for our flights home. Impressive move, Boomegirl!

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Last June we went on a roadtrip around Europe in a Motorhome. We were traveling from Turkey to Croatia and decided to fill the tank up once we had crossed the frontier, because fuel was cheaper in Bulgaria.

When we were going to pay after filling the tank up, we noticed we had to pay with cash. At that moment we only had our credit cards with us. We tried to pay with Rioja wine, but it didn’t work Mikel and I had to wait at the petrol station, while Imanol and Xabi went to the nearest town and witdrew money. It took them more than one hour, but finally they came and we could keep going.

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On an educational or fam trip, there is nothing worse than turning up late. You’re told the time to meet either at a restaurant, in the lobby or at a Venue. it really gets to me that people can’t make arrangements to be there at least 5 minutes early so as to be on time.

Imagine my embarrasement when on our last morning we were to leave for the Airport to come home, everybody waiting on the transfer bus and there was me fast asleep in Bed. I hadn’t received an early wake up call. Luckily, I woke with a start and was dressed and on the coach within 5 minutes extremely red faced.

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Don’t you just hate it when you think “oh, the hotel can’t be very far from here, look on the map it’s just around the corner!” And then, 3.5 hours later the sun sets and you’re forced to sleep under a tree over night, only to wake up the next morning realizing your hotel finally is around the corner……. yes, that happened to us in New Zealand

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The silliest mistake I’ve made recently was “screening” my cell phone calls from a number that came up blocked, while sitting in the waiting area for my flight. Turns out that the airline was calling me about my soon-to-be missed flight, departing from a different gate than where I was sitting. That was the last flight home for the day on that airline, with a 9:30 a.m. flight the next day being my only option on that airline. An additional $250 one-way ticket through another airline and a mad dash to the new gate thankfully got me home in time for work the next day. That will teach me to screen my calls.

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In 1999 my family along with my wife’s cousin and her daughter went to Florida. Everything went so smoothly, the drive to the airport, an upgrade in seating which meant we along with our bags were first off the plane. So straight through customs and onto the car hire company, the car was ready, and the majority of the other passengers hadn’t even picked up their bags yet. It was however at this point that the brown stuff hit the fan, “passport sir, and I’ll just need to take a copy of your drivers licence” yes you’ve guessed it I’d left the damn thing at home and had to have it overnighted to me (which took 5 days somehow) so whenever we go to the states now the first item that gets pack is my driving licence and I’m never allowed to forget it.

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Forgot which rental car company I booked (and prepaid, if memory serves) with in Hawaii and had to go the each counter in turn until I found it.

Ordered the special of the day in Paris, which turned out to be “Goat’s Neck.”

Asked a grocery store employee if he had eggs, which meant, “Do you have testicles?” in Mexican slang.

I could go on and on. Oh wait, I already have.

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Once I was traveling through Australia with my friend. To save money we decided to spend the night in the airport since we had an early flight. We took a late train into Sydney arriving a little after midnight and figured we would sleep on the floor somewhere for about five hours. Well apparently the airport closes around that time until about four in the morning. Not only were we locked out of the airport now, we had very little money and could not afford to get a cab to a hostel for a few hours. We ended up spending about four hours huddled together for warmth trying to sleep on a bench. If we had known the airport closed we would have spent the night with friends of mine in Newcastle and caught a morning train to the airport.

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I have done A LOT of mistakes when traveling. On second thought, perhaps a blog post covering all of them would be a good idea.

I was surprised that receptionist didn’t notice anything. You were lucky the other hotel was located so nearby!

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A very amusing thread.

Most of my gaffs have been language related as I’ve been brought up as a citizen of the world, determined to converse with my international friends in their own language.

In Morocco, I asked for a salad without a swimming pool, in Japan, I told a new mother her child looked very scary (rather than cute) and in Belgium, whilst ordering lunch, the waiter asked me in English, if I could stop speaking french as he’d got a hangover and my grasp of the language was making his ears ring.

Undeterred, I’m starting German evening classes soon.

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On my hen weekend in Vilnius we completely forgot to take into account the time difference (sounds so obvious when you write it!) and only just got our flight home.

Another time, I went into a bar in Genoa, Italy, and asked for the bill in my very best Italian. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, the whole bar bent over double with laughter. I still have no idea what I actually said, but it was very embarrassing.

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Turning up at a hotel I reserved without any papers (normally take a print out) and telling them I was checking and the reservation had been made, they went though the system 4 times and could not find me. At last found it booked as my first name instead of surname. Embarrassing as I am a Travel Agent and always warn customers about getting there name right.

Almost sending my daughter on a school trip with euro’s to a country that had not yet joined. (only a couple of years early).

Lastly, turning up at the wrong London airport for a flight.

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I once booked flights for me and two girlfriends and put all our surnames in the first name box and all our first names in the surname box. I then had to pay £60 at the airport to have it all corrected. I paid up quietly and didn’t admit to my friends how stupid I’d been.

I also once decided to stay up all night before a long flight to help me sleep on the plane, but ended up wedged into a seat between a rather large passenger who kept sneezing and a crying toddler. As a result, I went about 30 hours without any kip and ended up dozing off on a bench in arrivals while waiting for my luggage.

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It’s always reassuring to hear about others’ mistakes. Makes me feel better for missing that flight to Cancun, hopping the train out of Florence a day early (what kind of idiot leaves Florence early?!?!) and ending up in Monterey, California, on SuperBike weekend.

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I wrote a recent post on this subject (sort of – half of them were my fault and half of them were just wrong-place-wrong-time) with NINE travel disasters I’ve been through that are, yes, all completely true

http://www.bootsnall.com/articles/10-01/eye-opening-lessons-from-9-travel-disasters.html

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