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This year brought us some amazing travel experiences, but as is pretty common with travel, there’s going to be highs and lows. And sometimes, we make mistakes. These can be minor or they can be costly. And some are just things that are out of our control! Any way you look at it, these moments in time all have the potential to impact your trip positively or negatively, depending on how severe they are.
Before we get into my list of some of our worst travel moments of the year, I just want to state how grateful I am for every single one of my travel adventures. In the grand scheme of things, these experiences are relatively minor (thankfully). I’ll take the bad as long as it brings me lots of good!
And here they are, in no particular order – my biggest travel fails of 2023!
1. Leaving my expensive toothbrush in Ireland
In all my years of travel, I have never left anything behind in a hotel room…until this year! I’m typically good about double checking (and sometimes triple checking) our rooms and bathrooms to make sure I didn’t miss anything, but alas, I failed us this time.
When it was time to check out of our hotel in Dublin, I neglected to see the toothbrush case that we placed behind our bathroom sink – even after my second sweep! I didn’t realize I left our expensive Sonicare behind until I was unpacking the day we returned home to the U.S.
Could I have just replaced it? Of course. Did I want to pay the money to do so? No. Instead, we paid a rather hefty fee to have the toothbrush mailed back to us from Ireland. It was still cheaper than buying a new one but I still felt crummy to essentially waste that money because I wasn’t thorough enough with my room check. Knock on wood it doesn’t die this year because I’ll be really mad.
Our electric toothbrush will never be leaving the confines of our bathroom at home again.
Lesson learned to leave your expensive s#!t at home! And maybe create a packing list so things don’t get missed in the future…
2. Nearly getting my husband hit by a car in Dublin
This one really shook both of us up and it’s definitely one of my worst travel moments of 2023.
On our first day in Ireland, we were heading out to explore Dublin for the afternoon. I got my street-crossing confidence up and went with a crowd across a street before the crosswalk light turned green. Shame. On. Me!
I take the full blame for what happened next.
My husband tried to catch up to me but was nearly hit by a car crossing the street! I turned around to see him get narrowly missed – and when I say that, I mean it was so close that he had to jump out of the way. We needed some strong whiskey after that trauma.
This could have been SO much worse and I’m very, very thankful it was just a close call.
The irony is that we thought we were prepared for walking around the city. Our taxi driver from the airport even warned us to be careful when crossing the street in Dublin since so many people are not used to cars coming from the opposite direction (they drive on the left here).
Needless to say, we were extra cautious when crossing all streets in Ireland for the rest of the week.
3. Getting a sunburn in Hawaii (two days before I was in a wedding)
You guys – this is one I should frankly be super embarrassed about. I grew up in Hawaii. There is no excuse for me to still be getting sunburnt at my age. I should know better. I do know better. Yet without fail, I burn.
One day on our trip to Maui this year, we popped down to our friends’ hotel for a visit and a “quick” dip in their pool. Well, that quick dip turned into several hours in the pool. Before it dawned on me to put my sunscreen on, it was too late.
And guess what? My swimsuit had a crisscross design on the back. Guess what else? I was going to be a bridesmaid in a wedding two days later. I also cut my hair short last year, so it hadn’t grown back long enough to cover up my mistake.
Luckily my friend (The Bride) was super chill and did not have a care in the world (bless her heart if she was holding it in and just trying to make me feel better).
Mild evidence of my sunburn exists if you look at the pictures close enough…
Always wear your sunscreen folks.
4. Ordering chicken strips in Ireland
Remember when I said I nearly got my husband hit by a car? Well, we were on our way to The Brazen Head in Dublin, Ireland for lunch when that happened. We were both really flustered after that whole ordeal and while I ordered the seafood chowder, I let him pick the second menu item. Chicken Goujons. Wow, that sounds exotic and interesting right!
It’s not.
Goujons literally translates to strips of meat. We did, in fact, order chicken strips for our first meal in Ireland. Granted, they weren’t bad…but it’s not what we wanted to be eating in a new destination.
Let it be known that if you aren’t sure what something is on a menu, ask – especially if you speak the native language.
5. Not planning ahead for public transportation shutdowns
Our plan for one of our days in Ireland was to visit the seaside village of Howth, which should have been an easy 40-minute train ride. As luck would have it, the one day I planned for us to take public transportation in Dublin was the one weekend where the DART trains were completely shut down.
Did I ignore the warning signs and purchase tickets anyway? Yes. But to be fair, I wasn’t familiar with the train routes and didn’t understand exactly what the signs were saying.
Next, we tried the bus, which we had to ask for directions to twice. When we eventually found the right bus stop, we then had to wait in the rain for the next bus to come, which of course was late. And when it finally came, it sat there for what felt like forever while they changed out the drivers. There were so many others waiting with us, inching closer to the bus – ready to rush to the doors as soon as they opened.
We gave up and decided to bite the bullet and pay for a taxi and ended up having a very pleasant (albeit expensive) ride out to Howth for some of the best seafood on our trip to Ireland!
This was a good reminder for me to be a little more diligent with my travel planning, but also not to give up when things go sideways.
6. Dragging my friends to a sparkling wine-only winery (when they don’t like sparkling wine)
When traveling with a group, it’s probably a good idea to ask them about things they like instead of selfishly planning things only you want to do.
Enter our visit to a sparkling winery in Yakima, Washington.
On a busy Memorial Day weekend, we popped into our second winery of the day. I hadn’t made a reservation (though I did try weeks earlier – there were just none available). We decided to try walking in and luckily snagged a (dirty) table on their lawn area!
We didn’t have table service but that wasn’t a huge deal for me – we just needed to walk up to the outside bar to order our drinks and tasting flights. It was in this moment I found out that my friends aren’t sparkling wine fans and there was nothing else available! Woops. Thanks for being good sports guys.
But that’s not the worst of it…
We placed our order at the outdoor bar and the server said she’d bring our drinks out when they were ready. Thirty minutes (30!!!) later, our drinks were nowhere to be found. So, we went up to the bar to check on the status and found her super overwhelmed. We waited in line for an additional 15 minutes just to see what the deal was. My flights of sparkling wine had, in fact, been sitting on the counter that entire time and they were warm.
At this point, we downed the bubbles and just got the heck out of there.
The whole experience put a little bit of a damper on the day. Considering we were only in town for 24 hours, I was really disappointed in my pick.
7. A foggy Cliffs of Moher visit
I just want to state that I absolutely loved our visit to the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland, BUT…
This FOG.
When we arrived and took our first steps up to the edge to see the Cliffs of Moher in all their glory only to find them shrouded in fog, my heart sank. Fog was my worst fear when coming to the Cliffs of Moher but it was really out of our control. Since we were on a day trip from Dublin, we had one shot and in this case, you just have to be happy with what you get.
We held out for as long as we could and thankfully towards the end of our visit, the fog started clearing up enough to see the cliffs.
I do think a visit here would be better in the later part of the day after the morning fog clears and also for sunset to hit the cliffs with the best light.
Will I go back again someday for a better view? Absolutely!
8. Our British Airways flight from LHR to SFO
Last but not least was our British Airways flight from from London to San Francisco. While it wasn’t the worst flight in the world, there were several things that really irked me.
Grumpy flight attendant
When we first boarded the plane, I put my bag in the overhead compartment (and might I add, I put it in properly), just above our seats. Lo and behold, another passenger came through and shifted things around so they could stuff their suitcase in. The overhead compartment was then unable to shut. I wasn’t paying attention at this point because I was examining the amenity kit and food menu (because priorities).
When the flight attendant came through to shut all the overhead compartments, she couldn’t shut the one my bag was in. She immediately threw a fit, loudly (and angrily) yelling about whose bags were in the bin. I get it – it’s frustrating. But damn was she pissed. I calmly explained I had placed my bag in there first AND properly.
She went on to yell out to the rest of the cabin asking who the other bag belonged to and threatened to check it. I was spared from her wrath thankfully. I have no idea if she found another spot for it or if it was checked – no one in our cabin acknowledged it was theirs.
Her demeanor set the tone for the flight, though I couldn’t be having a worse day than the lady seated next to me who got bumped from Business Class to Premium Economy.
The seat recliner
This is the sad tale of how my husband was seated behind a teenager who had no regard for the personal space of the person seated behind her.
I cringed so hard when she violently reclined her seat right into his lap while he was trying to work on his laptop. I can’t believe he held his composure to be honest. She continued to do this several times even after he asked her to lift her seat up just a bit. I think there was also a language barrier so that was unhelpful.
And here ensues the great debate – do you check with the person behind you first before you recline?
Lack of drinks during meal service
During our first meal service, we were given a bottle of water and an empty glass – presumably for an adult beverage like wine, which we asked for. The flight attendant said he would return with wine but spoiler, he never came back and we had to eat our meal sans bevy. In fact, it was a very long time until he returned to our cabin period.
Lack of meal options
Finally, the nail in the coffin was the issue with British Airways running out of meal options not once, but twice! The first time, it was no big deal – they ran out of Chicken Tikka Masala so I chose the lamb. The lamb meal actually turned out to be one of the better airline meals I’ve ever had so that was a win in the end.
The second time around, British Airways did us dirty.
The meal options for the second round included Chicken Pot Pie or Eggplant Parmesan. I wanted the pot pie, but that was what they ran out of. Given that we were in Premium Economy (which is a rather small section of the plane might I add), I was kind of shocked that we didn’t get our meal choice twice.
However, as someone who was mostly vegetarian for years, I was okay with settling for the parm while my husband declined. Sadly, what was served to us was undoubtedly the worst airline meal I’ve ever had. Picture three soggy pieces of eggplant with some marinara sauce and cheese sloppy tossed into a container. Actually, you don’t have to picture it in your mind – here’s an actual photo of this slop:
Would I fly British Airways again? Probably! But I might actually consider preordering my meals ahead of time and choosing a bulkhead seat for maximum comfort.
And those were my biggest travel fails of 2023! Nothing too crazy, right?
Did you have any travel fails or bad travel moments this year?
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