Worst Vacation?

I honestly can't remember.

I haven't taken many vacations, for one. I've never really been able to afford it. And when I do take trips, they usually work out well.

The worst one, probably, was a short trip to Pensacola, Florida back in '94 or '95, I can't recall exactly. Pensacola didn't particularly like me and my boyfriend and our friends. They didn't like blue- and pink-haired people wearing leather spikes. They refused to let us buy beer (yes, we were legal, they just wouldn't serve the likes of us.) They gave us the finger. They cancelled my boyfriend's band's show and left us with nowhere to go.

But even that was fun. I mean, it wasn't, but we all managed to have a good tme anyway, despite being a little frightened of getting attacked.

When I was a kid we traveled a lot because my Dad was a salesman. We used to stay at a Holiday Inn just down the road from Graceland, and there was a bird right outside who used to dive-bomb me and steal my hair for its nest. Not good.

Oh! Wait! The hubs and I went to Key West one year for a long weekend, before we were married. It was AWFUL. The hotel where we stayed (it was a hellhole called The Chelsea House, which MAY have switched management since we were there in '99(?) but if not, don't ever go there) promised us, first of all, a room with a bathtub and loft with additional beds. We got a grimy shower and a dingy, hot attic, where the beds were not only not made, they still bore the body imprints of the last people who slept in them. The snotty manager told us they didn't bother to make those beds unless it was requested--funny, since they allowed us to pay for the room with the additional beds.

Our TV remote was broken. Our promised balcony was in fact a narrow ledge holding a broken small refridgerator. There was no parking.

They promised Concierge service to (among other things) take care of food delivery for us, but when we tried to use it told us they were closed. They gave us a list of restaurants we could order from and have delivered ourselves but none of them delivered.

In addition, Key West itself was dingy and seedy, with terrible service. When we finally went out to eat at a restaurant across the street after the Delivery Debacle, our waitress actually smiled and said hello, and we were so grateful we tipped her $40.


On leaving the Chelsea House, we tried to complain to the manager, a snippy little blond guy. He interrupted us with "I'll just give you your money back" and ran our card through to refund.

The refund never came through.