bad vacations

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I really don’t. And I know this is going to sound ungrateful.

We were fortunate to be able to travel to Aruba over April Break. We had high expectations: partly because my best friend has gone several times, and every time she comes home and says it was the most incredibly relaxing vacation. Ever. Our travel agent recently sent her family to Aruba in February, and they came back raving. My husband has a friend with a timeshare there. He loves it. We’ve heard people say: “Arubans are the nicest people in the world.” For goodness sakes, folks call Aruba “The Happy Island.”

This vacation was supposed to be awesome-sauce.

That said, it became clear Aruba was not going to be our dream vacation when we arrived at our hotel and stood in line forever while the girl behind the desk chewed her lip and made concerned faces.

“Someone cancelled your reservation,” said the girl at the front desk. “And we’re totally booked.”

Whaaaat?

“Okay,” I said, trying to stay calm. We’d only been up since 4:30 AM and taken three airplanes to arrive at the packed island. It was Easter vacation for many people, and clearly the hotel staff was slammed.

“I’m trying to find you another room.”

“I’d prefer a room away from the elevators,” I said. “We specifically requested that…”

“You’re going to have to be satisfied with what we have,” she sniped. “And we don’t have any roll-away cots left.” The clerk looked at my son.

I looked at my husband.

“You’ll have to sleep together in one bed, yah?” the unapologetic clerk said.

At nearly thirteen-years-old, Tech Support is nearly as tall as I am. He is all elbows and knees. Plus he’s squirmy.

Whaaaat?

“How did this happen?” I asked.

The girl shrugged.

I am sure we will look back at this and find it all incredibly funny, but maybe not. Because there is more.

Tell me about a vacation disaster. Please.

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