re: What is the worst vacation you've ever been on...

When I was in the tenth grade my family and I went on a trip to Gatlinburg after Christmas. On Christmas Eve my uncle (my mom's brother), who my siblings and I were close to, passed away. He was the only sibling my mom had, and her parents were already deceased, so it was obviously extremely painful for her and all of us. Anyway, we had the funeral a couple of days after Christmas, and we left the next day to go to Gatlinburg.

It had snowed quite a bit up there on Christmas, but we still anticipated that we could get to the cabin we were staying in, since no one at the rental company had told us otherwise. We get to the check in place in Pigeon Forge and we are told that we cannot get to the cabin, that the roads are not passable. We are told by these people that they tried to call us, which they did, they called our house phone hours after we were already on the road and on our way there, even though they also had our cell phone numbers.

We had two pets with us, so a hotel wasn't possible, plus we went to be in a secluded cabin, not small hotel rooms. We found a place to stay that night, but every cabin we tried to book so that we could continue our trip, was either unreachable or got booked right before we could book it. A lot of people were in the same boat we were and were scrambling to find a new cabin accommodation, as well.

We ended up leaving and coming back to Birmingham the next day. Our week was already bad, as any week where you buried a loved one is, so this just intensified that.