With TV dramas like Two Weeks in August and The Four Seasons spotlighting nightmare getaways, Guardian readers recount their own unforgettable holiday horrors.
The Belfast Bombing
In 1969, Marcus Graham, then 12, stayed at The Elsinore Hotel in Belfast with his family. The hotel was eerily empty, but the elderly owners treated them warmly. Days after returning home, they learned a bomb had destroyed the hotel, which was an IRA meeting place. Their English car in the lot likely marked them, but their Catholic appearance may have saved them.
The Honeymoon Disaster
Fiona Irwin’s 2008 honeymoon began with a drunken wedding and silent treatment. Their car broke down, and they arrived at a resort where their accommodation was two miles away with no transport. Walking uphill in heat, a suitcase wheel broke, and her husband got blisters. The restaurant was closed, leaving them with frozen pizza. They are still married 18 years later.
The Shark Encounter
Tim Halliday, who can’t swim, was kayaking in Fiji when he capsized. He cut his foot on coral, and blood attracted sharks. A local surfer rescued him, laughing off the sharks: “They might bite you or take a nibble.”
The Missile False Alarm
In Hawaii, Benjamin Malay received a ballistic missile alert. He and his partner went to the beach to wait. After 38 minutes, a second alert declared it a false alarm. The experience left him with a “glimpse of eternity.”
