that Egypt trip sounds like a nightmare !
hmm, we were on holidays in the south of France, close to the Pyrénées mountains. the view was absolutely beautiful, sadly that was the only good thing. i think i was about 12 when that happened.
my parents rented a mobile home in that camping for two weeks. it was ok for the most part, except it wasn't so clean so we had to buy products just before we could relax after a long trip.
then my dad calls because the gas cylinder was empty, kinda hard to cook anything, don't you think ?
then we decide to have a walk in the camping. my brother and i wanted to play but the equipment wasn't very solid so we risked having an accident. logically, my parents forbid us to go there. okay, so instead we'll go to the swimming pool. hmm, yeah, except you had to swim with all the dead insects, mostly fly and wasp. no way, dad's allergic to wasps (and there was wasps. luckily they liked strawberry jam. i suspected there was even a
hornets nest somewhere).
the second, heated, swimming pool was closed. well worth having a second one if it's not usable.
then we decide to go to the restaurant, yucky food, and very expensive. there was a small grocery store, the only thing worth buying being lollipops.
there was a lot of european people there, from Germany and other european countries. everything in the camping was written in any language but french, and on July's 14th, there was a party organized, but only for them. now i've been to campings with european clients, but come on. July 14th is the french national holiday, so of course everyone's welcome to the party, but we really felt like strangers in our own country. nothing in that camping was welcoming the french clients.
we had a nice couple as neighbors. because the caravan they were renting was falling apart(and very insect friendly), they got an old log cabin. the lady came in to ask mom for the cleaning products as we were too far from any town for them to get products and get everything cleaned before the night. she then told me there was blood everywhere in the bedroom like someone was murdered, and the other rooms were just as dirty.
then came the worst part. we got a new gas cylinder, but the equipment was very old, with electric cables falling from the electricity meter (which we didn't notice the first time). so pick your death, either we died by fire provoked by a short circuit, or by gas poisoning. or both for that matter. there was simply no way we spent another night in that mobile home.
we never saw the boss before, so my dad talked to his daughters (doing every dirty job in the camping) until he finally reached him. i was there, and i was really scared. that man treated us like shit, and he simply didn't care if we died or not. my dad asked for his money back. we were there for one week, so we lost that money. dad wanted it back too, but the man was the kind ready to take a gun from his drawer and shoot us. although i'm not sure he would have done that considering i was in the room. my dad felt we needed to get out as soon as possible, so we practically ran to the mobile home to get our things and jump in the car.
i don't know how exactly we got it, but anyway we got a catalogue with campings, and we were told one in particular was great. we managed to get a phone working (yay for mountains) and we called. after a few minutes we got told a log cabin was available.
needless to say we jumped in the car and never turned our backs. the info was good and that week managed to save our holidays. we went back there the next years.