12 People Whose Dream Getaways Turned Into Nightmares

Holidays are meant to offer a break from daily life, full of exploration and fun. But occasionally, the places we stay turn into unsettling experiences. What should have been peaceful getaways instead became stories of fear and discomfort. Here are 12 stories of vacations that took unexpected and frightening turns, filled with unsettling moments and unforgettable misadventures.

• I was at a hotel with my fiancé. On the 3rd day, we came to our room and my diamond ring was gone. Panicked, I went to the reception and shouted that I had been robbed. The manager was surprisingly calm, showing no reaction. He smiled and showed me an unpaid receipt.
  
  It turned out that my boyfriend hadn’t settled the bill yet, despite multiple reminders, and they had taken my ring as collateral. I was furious. I told them this was completely unprofessional and that I’d be suing them—there was no way I was going to let them get away with this, and my boyfriend would eventually pay.
  
  But he then stared into my eyes and said, "Your fiancé has a history of robbery. He’s been in the news before for scams. We can’t trust him.” I froze. I had no idea what he was talking about. Later, I googled him, and to my shock, it turned out he had been to prison. I was in disbelief. Everything about this situation suddenly felt like a lie, and I was left shaken by the truth.

• A few years ago, I was staying at a hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, and they had construction going on. Construction-related faulty wiring or something kept causing the alarm to go off (false alarm), and periodically a recorded voice would announce there was some kind of incident and to stay in your room until otherwise notified.
  All. Night. Long. I couldn’t get any sleep, and I had to get up early and work all day. © harbac / Reddit

• In my 20s, I was traveling with friends on a shoestring budget, and we stayed at the absolute cheapest hostel we could find that was close to the downtown area so we could spend as little money on public transit as possible. "Hostel" was a generous term.
  It was a tiny brick building in the center of a large city block, so you basically had to walk through this narrow urban canyon to arrive at its featureless metal door. You just punched in a code to enter. There was no one on-site to greet or help you in any way.
  
  The space was divided into four units, and each unit basically looked like a wing of an insane asylum. Dirty white tile, peeling paint, dusty yellow lights—the whole thing. The beds were saggy mattresses on old metal frames, and each had a thin, wrinkled bedsheet on it. The bathroom was surprisingly fine, but the thing that absolutely broke us was the ants.
  
  So. Many. Ants. There was nothing you could do to avoid feeling one crawl across you in the middle of the night, so trying to fall asleep was like torture. The manager/owner was completely unhelpful and insisted that the traps they'd already placed were good enough.
  If we’d been able to afford any other option, we would have left after one night. Sadly, we spent four nights in this nightmare and just used it as an excuse to stay out all night exploring. A horrible experience, but it was a true moment of bonding for my friends and me. © FigureDrawPractice / Reddit

• I needed to find a hotel because of my daughter’s gymnastics competition. I read online reviews, and they were good. The price was good too, so I booked it.
  I had difficulty finding it because it was dark, and their sign wasn’t lit. The parking lot was pitch black. Just outside the entrance, there were two sketchy guys.
  
  Inside, the motel lobby was dimly lit with flickering lights. The room was no better—stained sheets, holes in the bedspread, and hair in the shower. The fitness room consisted of a broken stair stepper and an old TV on the ground that was also broken.
  I told the front desk that I wanted to cancel our reservation. She said, “I don’t blame you. This place is gross. I had an interview at Kohl’s and hope they hire me so I can quit this place.” © DareWright / Reddit

• My dad went to a hotel once and checked into a first-floor room. He went into the room, put his stuff down, opened the curtains... and a man was hiding there.
  My dad said, “Excuse me,” closed the curtains, got his stuff, and left. He went to the front desk to explain that a man was hiding in his room. It turned out the guy had just robbed a place and somehow got into the room through an open window. © arcant12 / Reddit

• The hotel I stayed in years ago to spend the night with my then-boyfriend when he was coming back from being away for months was a disaster. The building was under construction, so it was a mess with tradespeople everywhere.
  And the reason it was under construction was that it was being converted from a hotel to a senior’s residence! It was already operating as such while still taking hotel bookings. None of this was disclosed on their website, which showed really nice rooms.
  
  When I checked in, the staff member had to move a sign advertising their upcoming diabetes workshop out of the way. The room I stayed in had already been converted. Emergency assistance pull cords were everywhere, all the furniture and the bathroom were set up for accessibility, and it had the most uncomfortable bed ever.
  I couldn’t believe it. I was so embarrassed to have to bring my boyfriend there, but it was too late to cancel and rebook. Haha! © GrammaMo/ Reddit

• Last year for Valentine’s Day, I got a room for my wife and me at a really nice hotel. It was pretty expensive, but all the reviews said it was really nice, and the rooms were big.
  We got in, and the staff was extremely rude. We don’t look like the kind of people who can afford to spend a lot on a hotel room, and the staff made us feel like we didn’t belong there.
  We got up to the room, and it was super tiny. It was boiling in the room, and the air conditioning didn’t work. I asked the staff if there was a way to fix it, and they just ignored us. © sksksk1989 / Reddit

• I was about 4 at the time, so this is mostly based on my siblings’ stories, though I remember a few still shots. We were at a hotel with some family friends and their kids (5 kids total, us included, ages 4–13). The parents put us all in the same room to chill in the evening while they went out to do adult things (probably a fancy dinner).
  We were chilling on the bed watching a movie when, all of a sudden, we heard a loud noise, the floor vibrated a bit, and then, I kid you not, hundreds, if not thousands, of mini spiders started flowing up the walls from two of the bottom corners of the room.
  After a failed attempt to defend our ground by using marshmallows and ice cubes as projectiles, we huddled in the bathroom, sealing the bottom of the door with a towel. I slept in the bathtub with my sister that night. There were no phones to call for help (this was before kids/teens ever had cell phones), and we were very clearly instructed not to leave the room under any circumstances. We took those instructions a bit too seriously.
  My parents discovered the scene in the middle of the night and probably woke up the whole floor with their initial scream. We all ended up okay, though. © SKirby00 / Reddit

• My family had gone to Florida for vacation and were staying in a cheap but relatively nice hotel. After the first three days, we noticed they had a mini-fridge in the room, so naturally, my brother looked inside. Someone before us had opened two of the soda cans in the fridge, half-drank both of them, and placed them back in the fridge upside down.
  After a few days, what seemed like the hotel’s entire ant population had swarmed inside the fridge. When my brother opened it, so many ants came pouring out that it might have looked like a movie scene. The fridge was promptly shut, and after my brother’s quick shower, we decided we didn’t want to stay in the hotel after that night. © NikolaTesla1 / Reddit

• I was staying with a friend at a hotel in Philadelphia. It was around midnight when we got in, and I realized that the maid service hadn’t given us enough towels. So, I went down to the front desk to get some more, but for whatever reason, they couldn’t give me any there and said that someone would bring towels up to the room within an hour.
  As I was getting ready to take the elevator back up to our room, I noticed this creepy guy also waiting for the elevator, and he kept staring at me. Right after the elevator doors closed, the guy started asking how my day was, what I was doing later, if I wanted to hang out, etc. I kept saying no, but he didn’t seem to get the hint.
  
  Finally, the elevator reached the floor we were staying on, but of course, our room was at the end of this really long hallway. As I was walking back, I heard footsteps behind me. I immediately thought, "This is how I die." I started walking faster down the hall but didn’t want to turn around because, that’s when they get you, right?
  At this point, I was practically jogging to our room, and when I got there, I started knocking loudly and banging on the door for my friend to let me in. They seemed to take forever, and I could hear the footsteps behind me getting louder and closer. My friend finally opened the door, and I took a chance to look down the hall to see…
  A guy that worked at the hotel bringing me some towels. I assume he took a different elevator up to our floor and exited a few moments after I did. © I_Need_To_Get_A_Life / Reddit

• I went to a motel while on vacation with an ex. I went to take a shower and locked the bathroom door. When I was done, dried off, and ready to go back into the main part of the room, the door wouldn’t open.
  My ex had to call the front desk, and they sent someone up to the room, who proceeded to disassemble the doorknob to open the door. After that, they upgraded our room for the evening. © vesnapukanic / Reddit

• My boyfriend planned a romantic weekend at a luxury hotel. Everything felt perfect—until checkout. His card got declined, and he turned red with embarrassment. I smiled and paid for our stay. As we were leaving, the receptionist discreetly pulled me aside and said, “Be careful, I’ve seen this guy do the same thing with other women. He comes here, his card gets declined, and they end up paying for everything.”
  I chose not to believe her. We were still early in our relationship, and I trusted him completely—I had no reason not to. But over time, he started pulling similar tricks more often. I noticed he was making me pay for shopping trips and other expenses. The final straw came when he tried to steal my money by pressuring me to invest in a shady scheme.
  I broke up with him. Yet the memory of that hotel stay still haunts me because it was the beginning of it all, and I wish I had listened to that girl.

In an instant, everything we perceive as reality can be completely turned on its head. Here are 13 people who uncovered a startling truth, causing their world to shatter into a million pieces.