When Holidays Go Horribly Wrong

Accounts of nightmare vacations from those whose dream break went horribly wrong, including a woman horrified to see her young children paddling in what she believed to be sewage. Plus, the beachgoer who found herself upside down and clinging on for dear life during a parasailing excursion we Horribly Wrong, and a day trip to Brighton that ended up a sunseeker being chased by a hungry flock of seagulls. Jenny Powell narrates, with contributors including broadcaster Dermot Murnaghan, travel journalist Simon Calder and DJ Sonny Jay.

Package Holidays have always been the easy way to travel, with flights and accommodation all taken care of. Ever popular, all you need to do is just fly and flop! So, when these holidays go right, you'll be living la vida loca. But when they go Horribly Wrong, you'll wish you'd never booked.

Highlights of the show include pain in Spain as a family are disgusted when they discover their Benidorm package holiday hotel room looks less like the little piece of heaven they'd envisaged and more like something from a horror film, complete with flickering light, crumbling fixtures and filth everywhere. There's the shock of all shocks when on a package tour to Thailand a man is horrified to discover a huge Godzilla-like creature emerging from the toilet at the most inopportune moment: it's a venomous monitor lizard. And a sunseeker's trip to Mallorca ends in disaster when she gets sunburnt so badly she's in excruciating pain for the rest of the holiday - not to mention being faced with a doctor's bill for thousands.

Also, there's a fracas in Paphos as a relaxing trip to Cyprus is anything but, when a holidaymaker has to endure days of ear-shattering drilling. A week in Ibiza is a washout as flash floods hit leaving a room looking more like the hotel swimming pool. And in Turkey, a holidaymaker gets a basting when a parasailing adventure comes crashing down to earth leaving her worried she'll ever return home alive.

Contributors include journalist & broadcaster Claudia-Liza Vanderpuije, presenters Sara Damergi & Ricky Boleto and veteran travel journalist Simon Calder. 

As more of us seek out affordable holiday options, the popularity of Caravan Holidays is soaring with the industry worth a staggering two billion pounds a year. You get all the comforts of home, along with the freedom to explore whenever and wherever. But sometimes there can be a hitch in your plans as exemplified in this 90-minute special narrated by Helen Lederer.

Highlights include the driver who can't believe her eyes when her holiday flies by for all the wrong reasons: her caravan has become detached from her car and is hurtling past her at breakneck speed on the motorway, with terrifying consequences.

A holiday proves too much to bear as a grizzly makes itself at home in a Canadian caravan park, pilfering the food and giving holidaymakers the fright of their lives. And there's a dark cloud hanging over a holiday in Cornwall as bad weather sets in leaving a family no choice but to wade through a knee-deep torrent of rain to get to their static. Before long, they call time on the break, which is a washout.

Other stories, re-lived by holidaymakers who really should have been given a wider berth, include a mouse invasion in a caravan that resembles something from a disaster movie, a Vegas driver who takes the gamble of his life getting into an underground carpark and the proud owners of a new caravan, whose dream soon ends in a nightmare as the shiny new vehicle is dramatically rear-ended on the way home from the showroom. The damage is so bad, the holiday home is deemed by insurers to be a write-off.

Contributors include racing driver Paul O'Neill, adventurer and presenter Rob Bell and journalist and broadcaster Kylie Pentelow.

Accounts of terrifying and disastrous honeymoons, including a newlywed being bitten by a shark in the Bahamas, an adventure-loving couple getting stranded in the wilds of Asia, and a safari trip that is stopped by a silverback gorilla when it charges into a woman and knocks her to the ground.

Accounts of disastrous flights, including one to Hawaii that took a sinister turn when a passenger saw an engine falling apart before his eyes. A holidaymaker relives the horror of his plane attempting to land at Heathrow, not once, but twice, in 100mph winds. while a trip to Egypt entails an epic 36-hour delay. With contributions from Jeremy Spake, flight safety expert Dai Whittingham and travel presenter Lucy Hedges.

First-hand accounts of drivers who came to a grinding halt, from road users who failed to put their brain into gear to extraordinary obstructions and life-or-death situations. A lorry driver was unable believe his eyes when the vehicle in front of him, transporting bales of hay, caught fire, causing a tailback of mega-proportions, while a chauffeur sees his life flash before his eyes when a careless driver attempted a U-turn on a dual carriageway, smashing into him and forcing the entire road to close.

John Sergeant narrates a selection of first-hand accounts of nightmare trips on the railway, including passengers stuck on a train that lost power on the hottest day of the year, leaving them without air conditioning in the 38C heat. Plus, the driver whose quick reactions helped save the lives of his passengers when his high-speed train hit a lorry on a level crossing, and the pandemonium underground when a London Tube carriage filled with smoke.