Top Ten Worst Honeymoon Disasters

Posted In: About Honeymoons

By Jim Campbell | Updated on February 15, 2024


What more can we say? All we can hope is that you have the ability to laugh like these couples have and still keep the love alive! But lets not forget to learn from these courageous couples and these funny adventures of WHAT not to do for honeymoon planning! Thank you to all of the couples who were willing to share their honeymoon nightmares.


10. Honeymoon Texas Snowstorm

Our honeymoon definitely wasn’t much of a honeymoon. It started with twelve inches of snow in San Antonio, the destination of the honeymoon, and ending with me in the hospital for an infection in my parotid gland! We were married in Amarillo, Texas and spent the first night there. We had heard snow was coming, but not in our wildest imaginations would we have expected San Antonio to be socked in with twelve inches of it. We spent the next day driving but only got within 100 miles of San Antonio. Driving a Mustang with several inches of snow and through the Texas hill country is not easy or fun. San Antonio does not have snow removal equipment and was basically shut down. So the next day was spent driving to Dallas. After the pain, pills and diet of rice & milkshakes for my tooth and an overnight stay in the hospital we still look back at it as a nightmare but we are married for 25 years and still remember the one night honeymoon and snow and laugh.
Married 25 years, S. Sharp


9. Stuck in Italy

My husband and I took a 14-day honeymoon to Italy last year. It was a wonderful trip, but by the last day, we were really looking forward to getting home, who knew we could ever get sick of Italian food! My husband checked the flight itinerary the day before we were “supposed” to leave Rome. He said the flight left at 4:00 pm, so we had plans to get up and see a few more sights before leaving for the airport. When we woke up the next morning, he decided to double check the itinerary, he looked at the wrong flight on the itinerary. Our flight was leaving right then! In the US, when you miss a flight you go to the airport and get on the next one so we scrambled to get ready and packed up as fast as we could.

However, when we got to the “quarantined” US airline terminals, it was completely deserted except a few security workers. Apparently, all flights to the US leave in the morning before 10:00 am, and that’s it. Since we bought a bargain ticket and it was a Friday, they couldn’t get us on another flight until the next Monday! So $400 per person later and a weekend ahead of us we went to the airport bookstore and purchased a Rick Steves’ travel book on the Tuscany region, a part of Italy we hadn’t visited. We decided on Siena as our weekend getaway, and after much trouble trying to figure out how to use our international calling card, we were able to find a hotel with vacancies. We took a hot miserable bus ride to Siena and arrived at 9:00 pm. Ironically, Siena ended up being our favorite part of the honeymoon! It was such a magical medieval town and exactly the way we had imagined Italy would look, which we hadn’t witnessed until that point. They had the best food of the whole trip and the liveliest nightlife.
Married 1.5 years, B. Pruitt


8. Nude Beach “No No”

As an event planner, I have seen just about everything, however a few years ago I saw something that was just too funny to forget. I worked with a couple a few years ago that were honeymooning in the south of France and they were planning on finding a nude beach. The bride wanting to look perfect so she planned to get a Brazilian wax (which is the removal of all pubic hair), however, was embarrassed to go to a spa to have it done. Her sister, who waxes her own legs, offered to do the waxing but since she had no experience, nor did she use the correct waxing elements, the future bride’s skin was ao severely burned it destroyed her wedding day and honeymoon! The waxing, which was done 3 days before the wedding, caused an irritation and discomfort that lasted for over a week. And then when the hair finally started to grow back she had an incredible itch! Needless to say, her sister was very upset, but the bride blamed herself for her own shyness that prevented her from having it done professionally. Their honeymoon night and the week following were not spent the way they wanted. Obviously! They did not go to a nude beach as she was very irritated and used healing cream, with a bandage, to reduce the irritation.
Event & Wedding Planner Rita Smircich, Author of TODOBEFOREIDO.COM


7. Bermuda Scooter Crash

On honeymoon trip in Bermuda my new husband and I decided to do what every couple does and rent a scooter. We each put on a helmet and off we went. My husband was not keen on driving so he put me in charge and we enjoyed about 30 minutes of traveling through the gorgeous little towns of Bermuda. While we driving along, my husband who was sitting on the back, yelled out “OH MY GOD: here comes a cement truck. Being from New York, I had a vision of a two ton cement truck ready to crush us. My nervous reaction to his scream was to drive us off the road and down into a ditch. Once we landed and tumbled down into a ravine I was able to just see what just caused our accident. A small little moped, smaller then our scooter pulling a little cart filled with cement just shuffled by. I was sitting in a ditch, with a broken leg because of a man on a bike pulling about a bucket full of cement. Needless to say it was a rough beginning to our new marriage, but we still laugh about it today!
Married 10 years, Carmen


6. Disaster Master in Mexico

Our wedding and honeymoon turned out to be the worst nightmare any new couple can image. On our wedding day we had two limousines, one was a gift from my employer at the time, A Los Angeles City Councilman and the other limo was owned by my husband’s friend. Well, my limo showed up but my husband’s never did, so my limo had to pick him up, making us late for the ceremony. What was worse then that was my husband’s brother, his best man, was still at the park with his son at a baseball game in his tuxedo! His son, our ring bearer, was playing in baseball finals and when he won, he no longer wanted to be in the wedding. At the last minute we scrambled to replace him with another nephew who lived in Texas, after calling in measurements for a tux and a fast drive from California, he barley made the ceremony let alone the rehearsal.

The best man stayed too long at the baseball game and was late to the ceremony and missed pictures. My music was going to be performed by a friend, but couldn’t make it because his mom got sick causing my father to take over singing, I hate to say it, he was really horrible. We had planned to get married in a city park and had to pay for a permit. Once the wedding was over and time for the photos, we found out that the park ranger, who had not asked to see the permit, had kicked out most of our family members. Panicked, we took the one limousine to hotel and had to interrupt the cocktail hour to get family photos. Once photos were done the party began and while dancing, my wedding dress ripped down both sides and I spent a great deal of time repairing it in the bathroom. Once we left the reception to go on the honeymoon we realized that the limo driver had forgotten to remove my husband’s luggage from the trunk and we spent most of the night in South Central Los Angeles trying to track down the limo company and my husband’s luggage. We were leaving for Ixtapa, Mexico early the next morning and my brother had stayed at our apartment for the night and decided to do us a favor and clean the cat litter, only he dumped the clay litter down the toilet and made it overflow and he used our brand new wedding towels to clean up the mess.

After a few mix ups at the airport, we barley made the flight but arrived at our destination on time only for it to rain for six of the seven nights. Thinking nothing else could go wrong, our plane tickets and all of our photographs were stolen from our hotel room, a five-star Crystal Resort in Ixtapa, Mexico. We had to buy two one-way tickets to get home at the cost of $1,200.00 per person, and I don’t mean pesos because we were traveling home on the 4th of July! The story goes on and on, but as you can see, a problematic wedding and honeymoon didn’t ruin our love as we have been married for almost 17 years. This is really a true story…I couldn’t make up something this bad.
Married 17 years, Rachel


5. What’s That Spot?

My wife and I have been married for 14 years, DESPITE a disaster of a honeymoon. The morning after we’d had sex, FOR THE FIRST TIME, I saw a big red spot on my big toe. Sort of like a zit. I’d never had a zit on my toe. And since I’d never had sex I figured, and feared, they might be related. However, there was no WAY I’d directly ask my love and new wife if she had an STD. Oh no. I was cunning and asked, “Dear, did we have any blood work done before the wedding?” MAJOR screw up on my part. After what was a very awkward few hours we realized it turned out that I had chicken pox. That “in sickness & in health” part of the vows was supposed to be decades later, not days. So my new wife called my mom and asked if I came with a warranty and we had a good laugh and we went to my parent’s house. There, I spent the time moaning with chicken pox and my wife sat by the pool with umbrella drinks.
Married / Anonymous


4. Brakeless VW

My husband and I drove through the Sierra Madre Mountains in a Mexican VW Bug with bad brakes. After we realized we chose the wrong road, which basically turned into a red-mud cow path after a big rain, it was to late to turn back since we were almost out of gas and there were no petrol stations with the kind of gas the car took. We literally turned the engine off and coasted when we saw long downhill courses in order to save gas. We would otherwise have ended up walking the last 20 miles into Oaxaca. I kept looking down those ravines thinking “they’ll never think to look for us here.” On a brighter note, we also got to see some amazing scenery, and ended up by “happy accident” having lunch in the most beautiful village being visited by tens of thousands of monarch butterflies. While I wouldn’t do it again, it was in retrospect a pretty amazing and once-in-a-lifetime experience. We still laugh about it 17 years later.
Married 17 years, Amelia


3. Europe Tour

My husband & I got married in 2001 and our honeymoon was in Belgium, Italy & France. We had some pretty funny & outrageous moments including: visiting the North Sea in Belgium and getting bit by sand fleas, and I am talking bites all over our entire body, which we didn’t notice until we were in a hostile in Italy. To make it worse not only were we all covered with bites, we rode on the world’s hottest train overnight with constant “talkers” & smokers and all the train windows were closed! Finally we ended up spending a lovely day in Genoa, Italy but as we thought things were getting better, we realized the city was on lock down in advance of the G8 summit that equaled armed guards on every corner. Yikes! We actually had a good time – but a bumbling tour of Europe that was for sure unforgettable.
Married 8 years, Betsy


1. And the Number One WORST Honeymoon…

As our guests strolled through the receiving line they asked us where our honeymoon would be and our tickets were booked for the Secrets Carpi — an all-inclusive couples resort in Riviera Maya. However, the guests expressed concern, “Isn’t hurricane Ivan headed there?” We threw caution to the wind and packed our bags in the car and made the drive to Chicago to catch our flight at “o’dark thirty” the next morning. We spent the night in a posh hotel, gearing up for a week of tropical drinks, white sands and no cares. But, during our nightcap in the hotel bar, we received a voice mail from Apple Vacations that our flight was canceled because of Hurricane Ivan. The options were to delay our trip by a few days and cross our fingers that our resort would still be there, or delay our trip a few days and change locations — to the Dominican Republic Iberostar resort.

We delayed and opted for the DR but our travel agent had trouble finding a hotel for us when we returned to O’hare — and the one she booked had barbed wire in the parking lot next door, flanked by a huge “Paris Hilton Videos Sold Here” billboard. First class accommodations, I think not. We were not comfortable even leaving our car there, so we drove to O’Hare and spend the night in the U.S.O (thank goodness for military ID cards!), sleeping in Lazyboy recliners – surrounded by solders in all different uniforms. The next morning we boarded the plane and headed to the DR. A short bus ride through third world conditions and we arrived at our resort, which was quite beautiful, but I felt so guilty to have such posh accommodations near such poverty.

Guests received little tropical drinks and we had a short briefing about how a “storm might be blowing through” that night. It sounded like no big deal, and we again threw caution to the wind. After a quick nap and light lunch we took a stroll down the beach where we met a vendor selling beautiful jewelry. I used my best “Spanglish” to get a bargain…but decided maybe I would wait till the next day to make purchases. The vendor said, “No, no, I might not be here tomorrow.” And we both thought that was the funniest way to close a sale…we walked away empty handed – and clueless.

After the wedding letdown and the travel planning fiasco, not to mention the night in the USO chairs, we were pooped. In bed by 8:00 and pretty much in a dead sleep, we woke a few hours later. I said to my new groom, “Honey, I think I heard a coconut fall.” And he said, “CLAIRE! IT WAS THE WHOLE DAMN TREE!” Panic had set in. This was no Dorothy-in-Kansas — this was a hurricane in a third world country. Lights flickering, rain seeping under the door into our room, intermittent TV (which conveniently blacked out during weather reports), and the scariest views out the window as trees, chairs, and other large objects blew past. You’re not supposed to think “I want my mom” on your honeymoon…but all I knew is that I wanted to call home and tell everyone that I loved them before we blew away.

The next morning, things were semi-calm so we went outside to survey the damage. You know you’re not from a hurricane region when you don’t realize it’s just the eye of the storm. As the second half of the storm kicked up we were walking the beach and I now have a scar on my thigh from being pierced by a flying palm branch. And that beach vendor with the jewelry. He wasn’t lying…his tent was gone, as was the entire little village of tent vendors! We made a mad-dash back to our room where the long games of Crazy-8s occupied our time for hours on end. The beach was destroyed. We questioned ALL the food because we didn’t know if refrigeration was working, if the water was sanitary, etc. We did call home to let everyone know we were okay and we got evacuated on Saturday. (we arrived on a Wednesday).

Jeremy previously worked for the airline industry and we were appalled that things like passenger manifest lists were lying around unattended. Hotel workers were selectively telling people that they were being evacuated, and telling other people that the weather was looking great. It was mass chaos. And, I think that’s stating it mildly. Our evacuation included a safari bus ride through high waters that smelled like it was laced with raw sewage, then a coach bus ride to the airport. The resort next to us was under so much water that the Dominican military had to use helicopters to lift people out. It was Jeanne. Hurricane Jeanne. She ruined our honeymoon and our relationship with Apple Vacations…and faxes and letters and phone calls proved worthless, as our travel insurance did not cover “acts of God.” But really, we were so thankful to be alive. To come home to America, to the great Midwest where we are blessed with fleeting tornadoes and thunderstorms, instead of days of destruction caused by hurricanes. I wanted to kiss the ground when we came home with only one flesh wound.

To celebrate our fifth anniversary, we recently spent two full weeks on the islands of Oahu and Kauai while my parents stayed with our daughter (Emily, age 2). It was absolute bliss. It was the honeymoon do-over that was the perfect ending to our dashed dreams from five years earlier. Hurricane Jeanne killed more than 2,000 people in Haiti, the other side of the island. While we joke that our marriage was “hurricane tested” and that we will never go back, I must confess that there is a little piece of my heart that is called to go back someday. But not for a vacation, most likely for a missions trip.
Married 5 years, Claire


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