Atlanta Weather

| Traffic

Still Traveling

CONTEST: The winner of vacation horror stories – The eye, the rat & the parasite

7:00 am June 29, 2009, by Joy Johnston

THE EYE, THE RAT AND THE PARASITE

By Earline Feldman of Roswell

My husband booked a trip for us to the beautiful Caribbean Island of Dutch St. Maartin for a week. Everything on the flight from Atlanta was uneventful until we landed. When we exited the plane down an open staircase onto the tarmac in St. Maartin, a small cinder blew into my eye.

It was painful, but I waited until we got into our hotel to do anything about it. So as soon as we entered our luxury hotel suite, I immediately washed my eye out with the tap water from our hotel sink. It wasn’t until the next morning that the next major problem began. I awoke in serious pain with my eye swollen shut.
Rushing into the lobby, the hotel concierge directed my husband and I to an eye doctor in Philipsburg. When we got there, to my shock, the doctor advised me that a tiny local parasite had gotten into my eye from the hotel tap water. Our fabulous trip was now on hold for two days of antibiotic treatment until the swelling had gone down and I no longer had to wear a very large and obvious an eye patch over my right eye.

The third day of our vacation started out fine on the beach lathered up in coconut smelling suntan oils for some sun and fun, but that night, my husband and I were just settling down when I felt something touch my leg. My husband said it was nothing. Then he notice something touching his foot and asked if it was me. It wasn’t!

Suddenly he turned on the light and found a massive wharf rat jumping from the bed and heading toward our large spa-like bathroom. Immediately, he slammed the bathroom door shut and
called the front desk. It was late, but the hotel dispatched a security gentleman up with a long pole twice as large as a baseball bat. The man said that the coconut suntan oil on our skin probably drew in the rat from our open balcony off one of the adjacent Palm trees.

My husband quickly explained the situation to him and showed him the secure bathroom door. Once the door was closed behind him, all of a sudden the man began screaming in the bathroom, banging the walls and apparently beating the big rat with the pole.

The author and her husband, Mel. The injured eye is covered by the sunglasses.

The author and her husband, Mel. The injured eye is covered by the sunglasses.

Just after midnight the man came out of the bathroom covered in blood with the massive rat (now dead), the toilet and the bidet covered in blood as well. At last, the night housekeeping crew was summoned to clean up the mess and dispose of the rat.

But that wasn’t it for me. I packed my bags and sat on the side of the bed all night, a nervous wreck. I was dressed and urgently waiting for daylight to get out of this place and back to Atlanta on the very next Flight. Our tickets were nonrefundable, so we had to pay quite a bit to get a flight back to Atlanta.

  • Print

10 comments Add your comment

pete

June 29th, 2009
12:42 pm

i should have sent it to mo

John OTC

June 29th, 2009
12:54 pm

I hope you got your eye checked out again after you got back home…

Veronica

June 29th, 2009
1:28 pm

The story that won was good but I can top it – week long trip to Cozumel in 2001 at a 5 diamond dive resort. Two days before I left, I tripped over an umbrella getting out of the car and bashed my knee cap falling on to the asphalt parking lot, the next day my aunt died from cancer. Then arriving in Cozumel our room wasn’t ready but if we would pay more, the room would be ready – no thanks so we were taken to a room that had a 6 inch gap all the way around the set-in A/C unit and a lizard had just darted inside. I refused the room so after some rolling of eyes, stomping of my size 7.5 sandals and all my best spanish cuss words, we were moved to a casita on the other side of the property – a small studio like unit. And it was a gorgeous property right on the beach, highly recommended. To make a long story short here is the list of incidents in order during our stay – near miss with a large spider as I stepped into the shower, I fell off the step to the sunken living room and bashed same injured knee into stone coffee table, stung by sea wasps, feel asleep in a lounge chair at the pool and stung by ants, pushed off a catamaran before I was ready w my dive mask and took in a mouth/nose full of sea water, my 13 yr old son got montezuma’s revenge from the one thing I didn’t think of – lettuce on his club sandwich from room service, lost my balance while wading in the beach and fell onto a sea urchin which left several quills in my left hand which feels like shards of glass – the pain is excruciating and then the panic not knowing if the quills are poisonous, crashed into a tree by my horse which again re-bashed my already repeatedly injured knee to the point the taxi driver didn’t want me in his cab to return me to the hotel bc of the blood running down my leg and that same night with my good knee almost walked right into a tarantula crawling on a half wall walkway to our casita (missed him by inches) and finally, the resort misplaced our airline tickets/itinerary leaving us no way to return home. It took over 45 min of panic, spanish cuss words, and all the eye rolling I could muster for them to locate our documents. But despite everything, it was a gorgeous location and a great vacation! :)

Just a comment

June 29th, 2009
1:57 pm

Veronica – I think the difference is the winner won because all of her things were unavoidable and believable and not exagerrated. In your case, “near misses” with bugs and ant bites and you own loss of balance many times, including loss of tickets might qualify you as clumsy and unorganized. Sounds like most of the things that happened to you were your own fault. I don’t think “5-star” places have the issues your hotel had. Nice story though.

Ripley

June 29th, 2009
2:13 pm

Interesting story – too bad because St Maarten is actually a lovely place to visit. Next time, go to the French side, take the ferry and visit Anguilla.

I had a similar experience: I was on a small cruise ship and went on deck at midnight to watch the ship sail when a handsome young Italian officer approached and started talking to me. All of a sudden I felt excruiating pain and burning in my right eye. I started screaming and running for the nearest ladies room (difficult enough to find on a ship with two good eyes!)desperate for a mirror to get the “thing” out of my eye. When I burst into the ladies room, there were a bunch of older ladies there and all were shocked to see a sobbing girl with a ship’s officer in hot pursuit run into ladies room! Imagine what they thought…….

Anyway, I could not even open the eye and was escorted to my cabin where my sister, who had already gone to bed, pried open my eye and took her fingernail and scraped a huge piece of tar from the inside of my upper lid. Apparently the hot tar blew into my eye when the smokestack was sounded.

The next morning I couldn’t open my eye and visited the ship’s doctor who proceeded to tell me that there was nothing in my eye but eyelashes, apparently prepared to deny injury in case of a law suit. I had a scratched cornea and had to wear dark glasses night and day and could not submerge my head at all(lot’s of fun in the Carribbean). So I ended my week without swimming, snorkeling, with a blood-red eye nearly swollen shut and becoming the talk of both the dowagers and the ship’s crew. Fun times.

Then there is the time I was robbed at machete point in Jamaica or the time we were witness to a serious head-on collision between tourists and locals in a remote and deserted road near West End on Grand Bahama Island. Fortunately I was not injured in Jamaica though I cannot recommend visiting jails in third world countries (or EVER visiting Jamaica). And fortunately the guy driving our car on Grand Bahama had a pocket knife and the forethought to cut out a seat belt and was able to make a tourniquet for the cab driver who had a damaged artery in his left leg. Almost forgot about the taptap buses in Haiti and Baby Doc’s minions who tried to rob my sister and I in Port Au Prince. I could go on and on – makes me wonder why I ever travel.

Veronica

June 29th, 2009
2:35 pm

Reply to “Just a comment” – I was just adding to the topic w my own TRUE experience much the same as the other stories – my vacation which was not exaggerated and not under the influence or unorganized but my own story with the bottom line that I still appreciated my trip as being great. I didn’t realize that my aunt dying or a sea urchin not visible from the water line or even a rowdy horse could be my fault but thanks for pointing it out. And I guess when the hotel requires one’s tickets to be left at the front desk until check-out and then they misplace them, gee – I can certainly see how that would also be my fault. I forgot there are so many people on the site that like to COMMENT on things they know nothing about. As we say in the south – bless your heart!!

Me-Me

June 30th, 2009
9:16 am

OMG! Poor couple i’m glad they won and i hope her eye is better..ENJOY YOUR GRAND PRIZE…bless your hearts…HAVE A GREAT DAY EVERYONE :)

gi gi

June 30th, 2009
10:24 am

I don’t think I’m going to any islands or cruises. I’ll stick to the mountians thank you very much. Poor thangs.

Blanca

July 2nd, 2009
6:44 pm

Does anybody remember when this used to be a newspaper?

Peter

August 10th, 2009
10:54 am

It’s a awesome article. If anybody wants to share their feelings then just visit
http://www.lastnightwas.com and post their feelings like me in this site.

Add your comment