ladysprite: (tangy)
ladysprite ([personal profile] ladysprite) wrote2009-08-02 09:37 pm

In Other News, Annoying People Are Annoying

I am grumpy as hell right now, and I need to vent.



This weekend, my better half and I had made plans to go away for two days of whitewater rafting and kayaking. We've spent vacations at this particular venue before, and love them. They have really good packages - camp on their site, use their tents or cabins, they feed you, transport you, and send you out to play on the water. I've loved every minute I've spent with them, and I was looking forward to this weekend like you'd never believe. We've had to cancel so many vacation plans this year - our New Year's trip was put on hold when my great-aunt went into the hospital, plans for Pennsic and Gen Con had to be canceled when [livejournal.com profile] umbran lost his job, and it's looking like travel for Christmas is unlikely to happen, since he's still unemployed. So this was the one vacation we could afford this year, and I was okay with that.

We got to the campsite late Friday night, bedded down in the cabin tent they had set aside for us, and crashed out. And Saturday was nothing short of perfect, at first. All of the rain earlier this season had flooded the lakes and rivers, leading to the highest, hardest rapids I've ever seen. The sun was shining, the water was cold and the air was hot, and being stuck on a raft full of Boy Scouts and extra guides was, while surreal, not as bad as I had feared it would be.

We got back to camp around 4pm and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening enjoying the sun, reading, chatting with the camp staff, and generally relaxing, until we decided to crash around 10pm - we had an early day the next day, with plans to spend Sunday kayaking on the rapids. The people next to us on the campsite were having a pretty loud party, but the camp had a clearly posted sign stating that 11pm-8am were Quiet Hours. So we didn't worry too much.

A little after 11pm, though, when their party hadn't even started to calm down, my better half went out to speak to our neighbors. Now, I have nothing against fun. Or parties, or drinking, or anything like that. This wasn't a bunch of people sitting around and talking, though. They were screaming. Incoherent, wordless shrieks at the top of their lungs. Also shouting, loud enough that I could hear them through ear plugs. And throwing things, breaking glass, and generally making more noise than I would have thought possible without amplifiers.

When he stepped out to ask them to keep it down, they more or less laughed at him. Things got quiet for about 5 minutes... then they decided to set up a game of Beer Pong. Around midnight I left the tent and asked them to keep it down, hoping that maybe pleading would work where logic hadn't. I was told that they'd stop.... in an hour or two. Around 1:30am I tried again, and was cursed at and told that they were too drunk to be able to control their volume level. I started wandering around the camp at that point, with vague and exhausted hopes of finding a staff member to intervene, but there weren't any onsite that I could find.

I'm not quite sure when they stopped. I do know that at 3am they were still shouting, and someone found a way to blast music. By 8am this morning, when the breakfast bell rang, I had gotten perhaps 3 or 4 hours of sleep at the most. I was so tired and headachey that I could barely muster the coordination to eat my scrambled eggs, let alone pilot a kayak down class 3-4 rapids, not to mention the fact that I get cold easily under the best circumstances. Going out on the water while that tired would have frozen me. We wound up having to cancel today's trip purely because of those selfish, rude, toxic asses.

(If nothing else, the other end of the campsite was completely open. If they had just moved down there, everything would have been fine.)

I have no idea whether the camp will refund us for the trip we couldn't take, or give us a credit towards another trip. Their policy is no refunds, but... they weren't there to enforce their own rules.

And to add insult to injury, the same Cro magnons who kept us awake all night started torturing the tame ducks on site the next morning. Literally. Putting down little trails of bread crumbs leading to hung over frat boys who grabbed and caught them and started shaking and squeezing, until husband and I called them out on it. Seriously, what kind of petty, evil, shmuck tortures ducks?

So. My only vacation this year, ruined, because of a bunch of screaming frat boys. I am so not happy right now.

[identity profile] janetmiles.livejournal.com 2009-08-03 02:15 am (UTC)(link)
That's disgusting behavior, and I think a formal complaint to the management is in order.

[identity profile] duane-kc.livejournal.com 2009-08-03 02:25 am (UTC)(link)
This is disgusting. File a formal complaint, and include a pointed request to find out where the staff who *should* have been keeping this idiocy under control were to be found.

[identity profile] starcat-jewel.livejournal.com 2009-08-03 08:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Thirded. There was no excuse for you being subjected to that, or for the drunken fratboys not being thrown out on their asses in the middle of the night.

[identity profile] bluepony0628.livejournal.com 2009-08-03 02:30 am (UTC)(link)
I agree, do file a complaint, asap. I am so sorry your vacation ended so poorly. :(

[identity profile] calygrey.livejournal.com 2009-08-03 02:40 am (UTC)(link)
We had a campsite stay like that when younger son was a baby. They kept waking him up they were so loud, and finally the baby screamed for hours and hours and hours. Axel Sr. went over at 2AM and threatened them with real violence if they didn't turn down their very loud music.

The baby continued to scream. The jerks were embarrassed enough to not be able to look our way the next morning.

I don't understand why campsites won't enforce their rules. We never did say anything to the campsite: I wouldn't be nearly as nice now.

And harass the ducks - yeah, I'd get mad too. Call the cops even. That's not acceptable.

[identity profile] leanne-opaskar.livejournal.com 2009-08-03 02:58 am (UTC)(link)
That's awful. /: I hope they refund your stay. And I am *really* angry at the people abusing the ducks ... I am not sure I could have even stayed calm at that moment. That's *horrible*.

[identity profile] pagawne.livejournal.com 2009-08-03 03:18 am (UTC)(link)
Absolutely complain to the management about all of it, including the torturing of the poor ducks (Gee, I wish it had been geese and then they could find out if you can set a human broken arm, with no anesthesia)

[identity profile] vettecat.livejournal.com 2009-08-03 03:37 am (UTC)(link)
That's awful! I'm so sorry you had to go through that. I hope you can get some satisfaction from the management.

[identity profile] arachne8x.livejournal.com 2009-08-03 11:33 am (UTC)(link)
Whoa.... *hugs* That really is awful.

[identity profile] flaviarassen.livejournal.com 2009-08-03 11:52 am (UTC)(link)
A shame you didn't take pictures: law enforcement
also rather frowns on those sorts of thing.

[identity profile] dornbeast.livejournal.com 2009-08-03 05:05 pm (UTC)(link)
I agree with the suggestions of complaining to management. You might also want to ask if there's a blacklist at this place. If I had my choice, I wouldn't let these mrglfrbltz have another chance to rent a place, annoy everybody within earshot for the whole night, and torture ducks. No amount of money is worth that.

There are plenty of places to party and get drunk, some of which have no other use. They can damn well go to one of those places.

[identity profile] evcelt.livejournal.com 2009-08-03 06:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I think a complaint is in order. That sucks.

::hugs::

[identity profile] truthspeaker.livejournal.com 2009-08-04 09:01 pm (UTC)(link)
"loud enough that I could hear them through ear plugs."

If it's too loud even with ear plugs, that's definitely way too loud. I don't get why they would want to strangle ducks either. I just don't get it.

That sucks. :-(