We’re always interested in hearing more from our travelers. And we love a good horror story! In honor of Halloween, we want you to tell us about the scariest trip experience you’ve ever had. Did you stay at a haunted hotel? Have a run-in with an over-sized rat? Get food poisoning after dinner at a hole-in-the-wall dive? Whatever the circumstances, we want you to share all of the gory details. Well, 140 characters of them, anyway. That’s right – pack as much of that terror as you can into one Tweet. TripAdvisor will rev up the fright-o-meter and select our top picks, then we’ll post them on our company blog and ask everyone to vote. Whichever Tweet receives the most votes will take the prize.
Come on….scare us – and your fellow travelers — silly!
Some of our most recent entries:
@momof2pa: #TripAdvisor sitting on our balcony watching my 14 yr old and her friend in the water next thing we saw was shark fins
@Vergingon40: #TripAdvisor Ants & roaches and overflowing toilets – ahoy! My trip to sunny Fl became a contest of man vs. nefarious insects & sewage!
@GDARCYRYAN: Sunrise walking safari in Kenya when our Masai guide says “oh no! We need to go, NOW!” pride of lions not where they thought. #TripAdvisor
How to Enter
Create a Tweet packed with as many details of your scary vacation experience as you can muster. Your submission will be judged on the fright-factor, and your ability to creatively include as much descriptive information as possible. Grammar is not a consideration. And while we welcome guts and gore, please avoid the use of explicit profanity. Mark your Tweet with the hashtag #TripAdvisor. This is critical so that we can find and consider your entry.
Submission Deadline
All Tweets that are issued from Wednesday, October 7, 2009 at 12:00 p.m. EST through Wednesday, October 21, 2009 at 11:59 p.m. EST.
Eligibility
You must follow @TripAdvisor on Twitter to be eligible for selection as a finalist. You do not need to be a member of a TripAdvisor site.
Determination of Winner
On October 22, 2009, when the submission process has been closed, TripAdvisor will select 10 finalists based on the discretion of their travel editors. The selected Tweets, and the identity of each author, will be posted on TripAdvisor’s company blog by October 23, 2009.
TripAdvisor will invite the public to review the finalists on the blog page and vote for their top choice for the scariest trip ever. The Tweet that receives the greatest number of votes will be selected as the winner. TripAdvisor will contact the author of the winning Tweet through Twitter. It will be the winner’s responsibility to furnish TripAdvisor with contact information, including a mailing address, so that the prize can be delivered.
Prize
The contest winner will receive a TripAdvisor-branded gear, including an iPod and deluxe travel kit, and a $200 Visa Gift Card. Total value of approximately $500.
For the full version of the official rules, please read below.
OFFICIAL RULES FOR THE “SCARIEST TRIP EVER” CONTEST
NO PURCHASE REQUIRED TO ENTER OR WIN
1. ELIGIBILITY: The “Scariest Trip Ever”Contest (the “Contest”) is open only to legal residents of the fifty (50) United States (including the District of Columbia), France, Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom who are at least eighteen (18) years of age or have reached the age of majority in their jurisdiction of residence, whichever is older. Employees of TripAdvisor and its related companies, as well as the immediate family (spouse, parents, siblings, and children) and household members of each such employee are not eligible. Participation constitutes your full and unconditional agreement to and acceptance of these Official Rules and the decisions of Sponsor, which are final and binding. Winning a prize is contingent upon fulfilling all requirements set forth herein.
2. SPONSOR: TripAdvisor LLC, 141 Needham Street, Newton, MA 02464.
3. ENTRY PERIOD: The Contest begins at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on October 7, 2009 and ends at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on October 21, 2009. Entries that are submitted before or after the Entry Period will be disqualified
4. HOW TO ENTER: To enter, create a Tweet containing as many details of your scary trip experience as possible. Mark your Tweet with the hashtag #TripAdvisor. This is critical so that we can find and consider your entry. You must follow @tripadvisor on Twitter to be eligible for selection as a finalist. You do not need to be a member of a TripAdvisor site. Limit: five (5) entries per person.
5. ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS: Your entries must not: (a) violate any third party rights, including, but not limited to, copyrights and trademark rights; (b) contain defamatory statements; (c) include threats to any person, place, business, or group; (d) invade privacy rights or any other rights of any person, business, or group; (e) be obscene or indecent; (f) depict any risky behavior, as determined by Sponsor in its sole discretion; (g) depict or refer to any competitor of Sponsor; (h) contain any third party trademarks or logos; (i) contain any copyrighted elements other than elements owned by you; or (j) use any celebrities, celebrity look-a-likes, or celebrity sound-a-likes. Your entry must not have been entered in any other contest or exhibition and may not have been published or distributed in any other media. Sponsor reserves the right to refuse to accept or post any entry for any reason.
6. ENTRANT’S WARRANTIES AND REPRESENTATIONS: By submitting an entry, you warrant and represent that: (a) you own all rights to the entry and any content contained therein; (b) to the extent the entry depicts any individual or features the voice of any individual, you are the individual pictured and heard in the submission, or, alternatively, that you have obtained permission from each person appearing in the entry to submit the entry to Sponsor grant the rights to the Sponsor described in the “Sponsor’s Rights to Entries” section below, and can make written copies of such permissions available to Sponsor upon request; and (c) the entry complies with all requirements of these Official Rules.
7. SPONSOR’S RIGHTS TO ENTRIES: BY PARTICIPating, you: (a) irrevocably grant Sponsor, its agents, licensees, and assigns the unconditional and perpetual (non-exclusive) right and permission to copyright, reproduce, encode, store, copy, transmit, publish, post, broadcast, display, publicly perform, adapt, modify, create derivative works of, exhibit, and otherwise use your entry as-is or as-edited (with or without using your name) in any media throughout the world for any purpose, without limitation, and without additional review, compensation, or approval from you or any other party; (b) forever waive any rights of copyrights, trademark rights, privacy rights, and any other legal or moral righTS THAT MAY PRECLUDE SPONSOR’s use of your entry, or require any further permission for Sponsor to use the entry; and (c) agree not to instigate, support, maintain, or authorize any action, claim, or lawsuit against the Sponsor on the grounds that any use of the entry, or any derivative works, infringes any of your rights as creator of the entry, including, without limitation, copyrights, trademark rights, and moral rights.
8. JUDGING AND VOTING: Entries will be reviewed by an internal panel assembled by Sponsor. The panel will identify 10 semi-finalists from those entries based on the following Judging Criteria: scare factor (50%) and creativity with use of the 140-character Twitter format (50%) In the event of a tie, the entry with the higher score for originality will be selected. The semi-finalists will be identified on or about October 22, 2009, after which members of the public will be invited to vote for their favorite entry, using the criteria above. Public voting will end at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on October 29, 2009. There is a limit of one (1) vote per person.
9. PRIZES: The entrant whose entry received the most votes from members of the public will be awarded a grand prize of TripAdvisor-branded gifts, including an iPod and deluxe travel kit, and a Visa gift card valued at $200. If there is a tie, the winner will be selected by Sponsor, according to the criteria set forth above. Entrants are responsible for taxes and any other costs not specified above. Winner will be required to provide a Social Security number for tax reporting purposes.
10. REQUIREMENTS OF WINNER: Except where prohibited, winner will be required to sign and return an affidavit of eligibility, a liability/publicity release. In addition, each finalist must sign a release in which the finalist irrevocably assigns and transfers to Sponsor any and all rights, title and interest in his/her entry, including, without limitation, all copyrights and trademark rights, and waives all moral rights in the entry. Documents must be signed, notarized, and returned to the Sponsor within ten (10) days of being notified. If a semi-finalist fails to sign and return the required documents within the required time period or is otherwise ineligible to receive the prize, he/she will forfeit the prize.
11. GENERAL CONDITIONS: In the event that the operation, security, or administration of the Contest is impaired in any way for any reason, including, but not limited to, technical errors, tampering with the voting process, or fraud, Sponsor may, in its sole discretion, either (a) suspend the Contest to address the impairment and then resume the Contest in a manner that best conforms to the spirit of these Official Rules or (b) award the prizes according to the Judging Criteria (without reference to the public votes) from among the eligible entries received up to the time of the impairment. Sponsor reserves the right in its sole discretion to disqualify any individual it finds to be tampering with the Contest or to be acting in violation of these Official Rules. Any attempt by any person to undermine the legitimate operation of the Contest may be a violation of criminal and civil law, and, should such an attempt be made, Sponsor reserves the right to seek damages from any such person to the fullest extent permitted by law. Failure by Sponsor to enforce any provision of these Official Rules shall not constitute a waiver of that provision. The Contest is subject to federal, state, and local laws and regulations and is void where prohibited. In the event of a dispute as to the owner of an entry, the authorized account holder of the e-mail address used to enter will be deemed to be the entrant. The “authorized account holder” is the natural person who is assigned to an e-mail address by an Internet access provider, online service provider, or other organization responsible for assigning e-mail addresses for the domain associated with the submitted e-mail address. If any provision of these Official Rules is held to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be struck, and the remaining provisions shall be enforced.
12. RELEASE AND LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY: By participating in the Contest, entrants agree to release and hold harmless Sponsor, its respective officers, directors, employees, and agents (the “Released Parties”) from and against any claim or cause of action arising out of participation in the Contest or receipt or use of any prize, including, but not limited to: (a) claims that the entry violates any third party’s copyrights, trademark rights, publicity rights, or moral rights; (b) any technical errors that may prevent an entrant from submitting an entry; (c) unauthorized human intervention in the Contest; (d) printing errors; (e) lost, late, postage-due, misdirected, or undeliverable mail; (f) errors in the administration of the Contest or the processing of entries; or (g) injury, death, or damage to persons or property which may be caused, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, from entrant’s participation in the Contest or receipt of any prize. Entrant further agrees that in any cause of action, the Released Parties’ liability will be limited to the cost of entering and participating in the Contest, and in no event shall the Released Parties be liable for attorney’s fees. Entrant waives the right to claim any damages whatsoever, including, but not limited to, punitive, consequential, direct, or indirect damages.
13. DISPUTES: Except where prohibited, entrant agrees that any and all disputes, claims and causes of action arising out of, or connected with, the Contest or any prize awarded shall be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action, and exclusively by the appropriate court located in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. All issues and questions concerning the construction, validity, interpretation and enforceability of these Official Rules, entrant’s rights and obligations, or the rights and obligations of Sponsor in connection with the Contest, shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of Massachusetts, without giving effect to any choice of law or conflict of law rules (whether of Massachusetts or any other jurisdiction), which would cause the application of the laws of any jurisdiction other than Massachusetts.
14. CONTEST RESULTS: Results will be posted on the official TripAdvisor blog.
27 Comments
What’s wrong with Canadian residents?
Boooo. Why not legal in Canada?
This makes us very sad as well. Unfortunately, Canada has some tricky regulations around contests like this that we’re unable to accommodate. We hope to work something out for future promotions.
Me and my boys were staying a a 4 star hotel we had just got off the plane and we were exhausted. We had dinner in our room and proceeded to take showers and. Next thing I know I hear a scream from my sons connecting suite we ran into the room and I see him standing by the window screaming and pointing. I didnt see anything than I turned and looked in the corner and there stood the biggest rat I had ever seen. He was the size of a large cat. He moved to run and I beat him to it. I was out the door and down the stairs when I realized I had left the children and I didn’t have on any clothes except underwear. The worst part is my husband taped the whole thing.
That is sooo funny… eventhough the huge rat shouldn’t be funny… jajaja
do you youtube?? haha
The scariest place I ever stayed was the devoncourt hotel in Glasgow –OMG it was scary and it wasnt even halloween
We were taking the shuttle bus from the airport to the hotel in Florida when all of a sudden a loud bang like we hit something. It was a part that fell off from underneath the bus, which the driver held proudly for everyone on the right side of the bus to see…of course we laughed as he was, too, that the noise we all heard was just that…but having to wait for our second bus to arrive after a long flight was not so funny…:(
I know how to send emails, but how do I tweet and is it done from a computer or a cell phone?
i can fly an airplane but don’t know how to tweeter either. Thanks for your honesty and hopefully you’ll share the answer and allow me and many others to save ‘face’
Peter
I am not sure how to enter this contest???? What does it mean Mark your Tweet with the hashtag #TripAdvisor. ???
Twitter is a site that lets you share your thoughts with the world in 140 characters or less. Go to Twitter.com to sign up and start sharing. You can also ‘follow’ all sorts of people – your family, friends, celebrities – to hear what they have to say.
You can see TripAdvisor’s Twitter page by going here:
http://www.twitter.com/TripAdvisor
We hope you participate! We’d love to hear all about your scary trips, and so would all our followers on Twitter.
Two scary parts of same trip. $500 + prepaid motels took me from WI to Portland, OR, and back. On a side trip to Bend OR on the way back on Sunday night I stupidly didn’t gas up before going over the mountains to I-5. And all I had were traveler’s checks left. Got to Crater Lake just after the gas station closed, and we spent several hours coasting down and praying our way up the mountains. No open stations all the way to I5! I practically kissed the gas pumps when we finally found an open gas station when the car was on fumes.
I didn’t learn, and left Portland with 2 teens and $90.00 left for gas ($1.25 a gal. then) and food all the way to Milwaukee WI, 2,000 mi., motels prepaid, thank goodness. After a day of eating celery and cream cheese, celery and peanut butter, cream cheese and peanut butter, we finally had to call DH to come get us half way across WI because we ran out of gas.
OK, I joined twitter, but still don’t know how to tweet. What’s a hashtag?
I shutter as I recollect what truly happened to me at a hotel in Pennsylvania. Being a young woman, traveling alone can be scary enough, but after what happened to me that night I have NEVER forgotten and to this day refuse to stay in a hotel alone. After settling into bed for the evening, I started to drift off to sleep only to be awoken by my own screams as I clearly and I mean clearly (my skin quivers as I write this) saw a large dark siloutte standing over me. I screamed to get away, leave me alone, and it didn’t move. After what seemed like an unfathomable amount of time, something gave me the courage to get up and turn the light on only to find I was completely alone. I didn’t know if someone had broken into my room or what had happened, but through all my screams no one came to check on me and as I reluctantly looked around my hotel room, to realize I was the only being there. To this day, that was one of the scariest unforgetable moments of my life!
We were in Eureka Spr., Ark. for the Jesus pagent, could not find a hotel rm., were told to go to boys school, car in front got last rm. On way back to town, saw an old place with sign “ROOMS,”
we got a rm – key was a skelton key – for a rm in the basement level of the house. After the pagent, we returned to rm.,I looked in drawer of dresser, was lined with newspapers that were several years old, as was the trash can. My husband went to sleep. I was wide awake, I woke him up, asked why were we the only guest? This place was not recommended to us, no one in the world knew where we were, they could kill us and throw us in the kudzu, down the hill behind the house, etc. We got up and moved a piece of furniture in front of the door, I went to sleep, my husband stayed awake. The next time we were in Eureka Sps., we went to see the place where we had stayed, and were unable to locate it. All elements of this story are true.
Forced to land in Mexicali in the middle of the night, with drunken frat boys throwing cockroaches and furniture. Made it to Puerto Vallarta at 5 am and slept a few hours. The taxi to the airport broke down and I missed my flight. Finally arrived in Mexico City to an onslaught of cameras; I was on the same flight as a serial killer.
Being in Paradise island in the Bahama’s during a hurricane and watching the wind blow all the palm trees down to the ground!!
scariet trip ever
Coming through the Grand Canyon was so scary because the Canyon’s were so steep one false move and you go over the side. We took so many pictures because it was really scary. It’s so hard to believe the large craters that were left by monster asteroids.
Help! I am brand new to Twitter and don’t know what I am doing, but I have a story to submit.
Are TWEETS just the “what are you doing now” comments a person posts? And I do not know what a hashtag is and how to add one.
This provides a good explaination:
http://help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/49309
We were returning from Tampa, Fl from a wedding. We had received many bromeliads and orchids from the groom so we decided to travel home at night. The back of our pick-up as well as the inside cab were jammed with plants. We were carrying a gun in the car. We were traveling south on Krome Ave when we realized that police cars were everywhere. They pulled us over and approached our vehicle form both sides. First question was are you carrying any weapons. When we answered yes, we were told to put our hands on the dash. (This task was difficult for me) I quickly tried to explain that I had a license to carry the weapon to no avail. Each time I spoke I moved my hands from the dash. Each time I moved my hands I was reminded to keep them on the dash by the officer. Finally my husband told me to stop talking and only then could leave my hands where they needed to be. (I’m Italian and talk with my hands)
We explained what we were doing — and eventually were let go. The reason for the stop was it was still curfew in Miami after Hurricane Andrew and we weren’t aware it was still in force. (it was a good while after the hurricane)
It was scary to say the least, as long as I didn’t speak
sign me up for this great prize
I entered a tweet
Mexico, Montezuma’s Revenge after drinking the water, no toilet paper…does it get any scarier than that?
Backpacking in Chile, The truck driver was falling asleep while driving, (several times during the whole night!) And he was denying to pull over! =(