Two Winnipeg dads got together to take their kids out to the Manitoba Airshow in Portage la Prairie, Saturday morning.

Jason Oliver and his friend Chris McCaulder strapped the three kids in the car around 10 a.m.

Maxwell, 6, Victoria, 4, and Griffin, 3, were all smiles in the back of the car.

Oliver said he hadn’t been out that way for a while, so he was not prepared for what was ahead.

“The construction was absolutely unbelievable,” he said. “Just a complete gong show.”

They were stuck in single-lane traffic, along with what, he said, appeared to be dozens of other drivers.

Oliver said he and his friend were monitoring the Twitter scene to see what was happening. They were not the only ones expressing their frustration.

At around 1:30 p.m. the two decided to turn around after sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic along country roads and taking multiple detours.

Instead, the group decided to get food in Portage la Prairie where they ran into many other frustrated drivers who also made the decision to turn around.

“We bumped into a lot of people at the Tim Hortons, the Burger King trying to get to the air show and just gave up,” said Oliver.

Both families made the best of the day in Headingley at the Thunder Rapids Fun Park.

“It sounds like we made the right decision because we would have been waiting, probably still waiting,” said Oliver.

Nicole Ryan and her family left Steinbach around 9:30 a.m. She said after 3.5 hours, around 1 p.m., they made it to Oakville, still 20 kilometres away from the event.

Ryan said they were being encouraged by many other vehicles coming from the opposite direction to throw in the towel and turn around.

"We spent $50 on tickets and didn't even make it close to the gates. We spent a total of six hours in the vehicle, including the ride home," said Ryan. "We are extremely disappointed with the poor planning that went into this event. We are requesting a full refund from the MB Airshow."

Ryan said Sunday she understands roads were washed out and there were issues out of organizer’s control, but said that doesn’t excuse the lack of communication to hundreds if not thousands of people stuck in traffic.

“The communication was unacceptable for that many people,” she said. “There could have been something on the radio, social media. They could have made announcement so people knew and that was whole thing."

RCMP Manitoba tweeted of the delays earlier Saturday.