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I think EA skimped on every location besides Twikki Island. They should've included winter activities, like skiing and snowboarding.

Make hotels functional on regular commlots. You can check in without making it the home base, and can use a private room with a bed.

I don't mind Three Lakes but I agree. TS1 had a snowy destination, why not TS2?!

In addition to winter sports which I totally agree with- lake swimming and ice skating on frozen lakes. Or ice fishing! Didn't Sims 1 have that?

Vacation hoods function more like uni hoods, where if other playables are in the vacation hood at the same time, you'd see them on community lots or even be able to invite them over or throw a party

Rental houses. Hotels can be so glitchy and it's such a pain for families and children, especially trying to get everyone fed. It's so much easier to send sims on vacation when there's a house with a kitchen, but not every sim family needs as permanent vacation home just to take 1-2 family trips. I end up having my sims buy vacation houses and sell them when they get back

Some sort of generic "sight-see" interaction on a lot where they can just wander around and get some mild fun points. They built these lots that look cool- like the ruins and the pagoda- and there's nothing special to do. The only reason to go to the ruins lots is to get the vacation memory from the fountain. At least your sims can do things on the pirate ship

Sailing/boating, and various water sports at beach lots. Always bugged me that we've got beaches and sea, but barely any ways to use them.

Also, why the decision to not let toddlers or babies be taken on vacations? More activities for those, too! (There has been several objects/mods as CC, but it would've been nice if it had been included in the EP).

Make it possible to live permanently in the vacation hood, and take travel in the opposite direction where those Sims can travel to main hood for vacation. There are always natives and locals who live in the spot, no matter how tourist-y.

I was probably in middle school before it really clicked in my brain that it wasn't normal to have grown up in a National Park lol!

Another thing that I believe came with Bon Voyage is walking to school / work / community lot. This really ought to have been in base game. Somebody correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe that in Real Life walking was invented before taxis were!

Since I don't have BV, my Sims have to order a taxi if they want to go to the community lot across the road. If Andrew wants to go to Veronaville Market to buy groceries, he has to go in a taxi, even though he can clearly see the Market from his front window. He can even walk across the road to it, but he can't get in when he gets there. A mysterious "force field"? seems to stop him walking any further.

Some years ago, before Andrew and Julian were married, when Julian still lived with his parents in the Via Veronaville, he was on an outing with Andrew. Julian was the playable, Andrew his companion. They were visiting a number of 1x1 lots (collectively known as Veronaville Mews) in the Via Commerciale. (They are Mootilda's "Moo's Mews" lots.) Even though the lots were tiny, and next door to each other, Julian kept ordering taxis to take them on to the next one. They had just eaten at Moo's Meals restaurant and Julian dutifully 'phoned to order a taxi to take them to Veronaville Mews Night Spot next door. The taxi arrived and Julian got in, but Andrew was deep in conversation with another Sim. Maybe he thought he didn't need the taxi, as it looked a longer walk to the taxi than it would be to walk to the nightclub next door. Anyway, it seems the taxi driver lost patience, and drove off without him. The last we saw of Andrew was him looking shocked on the pavement/sidewalk as the taxi drove away. So when Julian arrived at the "Night Spot" he was on his own, and a nightclub isn't much fun on your own, when you were looking forward to a romantic time with your boyfriend. At first Julian hoped that Andrew would manage to follow him there, but after a couple of hours he gave up, and ordered a taxi to take him home. Somewhere on the way home, they must have spotted Andrew and picked him up, because, when they arrived back at 100 Via Veronaville, Andrew was sitting next to Julian in the taxi.

. . . So "Walk to ..." should have been in base game, and not in BV. With walking in base game, taxis could have waited until Nightlife -- after all a taxi is a kind of car. Walking doesn't really belong in BV: Anyone who's done it, knows that walking to school feels totally different to jetting off to some exotic destination for a fortnight's holiday/vacation!

I believe walking to lot came with Apartment Life. What did come with Bon Voyage is Jewelry!

But I think this EP really missed the oportunity to include the option to change road types for the neighborhood in NH view. It should have come with at least 3 new types of roads: ground for montain, sand for beach and cobblestone for eastern.
They should have also had different background sounds for each location, you know maybe animal sounds like owl, bear, for montain; seagulls for the island; cicada for eastern, just to add to the immersion.
Different taxi design for each location would have been nice.

Walk to lot is apparently from Bon Voyage. Walk to work/school is from Apartment Life.

I would make the locations not hardcoded and more easily moddable. It's kind of limiting to have to pick between tropical, far-east, and mountain.

I made a custom vacation hood in the desert that's part Burning Man, part Palm Springs and used the tropical settings. It turned out well but I agree, I wish there was a generic option where the townie sims weren't all in themed outfits.

I'm not sure what I'd want, but for starters, different destinations and activities would be appreciated. You can only go to the three vacation hoods and do "learn local greeting" or "build a sandcastle" or "learn *location dance*" so many times before it gets boring and repetitive. Now I just ignore my Sims' wants to go on vacation because the stuff to do is so repetitive and stale. Plus I don't want all my Sims to "Chest Pound" greet everyone at home.

On the other hand....

(I think the most valid comment is from @gummilutt )

I like the vacation hoods.

When the grandparents take the grandkids to Three Lakes, they may have been there before - but the grandkids have not And they have time to go fishing, which they don't have at home.

Nothing prevents you from using more vacation hoods either - you can keep on adding them and build your own as well. I use all 3 the vanilla hoods, as well as the two @aelflaed made; and my own custom one, Clarens too.

I think the Far East offers quite a lot, and have used both Tai Chi and the Legend in many ways in my own hood. And I had this one sim who never learnd to bow properly in the Far East, running out to bow to any walkby - he was very outgoing. Eventually, he found one who taught him how to bow correctly, right there at his mailbox. I found it entertaining

And I like it when all the wedding guests join the bride and groom in doing the hula, even if it is sometimes in the kitchen to the radio.

More activities will be nice - no problem there. And there are mods for that?

Even without mods - I still always feel there should be a pool hall, a bar or 5, a sport lot (no golf player in RL goes on vacation to a place without golf) - a swimming pool when there is no sea and some dance halls. And that can all easily be added without ANY mods at all. You can even place down that golf course from @joandsarah77 which only requires an invisible recolor of the putter, but will work without it too if you don't want to do anything else.

I think the maxis hotels are far from perfect - but most of them do work. They may not be pretty, but they are functional. I have played them since BV came out, and I still do. Even though I can build hotels myself now.


In the end, for me, my sims get a break. The business owners especially need one once in a while, they work very hard and don't always have the time to join in the fun on community lots.

And some players should honestly work on their imagination.

https://modthesims.info/d/623994/bo...ation-spot.html
https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1986344
https://modthesims.info/d/681552/cl...ation-hood.html
https://modthesims.info/d/644947/bi...-mini-golf.html

Above all, more sports and outdoor or wellness activities.

I don't have a ton to add to this one that hasn't already been said, but I'll say my piece anyway.

I really miss the winter area from sims 1 vacations. Snowboarding was cool. It could have even been upgraded to have skiing. Other features I miss from the original are carnival games and volleyball even if I don't remember them very well. The fact is, we need more activities because I find that vacations tend to get stale way faster than other parts of the game.

It would be really good if you could have more types of vacations. I want Europe! It's really a shame they hard coded it this way because even then they would have known how much custom content people could make and how it helps keep the game fresh. It really sucks that with the way the townies work it's annoyingly hard to have multiple vacation destinations of the same type and on that note... why can the townies only be house guests, but you can bring the kids home as friends from school?

I agree with the above that other areas did not get as much attention as the beach, but I feel like the Twikkii island ruins were a missed opportunity. There isn't really anything to do there. I wish there was a rabbit hole on the lot that could result in some chance cards.

And finally, something people haven't said (or if they had I missed it): why do I have to clean my hotel bathroom? How come the maid only makes the bed? My sims are supposed to be relaxing not cleaning the toilet! Worse yet, I have to repair my own bathroom! What if my sims don't have the mechanical skills? Also I really wish some of the suites had showers. They're much faster.

What stops you from replacing the baths with showers?

Cleaning the bathroom is fine - it adds to the nature hobby, and goes well with fishing Look for the bright side, you know.

Most of my hoods are full of 4th and 5th and 6th generations. They can fix a bath - they learned those mechanical skills during their toddler years. That may be why it does not bother me.

In answer to your first question: laziness. Mostly laziness and procrastination, but also forgetting to do so because I often get annoyed by it and then forget to fix it when the vacation is over.

And while there are benefits to cleaning the bathroom, I still think its antithetical to what they were going for and it also just annoys me because the maid is literally right there. I also tend not to give my sims (non-knowledge sims) too many skill points because idk it just kind of bugs me. In the last month I've only given one toddler access to a skill building toy and that was the first time in YEARS just to see how it goes. I don't want my sims to have a ton before university so it isn't too boring and I just dislike the idea of everyone being a master of everything.

I do love your positive attitude though. This was just my take on if they re-released bon voyage.

The maid is problematic and probably made with errors. Gazania used to call her Freezy

(I have seldom seen my sims getting too many skills before Uni. Even those knowledge sims struggle to get all their skills maxed out, often only happens during their elder years. Without cheats and vanilla game, toddlers would probably only get 2 or 3cmax of charisma, logic, creativity and mechanical.)

Some of the creators here have built very cool hotels, though - you can always replace those in the vacation hoods too!

I love this game - there is always things to be positive about

Chris Hatch has a skiing mod. https://simfileshare.net/folder/88185/

I wish they had ported over the volleyball from Sims 1 too!

There are fixes for the shitty housekeeper and to make the bellhop repair things here. https://simfileshare.net/folder/87859/

Two lots that I have added to Clarens - a library and an art gallery

The Bibliophile in the real Clarens is actually a very popular second-hand bookshop, with tables for tea and coffee and you can browse all day long if you want to. I made it a library, being in a vacation hood. Lazy sims may prefer reading to skiing anyway

The town has 23 art galleries, so I made one Sims like to visit art galleries, no they can visit another one while on vacation.

It does not all have to be outdoors and sport (I like sport, by the way, but not all sims do).

We're imagining what Maxis should've added, since that's what this series of threads was meant to be about. I think it's nice to direct people to mods that can round things out a bit, but no mod is going to deliver the quality that the game devs had the ability to create (and there's no shade to CC creators here, but we're dealing with a substandard set of tools.

I have found the vacation destinations to be very, very problematic and buggy-I've had nothing but problems sending pixels out on vacation. Maybe it's something to do with the various mods I have (probably) but I don't enjoy vacations and find them tedious.

I wish it wasn't so, because it's a great concept, just badly planned.

The vacation hoods are buggy indeed - I know that well, having played the vanilla game for many years.

I still kept playing them, though I remember a sim getting stuck in bed when the family had to go home. Freezy blocked him from getting up.

Of course I was worried. But when I loaded the family in the main hood, there he was, safe and sound and very happy that he's been on vacation too. I actually gained some respect for the way the game can sometimes (not always, I know that too) fixes its own problems.