I miss this one too! I loved it in TS1... especially that one game where you had to hit the Will Wright' heads :smash:

BTW, I bought my copy of the game last saturday after some hesitation, since I loved the Vacation EP in TS1 (I really never understood why nobody likes that one! It was my fave, along with Pets. I guess that's probably because I love vacationing.. or at least I hate to work ).
Yesterday I finally had the time to play with it and I sent the Travellers to Twikkii Island (pretty clichè, uh?).

I have to say, this EP is overall a good one.

I love the fact that vacation have a time limit - at first I thought it was a boo boo, but then I loved it since it adds more realism to the game. When I was a kid I remember how thrilled I was in the very first days of the vacation and how melancholic I was in the very last day before coming back home!!

I also like the beaches, the sea, the pirate ship, and the whole Twikkii Island ambience. I haven't visited the other destinations yet.

I don't like the Maxis-made hotels so I used a PlasticBox' Backdoor Lane hotel . I gotta say that luckily the other guests are not unpleasant in my game like someone mentioned. I had the young Traveler kid befriend with the girl of the next room.. how sweet!!

As for the things I don't like.. well, as always it seems like Maxis/EA leave things unfinished .

The two things I hate the most are,

1) You can't bring tots on vacation. I mean, why?! I really hoped they could fix this, I never really understood why you can't bring toddlers and babies on community lots. The would have just needed to add a "stroller" object/interaction and some crib in hotel rooms.
Seriously, I think that one of the cutest thing ever is seeing tots playing in the sand. And you can't bring sim toddlers on vacation! Argh!

2) Teens can't wear facial piercing. As I said above, WHY? Was it so difficult to make piercings avaible for teens too? Cos, in real life, *teens* want piercing! I bet that the 99% of the 15-25 yrs old people on this forum as begged at least once their parents to get a body/face piercing . I did it too! And now that I'm older (dare I say adult? WAA!) I'm not this interested in having my face perforated.
And this really bugs me 'cause the jewelry option was one of the most interesting to me. I loved that in Season you could decide the hairstyle depending on the dress, and I couldn't wait to be able to do that with accessories too!

I also don't like the ...new thing that opens up when you click on the BV icon. You know, the one that reminds you wich EP's you own. It is annoying since it's pretty useless.

As for the bugs; I haven't had any major bug so far (even though I played just for an hour) and I'm running my game almost hack free (I left only the "nowhatsthis", the SEP, the vampire-no-blue-no-red-eyes, and Quaxi' censor patch since I thought none of this should conflict with the new EP).

The only "bug" I noticed so far is the same everyone elses noticed, aka sim kids can't eat in hotel restaurants. But I fixed this by making the mother ask her daughter for an outing (so that her daughter is marked with the blue plumbob).

I also have small problem with wardrobe; not exactly a bug, they work, but every time I click on them the game freezes for an instant. I never had this before so I dunno. This is not an hack problem, since I've experienced this since from the very first time a ran the game, with no hacks at all in my download folder.

That's it. My two cents :einstein

When my sims went to Bigfoots house on my first vacation, A little friend from Seasons popped up!



Hes on the right, he just had to come at night >.>

I don't own the game yet! But today I will. I have watched all pics and trailers I have found. And I am excited! Just hope my laptop can take one more sims game :D

The only thing I've done is send a family to an expensive hotel on the Great Lakes, and I LOVE that the hotel rooms are called suites.

I'm picturing a hotel ship... :p

While I am part of the 1% of that group who hasn't begged for a facial piercing (), I'm also surprised by the lack of them for teens. I mean, hello, when you say 'piercings' the first thing that comes to my mind IS teens and young adults (and my old roommate :smash: ). Just gonna have to download some I guess ^^;

On a sidenote, I've started modifying some of the maxi hotels so they have elevators while I try to inspire myself to build my own or when people start uploading some (whichever comes first :P)

*edit*Speak of the devil, I go to MTS and search and low and behold - hotels! wee

The piercings are great!! I absoulutely love them! They give my sim men ruggedness without cc! great!

I haven't noticed any bugs yet after a couple of days of play



Which hotel did you put an elevator in and how did you do it? I.E what did you move in the hotel so you could place it. I have yet to get an elevator to work right on any lot. Of course I'm a lousy builder which is why I do a lot of lot downloading :blah:

What 's up with the new Sims Launcher McThingy? I mean, it's kindas cool...even though it reminds me I'm short two stuff packs, and if I'm currently online it suggests I download a Ford Focus...

I actually find that really annoying, especially when i go to load the game then go off and do something while it's loading only to come back and find that screen is up and i forgot to click on it...i wonder if there's a way to turn it off

I may have missed something but i don't like that you can't swim in a beach on a lot you build, like a holiday home
also, i didn't know about seaweed rash...how do you get that?

Ps: I've never figured out how to place elevators

Hmmm - I wonder if that's not exactly what they had in mind - hitting you over the head with the fact that you're missing stuff in the hopes that you'll suddenly feel compelled to buy it

I'm not keen on the Secure softeware the EP installs either.

I've not run into any bugs I'm willing to attribute to the EP itself yet. The graphic glitches I've experienced are due to the fact my card is suffering overheating problems and is goint to be returned to the manufacturer under warrantee, but I'm waiting for the temporary 'el cheapo' card I ordered to turn up so I'm not graphicless in the meantime.

I do think loading time has grown massively, both to start the game and to change lots - and I'm not running some crummy old machine what with a E6600 and 2GB memory and a 7900GT (when it working properly - who knows, maybe EVGA will upgrade me) all in a machine I built myself a year ago. I do however have everything installed. Maybe I need a new clean instal after all...

Rofl, You guys are saying the load times have grown with your über PCs...

I have a Athlon XP 2600+ 1Gb Ram, a nVidia GeForce 6800GS and I get less loading, and only some lag on the startup screen (Where you select neighborhoods)

To change the "Sims launcher" thing, Right Click the shortcut, and click on Properties, In the "Target" Box, You'll see "X:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Bon Voyage\TSBin\Sims2Launcher.exe" (X being the drive its installed in)

Change this to
"X:\Program Files\EA GAMES\The Sims 2 Bon Voyage\TSBin\Sims2EP6.exe" (Change everything except the "The Sims 2 Bon Voyage\TSBin\Sims2EP6.exe" bit to suit where you have Sims installed)

Also, the " " Are actually needed in this case :p

I just love it! and I haven't noticed more lag on my old half-dead computer. But I hate the fact that it uninstalled seasons Oo. Now I'm too lazy to put it back. I think I'll just wait till I get the upgrade, I hate the black snow I have during winter.. and ooh the lag and loading time *sighs*

Only tried the beach vacation, now I'm gonna try the rest.

I started building a hotel last night. It's based on a multiplex home plan so basically it's going to be like 4 houses jammed together. It's looking ok so far. I also built a beach house. I need to upload it at some point. I know i'm slacking.

Overall, I'm very pleased with this pack. The quality seems good and there only seem to be a few minor bugs (that I've come across so far).

The Good

• The new food stands are awesome. They look good, the food is filling and they work really well.
• Jewelery that doesn't turn blue all the time.
• The vacation rewards give you a real reason to want to go on vacation.
• Neat little details like starfish on the beach and you Sims carrying suitcases when arriving and leaving.
• The addition of saunas and massage tables. It's too bad they didn't add the mud baths. Those items are the only thing I really liked about the Superstar pack and I'm glad to have some of them back.
• The vacation memento memories are great. I can't wait to get my first Sim to collect all 45. Gives me another reason to actually want to go through the hassle of going on vacation (loading times).

The Bad

• The way guests are handled is awful. Especially since the first time I took guests, I forgot that I had the "control Pets" cheat on. Terrible, terrible programming. It's fine for a few hours on a community lot, but not for 3 days. Easily the worst thing about the whole pack!
• The "take my picture" obsession.
• Despite having custom face templates/no townie regeneration hack, the game has filled my vacation neighbourhoods with hideous, ugly townies! I can't wait for a clean template. Although, it will still take me forever to kill/fix all those townies.
• The souvenirs are small and ugly (don't have the ones from the Far East yet). I would have liked something that Sims could display at home.
• The music playing at the pre-built lots does not match the atmosphere. I have Sims doing the hula to pop music and Sims doing the slap dance to slasa music.

The Not So Ugly (aka the OK)

• Most of the new clothes are pretty good and actually useful.
• It's good that you can modify the decor of a hotel etc. and it will stay that way. It's bad that you have to change the lot zoning just to enlarge a bathroom by two tiles. I guess they cancel each other out.
• The pre-built lots are decent and function well. They were still decorated by an extremely stoned, blind monkey.
• Most of the new furniture actually matches but you can't mix and match the fabric with the wood tone. Why Maxis, why?
• The wants are a bit fubared. Some of my Sims keep rolling wants for making friends with people in their own hood when they are on a vacation lot. Others roll wants for fishing on lots that have no fishing. Other Sims wants are exactly what you would expect and seem to work fine.
• The game itself takes longer to load and has some lag, but the community lots/subhoods are loading much faster than they used to.

I started getting some fairly significant lag after a few days of playing BV, but a defrag has worked amazing, amazing wonders. I haven't had even a slight hiccup of lag since cleaning up.

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones, I've got load times down to less than 2.5 minutes. Pretty sure I can't complain about that. (Of course, when building this computer, one of my main considerations was how well it would be able to handle the Sims today and in the future).

My Sims learned to Hula to the Simlish version of "don'tcha"

Hilarious...

Also, for anyone who hasn't tried it, the lot in the beach destination where there is that big fountain thing...totally put soap in it...HILARIOUS!

On one of the videos a toddler was shown playing in the sand. I was really looking forward to this and one of the main reasons i bought was to get more interactions with toddlers. -They're so cute but their interactions are ssooo limited. Maybe someone knows something i don't about bringing toddlers along to vacations? :confused: please? also i was looking forward to the tours and you don't even get to see a video.

Yer BV rocks but i had to change graphics lower and resolution to 800x600 to reduce heavy lag on vacation lots, but it don't bother me i still love this EP.

I think that might have been a toddler playing on a home lot that was using the new beach lot.

I redid the 4 and 2 star hotels in twikii so far, as well as the 3 star in the hotel bin. I just moved the steps and little things like lights and trashcans to put them in, nothin fancy ^^;

1 Star, bottom floor: http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/...reafter1sr5.jpg

1 Star, top floor: http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/...reafter2id7.jpg

4 Star, All: http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/...rstairs1us6.jpg

I laughed and laughed when I read this, as I too dream of sims... :howdy:

Regarding the maps, does anybody know what to do with the Dreggs "bleepin" treasure map :gonemad: It is driving me nuts!! :banghead: I've found the secret spots for the other three but cannot figure out this one :slow:

http://forums.sims2community.com/sh...735&postcount=5

(For those who don't want to look, "It's just a collectible item")

:jig: thank you for saving my sanity :loco: but too bad it's just collectible, I've been digging "holes" all over the island...... now I'm thinking of doing a lot based on the movie of the same name, at least all that digging could be put to good use :idea:

I liked the "Take my picture" function which I tried out this morning. They get wants for that?

I forgot something that I really would like to see changed - glasses. C'mon, loads new sunglasses (great, BTW, I like some of them) but every Sim in the universe has to use the same what? 4 frames? How hard would it have been to take some of those sunglasses and just given them clear lenses too?