"Welcome to paradise!"
"If we can't go to Jamaica, then we'll bring Jamaica here."
— Aunt Zelda, Sabrina the Teenage Witch
Uh-oh! Something unforeseen canceled your vacation before you could leave town! Fortunately, with some creativity and ingenuity, your family and friends can ensure that you still fulfill your plans for rest and relaxation. This usually involves the others recreating your desired destination from materials at hand, and waiting on you hand and foot.
Take caution if your original plans ran for more than one day. Your family and friends could become tired of serving you for that long, or you might suffer from having too much of a good thing. In the former case, your gratitude towards your hosts could motivate you to reciprocate their generous hospitality.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: JoJolion: In Chapter 18, because Hato ended up scheduling the wrong flight, the Higashikata Family ends up missing their vacation to Hawaii. To make up for this, they decide to have breakfast while all dressed in swimsuits, except for Joshu, who isn't wearing a swimsuit because he doesn't believe in God.
Film — Live-Action
- In It's a Wonderful Life, after George must give up his honeymoon budget to keep the Building and Loan afloat, he and Mary share a honeymoon in the old Granville House, which Bert and Ernie decorate with exotic posters and music.
Live-Action TV
- In one episode of 227, a harsh snowstorm knocks out heat to almost every apartment and ruins Mary and Lester's vacation plans to Hawaii. As their apartment is the only one with working heat, the residents of the titular apartment building work together to give them an indoor vacation, complete with games, dancing and food, after having butted heads all throughout the storm.
- iCarly: In "iPsycho", Gibby finds out he's now too old to go summer camp, which disappoints him since he looked forward to it every year. In an effort to cheer him up, Spencer invites him to "Camp Spencer" in his apartment, with the two of them setting up a tent and roasting marshmallows in the living room.
- The Nanny: In "Schlepped Away," the Sheffields, Fran, Niles, and C.C. are planning a trip to Bermuda, but when Fran stops in Queens to say goodbye to her parents, a blizzard traps them all in the small apartment. At first, everyone's miserable, but by the end of the week they've actually begun to enjoy themselves and start having fun.
- The Sabrina the Teenage Witch Season 4 Christmas Episode, "Sabrina Nipping At Your Nose," ends with a blizzard cancelling her family's flight to Jamaica, so Aunt Zelda conjures up a tropical festival inside their own house.
Video Games
- Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures: In the second episode "The Last Resort", Wallace and Gromit's planned vacation to Blackpool gets rained out, so Wallace tries to turn their flooded basement into an indoor beach. Wallace is then inspired to transform their house into an indoor beach resort for the rest of the community to have fun at.
Web Video
- In Sam & Mickey's "Quarantine," COVID-19 shutdowns cancel Chelsea's Walt Disney World vacation, so her family attempts to recreate various WDW attractions inside the Dreamhouse and backyard.
Western Animation
- In the Arthur episode aptly-titled "Staycation," Arthur's parents are excited about going on a vacation, but it turns out that Grandma Thora won't be home in time to watch Arthur and D.W., so they are forced to cancel. To help them feel better, Arthur and D.W. give them a staycation in the backyard while they do tasks around the house.
- Betty Boop: In Grampy's Indoor Outing, a rainstorm dampers Betty's plans to visit the fair with her nephew, so Grampy uses his MacGyvering skills to transform the whole apartment building into a fairground.
- Camp Lazlo: In "Club Kidney-Ki", Slinkman starts to go mad from overwork and is advised to take a Hawaiian vacation. To keep him from leaving the camp, Scoutmaster Lumpus offers to "accompany" him on his trip, takes him around the block in the dead of night, and tells him he's already in Hawaii. The scouts soon join Slinkman in his "vacation game", and he eventually becomes so convinced that when Lumpus finally admits to his trick, Slinkman believes he's the one who's gone mad.
- In The Cleveland Show, the Seth MacFarlane series-spanning hurricane episode forces the family to stay at home before leaving for vacations. They briefly decide to make the house feel like they went to the beach before giving up once they learn Jr. doesn't believe in God (Atheism feels like a religion to him, though).
- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends: In "Bloo Tube", the gang has to cancel a trip to Monsoon Lagoon due to the rain and Bloo is the most depressed about it. He eventually tries to make his own water park in the house instead of waiting for the weather to get better. He ends up badly injured when he tries his self-made water slide, which makes Bloo unable to go to Monsoon Lagoon with the others when it stops raining.
- The Ghost and Molly McGee: In the episode "It's Always Sunny in Sunnyland," inclement weather closes the eponymous theme park before the McGees can visit it, so Molly tries to cheer everyone up with a homemade equivalent.
- The Loud House: At the end of "Suite and Sour", the Louds get kicked out of a hotel. The kids, thinking it was their fault because most of them had misbehaved, set the house up like a resort and leave for their great-aunt Ruth's house so their parents can get the vacation they want.
- Little Princess: In "I Want to Go to the Fair", everyone in the castle goes to the fair, except for the Princess, who has injured her foot and thus must be carried around in a wheelbarrow, and the Queen, who has to stay home to look after the Princess. The Princess really wanted to go, so the Queen cheers her up by hosting a play fair at home.
- Madeline: In "Madeline's Christmas", the girls' Christmas trip is cancelled when heavy snow prevents them from leaving their boarding school and they all get sick with a cold. However, their elderly friend Marie not only cures their colds, she brings the people they planned to visit over so they get a happy Christmas after all.
- Rugrats: In "All's Well That Pretends Well", everyone was planning to go to the circus, but they cancel their plans because Angelica has a cold and the babies pretended to have caught her cold so they could keep her company. To compensate, everyone watches the show taped on TV.
- Sealab 2021: Murphy cancels Quinn's two-week vacation literally as Quinn is walking out the door, because Murphy is such a Psychopathic Manchild that he believes a projection of himself might "disappear back into the spirit world" at any moment. Undaunted, Quinn declares that he's still on vacation, seen around Sealab dressed in a Hawaiian shirt with a coconut drink. While the other crew members sympathize with Quinn's plight, it takes a near-catastrophic failure of Sealab before Quinn comes back on the job.
- The SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Patrick's Staycation" has SpongeBob turn Patrick's house into a hotel for him, since Patrick can't afford to travel outside of Bikini Bottom.
- In the Toy Story Toon Hawaiian Vacation, Barbie and Ken attempt to stowaway on Bonnie's trip to Hawaii, but get left behind in her bedroom instead, resulting in the toys making their own Hawaiian-style resort just for the couple.
