On a sunlit package holiday, Vic Flange flirts openly with the young widow Sadie Tomkins while his wife, Cora Flange, looks on with cool disdain. Their friend Harry, prone to violent twitches, arrives and reveals that the Mediterranean getaway Vic booked to the island of Elsbels, on the Costa Bomm, also includes Sadie—much to Cora’s outrage. Though she hates flying, Cora decides to accompany Vic to keep Sadie at a distance and to keep him honest, setting the stage for a holiday filled with comic misadventures rather than romantic bliss.
When the party arrives, they are greeted by Stuart Farquhar, the representative of Wundatours Travel Agency, and his assistant Moira Plunkett. The cast of travelers is a classic Carry On mix: the lecherous Stanley Blunt and his unsupportive wife Evelyn Blunt; the drunken Eustace Tuttle; hard-to-read friends Nicholas and Robin; the scheming Scotsman Bert Conway; hopeful pairs Lily and Marge; and a group of twelve monks, including Brother Bernard. The hotel’s arrival is greeted with a chorus of quirks and tensions that promise more punchlines than comfort.
The moment they set foot inside, the place proves half-finished, with builders having quit and five floors still uncompleted. Pepe, the hotel manager who improvises his role as manager, doorman, and porter, struggles to keep the operation afloat, while his wife Floella, the chef, battles the stove and their son Georgio loafs behind the bar. The hotel is riddled with faults: Evelyn discovers Mr. Tuttle in her bath; Vic catches [Sadie Tomkins] naked in his shower; Lily and Marge’s wardrobe has no back, leaving them exposed to the monk in the next room; Moira’s taps spew sand; the drawers of Robin and Nicholas have no bottom; and Bert’s lavatory drenches him. The barrage of complaints overloads the front desk’s phone system, turning routine service into comic chaos.
That evening the guests become better acquainted over dinner, which features an unimaginative Brown Windsor soup. A heated dispute between Pepe and Floella over the stove—Pepé pours wine he mistakes for methylated spirits into the fire—sends a cloud of smoke through the restaurant, forcing everyone to fling open windows and invite swarms of mosquitos. Amid the chaos, flirtations bloom: Marge and Brother Bernard navigate a fragile romance challenged by Bernard’s faith and his endearingly clumsy nature, while Lily lures Nicholas away from a jealous Robin. Stanley renews his attempts to charm Cora in his own overconfident style, even as Sadie grows fond of Bert, and Vic’s scheming to keep Sadie at bay leads to more than one uncomfortable truth about the holiday’s motives.
The next day, the builders return to resume work, waking the guests at dawn for an excursion to a nearby village. Vic sneaks a taste of a local drink, “Santa Cecilia’s Elixir,” which allegedly grants X-ray vision, and he discovers that the drink really does let him see through women’s clothing. The party’s misadventures continue when, in a riot sparked at Madame Fifi’s brothel, Vic, Bert, and Eustace provoke the girls there and are arrested. Unbeknownst to them, Evelyn is drawn into an affair with Georgio, freeing her from years of frigid restraint.
In prison, Moira Plunkett mollifies the authorities by seducing the Alan Curtis, the Police Chief, and the group is released out of gratitude. Back at the hotel, Evelyn’s clandestine encounter with Georgio rekindles her romance with Stanley, bringing a surprising revival to their relationship. On the last night, the guests seem at ease with one another, thanks to punch spiked with Santa Cecilia’s Elixir. But a mid-evening rainstorm reveals a darker truth: the hotel was built on a dry river bed, and as the storm grows heavier, the building begins to give way. The guests, still merry and intoxicated, carry on partying as the hotel caves in around them, with Pepe raising his voice to order everyone to flee the collapsing structure.
Sometime later, at Vic and Cora’s pub, the Elsbels reunion gathers. Farquhar has lost his job at Wundatours and now works behind the bar, a humorous reminder that even the most chaotic vacation can lead to new, if ridiculous, chapters. All the guests look back with a mix of embarrassment and laughter, finding a kind of closure in shared memories of a holiday they barely enjoyed, yet somehow survived together.
