Butlins Resort, Minehead

...main reason why we chose Butlins was that the Nick Jr live show was visiting and as our nearly 4 year old daughter loves Dora the Explorer, Diego and the Wonder Pets, all from the Nick Jr channel we knew she would love seeing them.

Butlins now only have 3 holiday centres within England, one at Bognor Regis, a second in Skegness and lastly Minehead. Minehead is located on the South West coast of England, about 30 miles off the M5, Junction ...
.../>
Booking for Butlins is quite easy, you can either, book over the internet and receive a discount or your can book over the phone. I booked over the phone because I used some of my Tesco Club Card vouchers as part payment, and when I priced it up over the internet, we wasn’t offered a discount for that week, so we had nothing to lose. A couple of days after booking, I received through the post, our holiday confirmation including the booking ... more

A few weeks ago we took a short break to Butlins, Minehead, the main reason why we chose Butlins was that the Nick Jr live show was visiting and as our nearly 4 year old daughter loves Dora the Explorer, Diego and the Wonder Pets, all from the Nick Jr channel we knew she would love seeing them.

Butlins now only have 3 holiday centres within England, one at Bognor Regis, a second in Skegness and lastly Minehead. Minehead is located on the South West coast of England, about 30 miles off the M5, Junction 25. For us Skegness would be a lot closer but we went for 5 days at the end of September beginning of October and thought the weather might be a bit warmer down south compared to going north.

Booking for Butlins is quite easy, you can either, book over the internet and receive a discount or your can book over the phone. I booked over the phone because I used some of my Tesco Club Card vouchers as part payment, and when I priced it up over the internet, we wasn’t offered a discount for that week, so we had nothing to lose. A couple of days after booking, I received through the post, our holiday confirmation including the booking reference number, a booklet “everything you need to know before you go” another booklet detailing offers available throughout the stay and lastly a discount voucher for Little Chef – 1 child eats for free with every full paying adult.

The accommodation they have available is, self catering, standard accommodation, silver accommodation, gold accommodation and Deluxe with the option of bed and breakfast or half board. Accommodation offered is either 1 bedroom, 2 bedrooms so on. We settled for silver accommodation with 2 bedrooms on the half board tariff. This cost us £240.00 for the accommodation for the 4 night stay with the half board including breakfast costing £119.40 for 2 adults and 1 child. Some of the silver rooms can be situated on two floors so I paid extra for a downstairs room at a cost of £10.00, (no charge is made if you are registered disabled).

All rooms contain bed linen, pillow and duvets, tea and coffee making facilities and a colour TV however if you are stopping in anything less than a gold room you need to take your own towels, hair drier and iron. Our room did contain an ironing board, so it’s a good job I never packed one! The room also contained a clothes airer for drying your swimming clothes. On arrival we found 1 complimentary toilet roll, 2 sachets of coffee, two tea bags, 4 sugar and 4 dried milk sachets, 4 mugs and 4 highball glasses.

Check in

Check in is available from 2.30 pm on the day of your arrival. When you pull into the site, a welcome team check your booking confirmation and tell you where you where to temporarily park your car and also tell you where you need to go for check in. They also tell you to leave your suitcases in your car until you have checked in and receive information on where your room is. There are 3 different check in areas depending on the standard of accommodation you have booked. Deluxe, check in at the main reception, gold check in at the gold reception and finally standard and silver check in at the Skyline Pavilion. We checked in at the Skyline Pavilion, there was 5 temporary desks, 4 for silver and 1 for standard, each desk had either A – G, H – M, N – S, T – Z. Just pick the 1st letter of your last name and join that particular queue. Hand over your holiday confirmation and you are then given a welcome pack. The welcome pack contains a map of the site, a letter detailing your holiday with your room number and two credit card type keys for your room, 1 meal ticket per person and an “Infunmation Guide” detailing everything that you need to know including what you can do during your stay and a dairy of all entertainment to keep you occupied during your stay along and a with another map and any other tickets for extra payable entertainment you may have booked. The attendant tells you where you can find your room and then where to move your car to, so it is nearer your room.

Although check in is from 2.30 pm, if you are stopping silver or standard you can not gain access to your room until after 4 pm. We had a stroll round to get our bearings, found our room and went on a few fairground rides before accessing our room at 4 pm.

Rooms.

We opted for a silver room with two bedrooms. On entering your room you walk into a hall type area with the rooms going off this. The Double bedroom had a portable colour TV, remotes are not available and the volume is not adjustable, so you can not disturb the room next door. The Double room and single room each have a wardrobe in and a 3rd cupboard containing coat hooks and room for your suitcases can be found in the lobby/hall area. Both bedrooms have bedside cabinets, containing two drawers each. The double room has a dressing table with more drawers. There is one dining type chair in the single room and two in the double room. The toilet, sink and shower are the other side of the hall opposite the single room (beware when you have little ones with you, if you don’t lock the toilet door and they open the door, you can be seen doing your business through the main bedroom window!)

The rooms are fairly clean although a good bleaching wouldn’t go amiss in the shower to remove the mouldy bits. Silver rooms are supposed to have housekeeping, although ours seemed a bit hit and miss. On Tuesday they washed the mugs and emptied the bins but never made the beds, Wednesday they failed to show and Thursday they made the beds and emptied the bins. Although it is stated that the rooms have tea and coffee making facilities, the tea and coffee is only supplied on your arrival and not replenished throughout the rest of the stay. You can “borrow” tea bags, sugar and milk from the main restaurant but if you are a coffee drinker you will have to supply your own as the restaurant only have coffee machines. At the start of the stay we had one complimentary toilet roll expected to last the 3 of us throughout our 4 night stay! I ended up going to the on site Londis and buying a pack of 4 to get us through the stay.

Main Restaurants

They have three restaurants, Ocean Drive, Coral Beach and The Yacht Club. We ate in the Ocean Drive Restaurant. The Yacht Club is for Gold and Deluxe guests and I’m not too sure who the Coral Beach Restaurant is for.

The Ocean drive is a buffet style restaurant. When you arrive for your evening meal or breakfast in the morning you hand over your meal ticket, where an attendant tears out the relevant day. The restaurant is quite large and the square tables are set rather close together all tables sit 4 and some are pushed together to sit 8.

Evening Meal

Dinner is served between the times of 4.30 and 6.30 pm every evening apart for your arrival day when dinner is served up to 7pm.

The buffet area is divided up into different market stall type Bain Marie sections. Traditional Fayre is the roast dinner of the day, Explorer is food from around the world, Fish Bar has fish and chip shop type food, Annabel Karmel is the healthy option for kids, Nippers Nosh has hotdogs and burgers for kids, The Market Garden is the salad bar. Hidden around one side completely out of the way are Jacket Potatoes, (if you do want a Jacket Spud you need to get to the restaurant early as they only put them out when the restaurant opens and they are not kept warm). At either end of the main meals, are the pudding pier containing two hot sweets with custard and about 8 cold deserts to choose from, with jugs containing pouring cream. Across from the main meals is a soup deck containing a choice of two different soups and next to this are the bread rolls. Although the restaurant is a buffet type you do not serve yourself, you pick what you want and the serving staff put it on the plate for you.

The plates and trays are on tables in the middle of the food area. Cutlery, serviettes and condiments are at the end of the main buffet area before you get to the seating area. Drinks are included in the half board tariff and are available at the end of the buffet area and at various positions around the restaurant, the drinks include tea, coffee and hot chocolate and a very good selection of cold drinks, (various fruit juices, and squashes and cold water). Alcoholic drinks are available at extra cost as you walk into the restaurant. Microwaves are situated in various position within the seating area, these can be used to warm milk or baby food, they also have a good supply of bibs and highchairs.

I would say the food is rather average, although there was plenty to choose from and they tried to cater for every taste. I found during the stay that the only thing that really appealed to me was the jacket spuds apart from the last night, when they had 3 different curries available. My husband tried most of the food, he said the soup tasted like it was out of a tin, one evening he after his soup he tried the fish bar and had fish and mushy peas, or should I say mushy peas and fish, the plate was completely covered with peas with a piece of fish plonked on top. When I commented on this, he said the man got a bit carried away with the peas! It seems that towards the end of service the serving staff get a bit carried away with the portions they serve you. Holly our daughter didn’t seem very impressed with the food and seemed to choose hotdogs, tomato and cucumber every night.

Breakfast.

Breakfast is served between 8.30 and 10.30 am apart from Monday and Friday when it is served between 8 and 10 am.

Breakfast is of course the traditional English breakfast with a choice of bacon, sausage, fried eggs, mini omelettes, beans, fresh tomatoes, tinned tomatoes and hash browns, on the last day they also served mushrooms.. A choice of 6 different cereals were available and something I have not had in years, kippers. Toasters are available with white or brown sliced bread. Yoghurt was available but not as individual pots but in a large help your self bowl, I have no idea what the flavour was as I never tried it and could not see a flavour sticker anywhere about. Fresh fruit is available in the form of apple or orange, although on our 1st breakfast I came across pears but never saw them again. Once again you help yourself to any soft drinks.

The only problem I had with breakfast was with the toasters and people fiddling with them, you could put a slice in and it would come out perfect in one go, you could go back a few minutes later put another slice in and it would come out still white, stick it through again and it would come out black.

Paying Restaurants.

Should you choose to go self catering or on the breakfast only tariff, there are quite a good choice of fast food restaurants where you pay including Burger King, Pizza Hut, Finnigans Fish and Chips and The Sun and Moon pub serving pub type food. We never tried any of these because we stopped half board and I never looked at the prices but I would have thought they would have been around the same or may be a few pence dearer than the same places outside.

Snack Bars

There are a few snack bars dotted around, The Refresh café serving Costa Coffee and pastries, the Noodle Bar that was never open and the Enjays Creperie serving sweet and savoury Crepes and fruit Smoothies. Again we never tried any of these.

Bars.

Bar Rosso serving Costa Coffee and most alcoholic drinks, Hotshots the Sports bar, Swinging Shillelagh, the Irish bar with live Karaoke every night and Jaks the Disco.

Shops.

Butlins has quite a few shops around the site, including their own bakery, which I found rather expensive, preferring to buy sandwiches from the Londis Supermarket just across from it. A Newsagents situated next to the restaurants, a shoe shop, a Hair and beauty saloon and a shop selling make-up and accessories, various toy and gift shops, a launderette and the Mega Treats shops that sold Ice cream lollies and sweets.

Most of the shops, restaurants and bars are all situated either inside or next to the Skyline Pavilion, the main heart of Butlins.

The Skyline Pavilion

The Skyline Pavilion is designed rather like a large big top tent and is the heart of the centre. Everything is situated either within or next to the pavilion. It has a stage which has entertainment from 10am till 8.15pm every day mainly aimed at the pre-school age children. This is where your little ones can meet the likes of Fireman Sam, Pingu, join in with Angelina Ballerina’s dance class, sing-along with Barney and watch Bob the Builders mini Adventures. In front of the stage is a dance area for children, there are also plenty of tables and chairs for you to sit and watch your little one have the time of their lives. This entertainment is hosted by the famous Red Coats. Also inside the Pavilion is the soft play area, a puppet theatre, a bungee trampoline (extra Charge) and plenty of amusement machines (of course these are all cost extra).

Outside Entertainment

For the little ones you can find Bob the Builders Yard, which other than the decoration had nothing to do with Bob the Builder but in here there are plenty of rides which are aimed at pre-school age children, a very gentle train, teacups that don’t spin, cars that go round and flying planes. Holly loved this area as she was able to go on the rides on her own and felt very grown up. Parents are allowed to go on a couple of the rides but after a while the kids want to go on their own but you are allowed to strap the children into the rides and take them off at the end. This area is undercover so your little ones can still enjoy it even if it is raining.

There is also a larger fun fair outside with larger rides, Holly was able to go on a few of the larger rides with Daddy, (Mummy doesn’t do things like that!). This is obviously aimed at older children but Holly did enjoy these rides. Most of the rides are included in the price but a few are extra charge, including the Go-Kart track at £5.00 a go. Dotted around the rest of the site, you can find a driving school for young children, crazy golf (which I wanted to go on but Hubby wouldn’t let me) an outdoor play area, football area, and a beach sports area. Also dotted around the site are more Amusement arcades.

Splash Waterworld

When you visit Butlins, whether with your children or on one of the Adults only weekends, you really need to take your swimming gear. The large waterworld has 3 smaller pools for very young children, a standard swimming pool leading onto the fun pool. This is where the wave machine knocks you off your feet or you can float around in the lazy horseshoe shaped swimming pool where the currents just drag you around, it does say it is only suitable for very good swimmers, but I’m not very good and it was suitable for me as I could put my feet on the floor and a lot non swimming children were able to float around with swimming rings and their parents and the life guards never said anything. There are 3 large waterslides of varying degrees, I never even attempted but Darren tried to get Holly to go on one, but she was slightly under height to go on. When the wave machine starts you do get about a minute warning buzzer allowing you to get out of the pool or swim to the standard pool.

Although it states that swimming is free you do need 50p’s for the lockers in the changing rooms, these lockers are a bit of a rip off, yes you are supposed to get your 50p back but this seems to be very rare, on the two occasions we went swimming both times we lost the 50p’s on the second occasion Darren collered one of the workers who made us show him what locker we used, he took the back off and gave us our 50p, however you just have to hope nobody else is using that locker by the time you get there otherwise its tough. I suspect the swimming employees make a killing at the end of the day when they go round every locker and pocket all the 50p’s!

(No photos in the swimming pool as it is not allowed)

Evening Entertainment

Evening entertainment is held in either the Skyline pavilion, Centre Stage, Reds, Crazy Horse (Bingo), Swinging Shillelagh (Karaoke) and Jaks (Disco from 11pm) all compared by the Red Coats. On the 1st night we queued at Centre Stage for the Tots Disco that started at 6.30 pm however Holly was a little disappointed with this, the music was a little too grown up, hardly any kids music, we then sat waiting for the Storybook Panto, which that evening was Goldilocks and having built up the story for Holly, we were both looking forward to it. After about 20 minutes of watching Goldilocks trying to save the circus she worked for, from a nasty Nazi type person and not one bear in sight, we could tell Holly was thoroughly bored, so we decided to leave. Not really the start we had expected. The only time we went for any evening entertainment was to see the external show put on by Nick Jr, which was the main reason for actually going on this holiday.

Other entertainment available throughout the 4 nights included a comedian, tribute bands to Abba, Take That, and Tom Jones, these however were on a bit too late for us as by 9pm Holly would be flagging so we would spend the rest of the evening in the room watching telly.

One thing I wasn’t too keen on was the Red Coats entertainment, prior to the Nick Jr show, the compare tried to entertain us, however I found him not very funny, his humour was a little too old for youngsters, at one point he was singing the Postman Pat song but changed to the words to Postman Pat drove over his cat and took it to the vet because it was flat! In my opinion not really the type of humour for pre-school children to hear at 7pm in the evening, yes they may not understand it but some children can, it would be fine for later in the evening when the youngsters are in bed, but still not for me.

Spend, spend, spend

A few days before we went I was quite impressed when Butlins rung up to go over the booking and check to make sure we knew what we needed to take, however this call ended up as a sales call. They asked if Holly would like to join Angelina Ballerina for a party, that included a ballet lesson, lunch, games, free photo with Angelina and a goodie bag, only costing £30.00. I said yes expecting it to take up a bit of time during the day, however I was sadly mistaken, the whole party including the girls eating their lunch was over in 30 minutes although Holly seemed to enjoy it.

Photos of your children with their favourite characters cost £6.00 each and with 3 or 4 photo shoots per day, this could work out very expensive. We tried taking our own photo of Holly with Pingu however the staff made sure this was impossible by blocking the view, so it you want the photo you have to pay for it.

There is an on site cinema showing two films for the week, the films did seem quite up to date and the cost at £4.00 each was reasonable, we never got into see any films so I have no idea what the cinema was like.

Outside the Site

The beach is across the road from the site. If you turn left out of the site you can walk along the promenade and in a couple of minutes you reach the centre of Minehead. There is a couple of markets, the main shopping street is off this road. If you have a child into Thomas the Tank, Minehead has it's own steam railway, where you can take a ride on the trains.

Our Break

We were quite lucky with the weather for the end of September and had sunshine every day which meant on two days we was able to walk down along the sea front and have a stroll on the beach which Holly really enjoyed. However if it is raining and you are stuck in side I could see it costing rather a lot of money on the amusements.

We took £200.00 spending money and I was expecting to bring £100.00 back, I brought £10 back in the end, by the time you have bought drinks in the bar, sandwiches for lunch for Holly (I refused to pay £2.70 for a Ham Sandwich in the Butlins bakery when Londis were selling them for £1.70), photos, some of the rides at £5.00 per time and not forgetting the toilet paper, money just seemed to slip away.

We have now introduced a nearly 4 year old to the joys of gambling with the slot machines, they may well have been the 2p machines but with little girly purses statically placed it cost a fortune (15 of them came home with us!) The grab a bear cranes were everywhere, all of course featuring children’s favourite characters and at 30p a go it worked out expensive and on the 5 days we were there I never once saw anybody win. We found it was far easier on the beach front amusements, these were only 20p ago and people were winning.

This holiday could work out very expensive if it is raining and you have more than one child to entertain in the amusements or they are older children moving onto the 10p machines, money would just disappear. Butlins do have cash machines dotted around but there was a charge to use these.

Oh and I nearly forgot, due to Swine flu, on every exit of the Skyline pavilion, the restaurants, pubs and every toilet, they had machines squirting anti-bacterial hand gel in order to combat the virus. I never saw anybody fill them up but I never came across an empty one and it did seem that most people were using them.

One thing that did surprise me was the amount of older people using the site. I had expected it to be only families but I started talking to a gentleman who stops there every other week. He visits his mother in a nursing home in Minehead and he pays £77.00 for the 4 nights for half board and for him it is cheaper than stopping in a B&B.

I would go back again but only for Holly’s sake, she thoroughly enjoyed the holiday and her little face smiling on the rides was worth every penny spent.

Butlins website www.butlins.com
 

...less