Butlins, United Kingdom

Ive just had a week at Butlins...Now I need a Holiday!

My week at Butlins:

I have some lovely memories of Butlins Skegness and Clacton as a child, I also enjoyed staying at Butlins Skegness, Minehead, and the Butlins hotel in Brighton and Margate later in life when my children were growing up.

Prior to this latest holiday I hadn't been to Butlins for about 15 years. The last time being when my oldest grandson was a toddler…. We found the accommodation very shabby and not very clean (so we never went back again)

That is until this year when my mum wanted to go away somewhere in England with us. We decided to see just how many things had changed at some of the better known Holiday camps over the years.

After doing quite a lot of research, and browsing through web sites and brochures of 4-5 of the most popular holiday camps…. It was decided that Butlins was the one for us.

So in May of this year we booked a week for September…

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The reason we booked Butlin's

We didn't want to actually be cooking all week, and to eat out at these kinds of places can be very expensive. Lots of Holiday camps only offer self-catering, we didn't want a caravan this time, as we were taking my mum with us, she has had a stroke, and a knee replacement (that hasn't worked)
We couldn't afford anything too expensive, and we wanted somewhere that had all amenities nearby, with somewhere my partner and myself could pop along to for a quiet drink, or maybe watch a show, once mum was in bed (but not too far away)

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Our needs and requirements

I picked up a brochure (just to get an idea) but decided to book on line as you make huge savings.
To start with we narrowed it down to a choice of two of Butlins camps, Bognor Regis or Skegness, as we live about 100 miles from either one: and I was driving.

Now as I have already mentioned. There were 3 of us going. Myself, my partner, and of course my mum, so we needed two bedrooms, we also needed a walk in shower, as I can't get out of a bath, and mum can't even get in one, so a shower it had to be.

We also needed a ground floor apartment, (because Butlins don't have lifts).
Those of you, who have ever been to Butlins, will know that most accommodation is in blocks of two story buildings, with outside walkways with wooden stairs that takes you up to the second floor. These can get very slippery if wet, and not at all good for people with bad legs.
We also needed to be able to park near to our apartment, but not too far from the dinning hall where meals were to be served.

Mum wanted a TV as she likes to watch all her soaps…Yes I know she was going on holiday for God sake, but she didn't want to miss ANY of her soaps, if she could help it.
So that meant arranging our evening dinner around them!

Right ready to book, I think.

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The booking procedure:

I thought it was going to be quite complicated, as we had lots of questions and some strange requirements

I found the website at www.butlinsonline.co.uk

We decided that we would go around Sat Sept 17th -24th (Because it was after the school summer holidays) and before half term, I thought there would be hardly any children there, (all back at school) not that I don't like children… I love children, I have two grown up ones of my own, and three and a half grandchildren, But we were hoping for some quiet time now and again….

So that was decided, Bognor, Sat 17th Sept, one week, Silver accommodation, (slightly dearer than standard but not as dear as Gold), two bedroom, half board, with shower and TV, ground floor, not too far to from car park and dinning room. OK?

So far, so good;

One thing kept coming up on my screen, nothing available for those dates, so I tried the week after… I tried Skegness too; I also tried standard and gold accommodation at both, still no luck…. Then I saw a little message that said, 7-day holidays start Friday to Friday…
Aha I see so I then put in Frid 16th -23rd Sept. Hooray we have a quote. £450 for the three of us, £150 each, now by my reckoning that's not bad… and includes meals.
We had to pay £10 extra for a guaranteed ground floor apartment, (which you get refunded if you show a blue badge) which disabled people have.

Just one tiny snag; Because they are classed as family rooms, most of the one and two bedroom apartments have a double bed in one room (sometimes bed settee in the living room) and …wait for it children's bunk beds in the other… Ok I managed to sort out a two-bedroom apartment with double bed in one room and two normal sized singles in other, I thought that's fine mum can take her pick…

Fine everybody happy? Ok

NO not ok!
I was about ready to book a nice holiday in Silver accommodation at Bognor and pay my deposit… when all of a sudden mum stopped me.

I don't know how familiar you are with places like this, but usually if you go self catering you get a fitted kitchen. But if you go full or half board, you don't normally have any cooking facilities, usually just for making tea.

How many of you have ever watched Eastenders? Well for those of you that have, you will know and probably love "Nanna"
She is Alfie's lovely old Nan. Well my mum is not unlike Nanna…. In fact there are quite a few similarities!

The next hour was spent like this.

MUM "I hope we have a microwave in our apartment"?
ME "A what?"
MUM "A microwave"
ME "What on earth do we need a microwave for?
MUM "To cook my breakfast in"
ME "Breakfast… What breakfast? We are going all in, whatever you would like for breakfast and evening dinner; you help yourself to... as much as you want….
MUM "But I will be hungry when I get up before I get to breakfast"
ME "So what are you planning on having for your breakfast, before you go to breakfast"?
MUM "Oh I'm having my bowl of Oats so simple and my raspberries, kiwi, grated apple and yoghurt drink"
ME "I see… Shall I ask if we can have an oven too"?
Mum "No, I probably won't need an oven. But a fridge, Yes I need a fridge.
Me "A what? A fridge, I don't think we will get a fridge.
MUM "Ohhh dear, where will I put all my food?
ME " Food! What food?"
MUM "All the food I am taking with me…. My fruit, milk, butter, eggs. cheese, brown bread, yoghurts" (you get the idea?)
ME "Ok. Mum … Please don't get upset, I will see what I can do"

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A few minor changes to details before booking:

Now these few changes turned into a major shift around….

To my delight Butlins did have a few silver apartments with Microwaves, Oh good … They are slightly bigger, slightly more expensive, not many of them, but they have fully fitted kitchen/diners (with everything including cooker, fridge) nice living room with TV and patio doors…
We'll take it…

No we won't…. There's none left…
Oh Pooh now what?
My connection to Internet drops, page says timed out and all is lost.
Ok I've had enough of this, switch computer off….

Next day; Phone Butlins, and tell them my dilemma, lady is very helpful, she tells me there are NO two bedroom half board apartments with kitchens at Bognor, and that she would try Skegness for me,
Which she kindly did.
And there were just a couple left
So back on the computer, put in dates, Skegness, and all my details, and low and behold…. I booked it all within 10 mins.
It was a bit more expensive, worked out at £162 each, which I thought was pretty good.

A box at the bottom of page asked if I had any special requests, that was a laugh, after all the requests I had already asked for, but I did ask if we could be reasonably near the dinning room.

All our paper work arrived in the post about 4 days later, with a little welcoming leaflet, a map and direction of how to get there, and what to do and where to go on arrival.

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Travelling to and arriving at Butlins:

Driving to Butlins was very easy.
We left my mums at 1pm, didn't want to leave too early as we knew the journey wouldn't take too long, and didn't want to be hanging around to long at Butlins before we could get in our accommodation.

We joined the A1m at Stevenage junction 8 north bound; off at jn 16 onto the 605…then took the A15 to Market Deeping, A16 to Boston.
From there the A52 takes you straight to Skegness. Butlins is well sign posted and just outside the town of Skegness, with Ingoldmels about a mile further on past Butlins.

On arriving near Skegness, we first noticed the top of what looked like a huge white tent; this of course was Butlins. The new skyline pavilion, where most of the fun and entertainment goes on.
We reached Butlins at 3 10pm, it took us a little longer than planned as we had to do a couple of toilet stops en route, and also came up against some road works on A1M.

We turned into huge gates to be greeted by security, and shown where to park and check in… check in is at 4 PM unless you are premier members (then you get to check in at 2pm)

Now as I already said, we arrived at the gates at 10 past 3 so we still had almost an hour before we could check in.

I was amazed at the amount of people queuing to check in at this early time, there must have been at least 300 people standing outside with luggage and children.
The weather wasn't particularly warm that day, and if any of you have been to that part of the coast, you will know what I mean when I say it can get windy, and by golly it was a cold wind that day.

By the time we had parked the car and had a closer look at the queue, it was 3 20, even more people were arriving and joining the never ending queue

We were lucky in that we had all our luggage in the car, some people had arrived by coach and were stuck with their cases, until they could get in there rooms.
I decided we were NOT queuing, instead we locked the luggage plus all mums food in the car, found the toilets and then went for a nice cup of tea, at 5 past 4 we went to the check in office…

Guess what, There wasn't a single person queuing, so we went straight in, got our keys and meal cards, were given directions to our apartment, and that was it.

We drove for about half a mile (following the directions given) and finally reached our apartment. We had parking right outside our front door (which was handy) and were in our apartment unpacking and putting on the kettle by 20 past 4….

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The apartment:

To tell you the truth, I was pleasantly surprised.
I have heard lots of things about the state of some of the accommodation at Butlins and also seen some for myself...
Years ago they were rather like old army barracks, some quite sparse and tatty.
I had heard from a few people that Butlins had revamped a lot of them and they were of a much better standard, well this was certainly true of our one.

On entering the hallway I noticed it had a nice fresh clean smell, (unlike one we had years ago that smelt damp and musty).
To the right of the hall was the Kitchen/diner, which was quite big, clean, bright and airy, had all mod cons including microwave and table and 4 chairs.

Through the kitchen/diner was quite a nice sized lounge with 2 settees, a coffee table, storage heater and TV.
At the far end was a huge patio window opening out onto tidy paths and gardens.

On the other side of the hallway were the bedrooms, mum jumped at the first one with plenty of space, two single beds, storage heater, wardrobe, bed side table and draw space.
We had the far room with double bed, and plenty of wardrobe, cupboard and drawer space, but not much room to move about.

We did actually have a ground floor apartment, on the end of a block, with 3 more the same joined on, and 6 smaller ones on the floor above.

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The dining room and food:

We decided we had better find the dining room and have our evening meal, we took the car, as we weren't sure how far or exactly where it was.
Good job we did as the dinning room was three quarters of a mile away… our apartment was actually t the furthest point from it, that we could have been... so much for being near.

We parked the car in a disabled car parking space near standard accommodation, and only had about 10 yards to walk.... As neither my mum or myself could have walked the full distance each day to eat, its a good job we had the car, because breakfast there and back and dinner there and back was a total of 3 miles a day just to go and eat.

There were two large doors into the dining room. A redcoat stood by the door and checked our blue card; we then went into what looked like a massive restaurant and sat where we liked.
At the back were all the food counters, at the sides and front were many types of drinks dispensers that you help yourself to (non alcoholic drinks) in the middle by the food counters you could purchase wine and beer to have with your dinner if you so wished.

I was more than surprised at the food, I am by no means a fussy eater, but having said that, I like fresh healthy, not too over cooked, well presented food, and a good choice...
We certainly did get that at Butlins.

Breakfast was partly serve yourself and partly ask for what you want, there were large toasters that took about 18 slices of bread at a time. There were many types of breakfasts, offering a good choice of cereal, full English, vegetarian, prunes, grapefruit, kippers, fresh fruit, jams, butters etc, and as much bread/toast as you wanted.

Dinner also offered a wide range.
A salad bar, jacket potato counter, then lots of other counters offering, 3-4 different meat dishes, usually with a roast. There were also Indian and Chinese dishes most nights, fish, chips, pizza's, pasta, a nice variety of fresh veg and quite a good selection for vegetarians, there were usually a choice of 3 deserts and ice cream, or if you preferred you could ask for fresh fruit.

Beverages, there were counters all around where you served yourself with, ice cold water, fresh orange/apple/grapefruit juice, tea, coffee, hot chocolate, squash or fizzy drinks.

I am one of these people who love "People watching" and I certainly got plenty of chance to "people watch" while I was at Butlins.
One night I watched a guy on a table next to us, he drank his soup from the bowl, he then scoffed three very large dinners plus numerous slices of bread, he got up and came back with three different huge puddings on a tray. I watched in horror, as he shovelled the first pudding down his throat, then got up and left the other two untouched on the table... "What a waste; what a gluten"?

Whoops I keep going off on a tangent.... Where was I? Oh yes!
I could not fault the food; accommodation and friendly staff (most of the time)

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A bit about the campsite

Butlins's does caters well for disabled people, with easy access into all shops, venues and buildings, and is wheelchair friendly, there are plenty of disabled toilets.

Mobility scooters and wheelchairs can be hired (bookable in advance) some accommodation is specially designed for disabled people (you must ask for this when booking)

The grounds on the whole are clean and tidy, with some nice flower gardens. There are plenty of parking spaces and the main entertainment and shopping area is pedestrianised.

In the brochure it states, the fair rides are all free, well there was a fair, with dodgems, Carousel, a boat like thing, and a couple of other rides. These were actually free as stated, but the queues most of the time were huge and the rides only lasted a very short time.
There are quite a few stalls to win prizes on, like throw a hoop, burst a balloon, and chuck some balls, all of which cost £1 a go. The go-karts were £4 a go, there was a charge for the trampolines, and other little children's cars.

You also had to pay to go on the Bungee trampoline, kiddies Go-karts and numerous other little kiddie's rides, that were dotted around the place.
There are lots of arcades with tons of machines in (we stayed away from these).

I was a bit disappointed that the free Mono rail (like a train high up in the air) that used to run all around the camp, had actually gone, you could get on or off at different points, no sign of it now.

There are children's clubs, for different age groups, where the Red coats take the children off and entertain them, during the day and early evening. Also a nursery where parents pay to put their young children for a few hours, and an evening baby-sitting service at a charge.

The Splash Waterworld Pool with flumes, was very busy most of the time, we were going to try it out, but one look through the doors was enough…

Skegness has a relatively new spa centre, which looked very inviting and had a lovely quiet relaxing pool.
Mum and I would have liked to have, had a quite float around in the adult only pool.
On enquiring the minimum charge was £16… for that you got to go in the pool, use the gym and have a small pamper treatment, (so we gave that a miss too).
Each day as we walked past we looked in through the huge windows, there was never anyone in the pool, apart from one afternoon there were two woman having a leisurly swim.....

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Other Entertainment:

Skyline Pavilion: Join in the fun with the Skyline Gang. Including shows, street theatre and games, a bar and restaurant. (Family entertainment)
Cinema showing the latest films (at a charge)
Jaks (for adults only)
DJs (for adults only)
Centre Stage (family entertainment)
Reds (family entertainment)
Football, Basketball,
Crazy golf and Go-karting (at a charge)
Funfair (some free rides)
Penny arcades
Out door play area
In door play area
Bob the builder club

Places to eat and drink:

There were plenty of places to eat or drink on the site, handy if you were self-catering and didn't want to be cooking all the time.

Burger King,
Papa Joe's pizza's
Finnigan's fish & chips
Yacht club restaurant
Hotshots bar
Irish Pub
Cafe and bar in Skyline pavilion

Shops & other Services:

Supermarket
Newsagent
Joke shop
Toy shop
A hire shop... you can hire bikes, tandems and large 4 person pedal carriages (at a price) see photo's
Hair and beauty
Gift store
Kodak photo shop
Ladbrokes:
Fancy dress hire shop
Clothes and accessories stores
Launderette (at a charge)
Cash point
Holiday Booking Shops
Nursery services (at a charge)
Guest Services
A spa experience (at a charge)
You can also hire mobility scooters and wheelchairs (but you have to mention this when booking) Quite expensive
Baby listening service (at a charge)
Crèche (at a charge)

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Outside Butlins: (Yes they do let you out)

At the back of the camp are large gates that bring you straight onto a soft sandy beach, Butlins own private beach.
There is a little rickety train (actually it's more like a tractor pulling three open carriages) it goes along the path by the beach to Ingoldmels for about £1 each way and runs about every 20 mins. The driver told us that his boss had bought the beach, and Butlins no longer owned it, although is still used by Butlins campers.
We did find that all along that stretch of beach, were thousands of tiny flies, they seemed to be everywhere.

Ingoldmels is a place to visit, with its huge fair, outdoor market under the big roller coaster, a big Ferris wheel and one of the biggest indoor markets in England. So they told us.

At the front gates of Butlins, turn left and drive about 3 miles into Skegness itself, either to the beach or to the shops, there is a good range of high street shops, pubs, restaurants, cafe's, car parks, a small shopping arcade, cinema and a little park with gardens.

If you turn right out of Butlins gates, Ingoldmels is a short distance (approx. 1 mile) if you keep going 2 miles you will come to Chapel St Leonard's, about 9 miles further on and you will reach Mablethorpe.

There are bus stops right outside Butlins that take you in both directions. Also outside Butlins is a pedestrian underpass that takes you under the busy road, to another part of Butlins.
This side is much quieter; it does have play areas, some outdoor sports facilities and an arcade, also a pub/clubhouse where the early evening Bingo takes place and later sequence dancing.
Most of the accommodation this side are caravans for hire and privately owned ones.

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Did I enjoy my week at Butlins? And will I go again?

Well I don't think I will be going back for a long time, if at all.
The accommodation was fine, the food was great, we were lucky to have good weather almost every day, the staff were friendly, most were helpful.

But, it was so noisy, we had two families above us, one family had 3 children that were like elephants and awake about 4am every morning, jumping up and down. The other family never came home much before 2-3 am.
Ok they were on holiday. But they banged, thumped, screamed, sang, shouted, argued and fell over.

Children are now allowed in all the venues (but two) until anytime of night, so you couldn't even have a quiet drink, fine if you have children. (Or earplugs)
The two places, children were not allowed in, never opened until 10 PM.

And meal times, especially breakfasts were like world war three breaking out…. Tired screaming children (who obviously were too tired to eat) and irate parents yelling at them.

In general the whole place was very busy and crowded, and as for queues..... Well I have never seen such long queues of people… Queues for fair rides, for toilets, for games, queues to have your photo taken with Billy bear, queues outside for dinner and breakfast (over half an hour before it opened) queues of cars to get out the gates. Some people even seemed to be queuing for no reason at all.

Maybe I am just getting old and want a relaxing holiday.
And this certainly wasn't relaxing!

Ok maybe I should have gone to Warner's its adults only there. NO Children allowed!

My two youngest grandsons would probably enjoy Butlins…. But I certainly won't be taking them! My sister in law takes her three little ones a couple of times a year.... But not for me I'm afraid.

At the bottom of this I had to tick Yes or No for potential buyers, I have actually ticked yes, because I feel it is probably a good place for families with children (if you like that kind of thing)

If there is anyone still reading. I thank you!

And for anyone interested here is a bit more information about Butlins's in general

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How Butlins's started

Billy Butlins opened the very first Butlins holiday camp in 1936 and it was in Skegness Lincolnshire
Over the next few years many more opened, Clacton in 1938 followed by Filey 1945, Pwlleli and Ayr 1947 Mosney 1948 Bognor Regis 1960 Minehead 1962 and finally Barry Island in 1966.
Clacton, Filey, Mosney, and. Barry island were either sold or closed in the 1980's Pwlleli and Ayr were sold or closed in 1998.

There are 3 remaining and they are Bognor, Skegness, and Minehead. Also a new Butlins Shoreline Hotel has just opened in Bognor.
Butlins did have hotels in Margate, Brighton and Blackpool.

Both Pwllheli and Skegness suffered fires in the early 70's but were refurbished and reopened.

Butlins Grand hotel in Margate also had a bad fire in the 90's and was closed for some time.
Butlins' famous Redcoats are the entertainment team and are easy to spot in their bright red jackets.
Most Butlins offer a range of accommodation in standard, Silver or gold, from self-catering to halfboard.

The more often you go to Butlins, the more offers you receive. For instance you receive a little card, each time you go you get it stamped. When you go a certain amount of times, you then become a Premier member and receive discounts on further bookings, early check in (2pm) a longer choice of meal times and vouchers to spend on the camp.

You can book a week Friday-Friday or short breaks… Frid to Mon 3 day breaks or Mon to Frid 4 day breaks.
Butlins also have Adult short breaks at certain times, and include such things as Motown weekends, 60's weekends, Rock and roll weekends.

Butlins has loads to offer families with children. Facilities differ slightly in each camp.

Thanks for reading… Heatherx