Butlins - Kids Love it, Parents Pay for it (Butlins (Bognor Regis))

Name: flyingsparks

Hello doyoo user, You have to be logged in to use these functions... Login or register Close window

Send message to member

Product:	Butlins (Bognor Regis)
Date:	18/03/07 (1238 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Keeps the kids entertained for hours.

Disadvantages: Noisy, too much queuing

"I want to be a Redcoat and dance with Billy Bear" - The big idea of Butlins is that Redcoats are always available to provide structured entertainment sessions for your children. This relieves you of the burden of having to keep your children occupied for hour after hour.

This is a great theory but it does have certain drawbacks. In order to move children from activity to activity there is in general a lot of rushing between activities, only to spend time queuing when you get there. In many ways the whole place reminded me of an army camp. There were tickets and passes to get in and out of the camp, set times to eat, and set times for each activity. There is even a big wire fence around the place with gated guard posts you have to pass through to get out to the real world.

I stayed at Butlins for three days, I was part of a mixed party which included five adults and two young children, and before I describe my own experience I want to say that the children loved every minute of the weekend there, they got to do a whole range of craft and fun activities that they would never have had the opportunity to do elsewhere. One little girl I was with spent the entire weekend enthralled by the free puppet shows provided every few hours.

My experience of the place was a little different. The first problem was the weather, it is not Butlins fault that it rained solidly for the entire three days but it did mean that our use of their outdoor facilities was severely curtailed, forcing us to spend most of our time in the main pavilion area of the camp.

We arrived at Butlins on the Friday night and after finding somewhere to park, we then had a ask our way to the central registration area where we were allocated our accommodation.
The room was adequate although sparsely furnished. We stayed in the standard accommodation and there are tea and coffee facilities provided, but no towels for the bathroom. The walls are also very thin and noise carries a long way.
The first problem we had was in getting our bags to the room. Parking is some distance from the accommodation and there are two few trolleys provided, this meant a long walk through the pouring rain carrying our bags. They could also do with better drainage as many of the paths around the complex turned into mini lakes and became impassable that weekend.

The range of activities for the children was good, and for the most part the Redcoats seemed well organised, although there was one activity had was very poorly managed. I think the idea had been to take the children outside to do various different things but because of the weather everything they tried to take the children on was either closed, or the children they had were too small to go on the funfair ride. This led to a couple of Redcoats wandering around with a group of disgruntled children and mothers for about 25 minutes!!

In the evenings there is a choice of entertainment. There is central stage, Reds, or the Skyline. It's best just to consult your program and see who is performing where every night. Just remember to turn up early, or you will get stuck so far at the back that you won't see anything.

Aside from the organised activities there are other attractions on site, there is a cinema, a bowling alley, a swimming pool, and a funfair. The last two are included in your admission price, but the first two are not and you should expect to pay standard commercial prices for them.
The only other things you can do with your time are drink coffee in the vastly overpriced cafe's that abound at Butlins, or spend a small fortune on the arcade games that the central pavilion is filled with. Instead of prizes these machines issue tickets which you have to feed into a ticket eating machine which will issue you with a receipt that you can then exchange for some small prizes (probably worth less than the £1 you paid for the machine).

The other major problem that I have with Butlins is the noise. This noise hits you like a wave as you enter the Skyline and it continues non-stop until you finally escape through the security barrier and head for home. I'm sure it must be possible to lower the volume to a level where you can talk to the person next to you without shouting, but Butlins have clearly not discovered how to do this.

For me the best part of the Butlins experience was the food. There was a superb choice of food, and because you could collect the food yourself you can mix and match and eat as much as you want.

If I was rating Butlins as an experience for children I would give it a five star rating, as an experience for parents I would have to give it a two star rating. As this is an experience that has to be shared by both groups I am compromising with a four star rating.

Summary: Great for kids, but parents will find it noisy, expensive, and exhausting.