Butlin’s is the leading family resort in brand recognition, full of Shows, activities, a Swimming pool, a Fairground, Dining, and many more. A Range of accommodations often tailored to one of their three resorts, but with all this said it can be confusing with the price and options available and as time has gone by Butlin’s are seemingly going for a low price offer with “Bolt-ons” “extras” or whatever they can call it which adds more confusion, so let’s have a look.
Family Entertainment
Historically Butlin’s is known for there price, low value but great family entertainment with everything included for you two to enjoy your holiday, however, that time is kind of over. For the last few years, Butlin’s have begun to give options on their bookings, whether it be food, accommodation, activity, drinks, or even looking and changing your own details on your account! prices keep going up from that advertised price on the website.
Food
The first big option that has been around for a long while is food, ultimately you have two choices while eating at Butlin’s, either a dining plan or you buy and supply your own food, if your self-catering bring your own food and utilise the mini supermarket at the resorts can be a cheap option, remember there in towns that have local supermarkets. There are restaurants on site that can also make it easier, and with Burger King, Fish and Chips, Costa, Subway pub foods etc… you can eat out well.
However you can add a dining plan for adults and kids, these are two different prices and along with this there are two sets of dining plans to complicate it even further, I’ve eaten there and they are fine, they can be a safety net because you know your breakfast and Dinner are paid for. However, with obvious price rises for a family of 5, this can be pretty pricey and can cost more than your actual stay.
Drinks
A newer option is a drinks package, similar to the dining plan when you pay upfront, but this time its just for drinking around the resort, this includes selected drinks and selected venues, after a quick price check myself, its great value if you want to drink those drinks and your going drink a fair bit, beer can be over £5, costa can be £4, it quickly adds up, but again you have to stick to the selected and still drink a reasonable amount. If you’re celebrating a there big weekenders or a family that drinks its pretty good if you like the drinks on option.
Accommodation
Accommodation is a lengthy conversation, there are lots of choices, and in different resorts there are lots of different ones for that resort, adding to so many variations both in what a gold apartment is, or a lake chalet, or caravan, lodge, hotel room, etc… there is just so much. Based on certain weeks and certain times you can change again on different prices.
They even have the option where you can pick exactly where you stay or you let the Booking site choose automatically, this can be a little costly to choose yourself, but if you notice there are only a few spots left then, in reality, you will know where you will be roughly placed before booking. So once you have chosen your week, and you have chosen your accommodation you’re finally ready to pay the price you think you are, however, this can change and if the price changes you can request your money back….
Lots of Activities
Another change that happened a few years ago has been the activities, of course in the older days everything was built into the price, and even now they still emphasise some of the activities included in the price, kind of ignoring the fact that some are not. But as the years have gone on the arcades and playgrounds including the skyline park are obviously included, but not bowling, Go Karts, Golf, Laser Tag, Circus, some crafting, and high ropes, the new play experience among others are all not included. A variety of these can be booked when you get closer to your break, and Butlin’s have combined some of these into offers so you can prepay.
Budget and money
It may be advertised at low prices, and you can pay off instalments, these are all great but you need to understand going forward you either need to add these or look like ready to bolt on when you are there, I’m not being critical because I enjoy my time at Butlin’s but you have to be aware, for example even when we had to change an address on our account they wanted to charge £20 admin fee? which in today’s tech age is baffling. it’s one button, on most websites we can do it ourselves. when you add these things along with you can this extra and this extra it doesn’t give a great impression.
If you can get the holiday cheap this will be the best option because you will be probably adding on things, I’ve worked in retail for years, it a good business strategy to make money, and I’m not super against it, but we all need to be very prepared for this and they need to get better and promoting this, it’s not slick and can have issues.
Overall
I’ve been to Butlins many times and you might think reading this maybe I’m being too critical, but I think it fair that we are honest it what to expect, if you have been or not visited for a while there’s lots to take it, use there website because it’s important. But there’s a lot going on and you need to budget and plan well, whether it’s a big weekender of a family time away, as for us? we love Butlins and this hasn’t really detracted us from going, but we are planners and with all these tweaks in recent years its good to know what you are paying and how to bolt on if needed to.
