To be suprised at Butlins and their lack of neurodiverse awareness?

So OP didn't make reasonable adjustments by choosing to take DC to a loud bawdy kids fun holiday park and is complaining that the loud bawdy kids fun holiday park should have made them instead.

Lots of museums hold an other early morning or evening quiet sessions now - def check them out! DD also hates crowds but loves museums. It guarantees there will be no school groups at least!

edit - just seen the early sessions mentioned but def keep an eye for evenings!

@Dandelionzebra shes a teenager now. We visit London on the school holidays (grandparents) but Zone 6. She basically loves museums but hates crowds!

If she likes the animals and you’re London based the horniman museum has a collection of taxidermy animals, sometimes has arts and crafts activities on Saturdays and has a big garden and isn’t normally very busy (there are usually a lot of toddlers around so not great if she doesn’t like little kids). Probably not worth a trip into London if you aren’t based nearby as it’s only a small collection and a bit of an awkward location to get to.

If it’s the dinosaurs she likes - Term time weekends in autumn/winter at the natural history museum seem to be quieter from our experience (less city-break tourists and no school holiday crowds) - so might be your best bet if you haven’t got an inset day at a convenient time. The science museum is literally next door and usually nowhere near as busy so we often do a quick run into see the dinosaurs for about half an hour then head over to the science museum where there’s lots more interactive stuff and you don’t have to battle through crowds and stay there for the rest of the day.

This thread inspired me to look at the Natural History Museum in London, one of DDs favourite places but that she can't visit. Turns out, there are some special sessions that would be perfect for her. 5 times a year, they open at 8am for 2 hrs for ND children.

Unfortunately we can't get to centre of London for 8am... but they are trying.
(An after hours session would work better for her really.)

music festivals cater for 100k people. Still manage to be inclusive.

I mean if you don't like loud you don't like loud. busy is difficult, it's difficult. I wouldn’t go to a music festival any more than I would go to buttons. I wouldn't cope with it. It's not for me. People shouting about 'inclusivity' seem to have missed the fact that when people don't like doing certain things, it's ok to simply not do them. That works for both people with disabilities and these without. Quite often I have well meaning people saying 'oh I bet you wish you could do X/Y/Z, it's a shame the wonders can't make that possible' when actually what I really want is to do A/B/C.

And what’s your point?

music festivals cater for 100k people. Still manage to be inclusive.

genuinely baffling how on a parents site, so many people so quick to try and defend a family resort not being inclusive to FAMILIES.

gross behaviour.

have to ask yourself why your so quick to defend a company that already does make adjustments but obviously needs to improve?

They're not holiday resorts, though, are they? Butlins will have thousands of families with kids.

8year old son autistic and adhd. He loved butlins but we make the accommodations. We don't go to the shows as he struggles with noise, we arrive on time or slightly late to the disco so it is on. We don't go swimming as it is too overwhelming. But he loves the arcade, the shows on the main stage as they are not so loud and in the dark, he adores the puppet shows and the meet and greets with the characters as long as one of us is with him. He has never done soft play as it is too loud, he loves the rides but wants to go on the younger ones but is now too big so we don't go near them! We use it as a base, have a day in butlins then go out and about to places he will cope with/. We went to the dinosaur park last year and he loved it! We also go out of school holidays. He attends a specialist school and they allow us one holiday a year in school time. We would of course pay the fine if we were fined! But so far it has worked out fine. We have had some issues and it has been trial and error, but we love butlins overall as he can run around and not get into danger with traffic, he can be a bit more independent and he loves the red coats!!!

Sorry so many typos above!

Also, there is nothing in my post to say autistic kids don’t need to learn to swim for example. Of course they should. And there are great wquiet slots available at pools across the club try which work so much better. But peak holiday season in a resort like butlins will find it really hard to make those kind of adjustments for the few in their business model. There are too many people on site lining up for their turn to limit the pool for an hour a day to a handful of people (unless they wanted to charge for the privilege which would seem even more ablist to me…)

I’ve said earlier that we have autistic family members so I really DO get it thank you very much. As I said, my nephews tastes are very different to mine - a fun day out us riding the buses or trains to terminus and back. We adjust our lives to his likes but never in a million years would choose it for ourselves as something we want to spend our days doing.

Surely this is a switch of that? He would be adjusting his preferences to live in a NT world but it isn’t something he would choose, even with adjustments. It’s not his “thing” to go to a noisy chaotic place. There’s nothing wrong in that. I wouldnt want to go to an all night rave - it’s not my thing. I would choose something else to do instead rather than find a way to get through.

I haven’t said there should be no adjustments and as some posters have said, their ND children DO like these kind of places. It was just another view point that hadn’t been considered yet Thst maybe if we ASKED the autistic community instead of assuming that they want what a NT Community consider to be fun then The answers might be different. I’m not saying I’m right or wrong, just that it’s the NT community calling for the adjustments here. Maybe instead we should be looking at developing an entirely different model of holiday camp which is predominantly geared towards broad autistic preferences (and yes I know that’s a broad brush approach but you have to start somewhere) with adjustments for the NT community within it rather than the other way around. Or maybe Butlins offers a quiet week each year where they switch their model the other way around?

I also believe that parenting an autistic child has made me a better person. I am much more considerate of other people, much less judgemental, and I have my lovely son to thank for that. He is absolutely gorgeous and a delight to have around, he just needs a bit more consideration of the environment he is in than other kids might.

Google number one cause of death in autistic children and you come up with “drowning” - we absolutely must be teaching our autistic kids to swim and therefore need to take them to swimming pools. @surreygirl1987 is spot on. I too have an ND child and also NT children and have taken them all swimming together - it can happen and it should happen. Accommodating ND children/adults doesn’t necessarily require massive adjustments, just a bit of consideration from others which surely is not difficult.

I agree there with op, why can’t there be some quieter shows as neurodiverse or not, not all children like really loud noise. When we went to Hoburne recently they had a quieter wet and wild inflatable session in the pool. The music wasn’t so loud so more enjoyable for kids that are sensitive which was great!

Butlins have a silent movie, they also have the sky park which is sensory, they also have fast track passes if you don't want to queue, that also have chalets that are disability friendly with car parking space right next to them, the whole site is accessible, surely that's a lot more than some other holiday companies do?

@Dandelionzebra I was just thinking Blue stone too. Lots to see around that area too.

I don’t think my 2 yr old daughter is autistic but she gets easily overwhelmed by loud/busy situations as do many children. I think you’re expecting the wrong things. A quiet place with peaceful activities and space would be more appropriate

Friday swimming in quieter in theory and also in actual numbers but we did a 7 night Butlins break last year at minehead and went on the Friday and they shut the lazy river and a section of the pool, presumably as there’s less people they want to pay for less life guards, so although there are less people they are crammed into a smaller area so it feels just as busy. Queues for slides were less busy though

Of FGS 🙄

Butlins does have a silent movie evening in the pavilion. You use headphones. Op’s dgd would probably be too young for that.

Friday swimming is significantly quieter than any other day.

the puppet show isn't loud and has a much smaller number of children watching than other shows.

there are lots of sessions, for example craft ones and sports ones, that are bookable with small numbers.

the problem seems to be the choice of activities. You chose loud and busy ones.

We’ve been to haven in the past which we’ve enjoyed.
the trick has been to keep your expectations low & keep to what’s achievable for her.

my ds loves the beach & swimming, so we’ve managed that-it’s usually quieter in the pool first thing so we’ve booked the earliest slot.

he absolutely won’t tolerate any kind of show or evening entertainment so we’ve taken other things to do in the evening & tried bowling or mini golf etc where he was able.

we don’t eat out & either cook in the caravan or buy take away.

swimming in centre parcs was amazing so definitely look into that if you can stretch to it.

if you’re in the north west look up a charity called the a world. They organise lots of different autism only days out. We’ve had some cracking times with them.

OP, it is NOT your fault for expecting the world to be more inclusive. Please don't take the fault for this. Remrmber that the majority of posters on here likely are not parents of autistic children and if they were, some may feel differently. Writing a review is great, as it will raise awareness to Butlins (if they read it) but will also be useful for parents of ASD children if they are considering booking a holiday there. I, for one, won't be (much to the frustration if my other, NT, son). But that does not mean I don't think Butlins shouldn't be doing a better job of being more inclusive. There are so many relatively minor changes they could make that could have such a positive impact.

My son is the same age as yours and I agree that I wouldn't take him to Butlins either as I know what it's like... but that should not stop people fighting for a more inclusive world. As parents, we should always expect disabilities to be catered for.

I think you may have missed the point; they might want to attend, IF it was more autism-friendly!

For those of you saying we shouldn't try to include ND kids in a NT world, shame on you. As an educational researcher, I can confidently state that in many (of course not all) cases, relatively small adjustments can enable ND kids to enjoy a grest many experiences they may not otherwise be able to access. We should be promoting inclusion, not exclusion. We also have to remember that some ND kids have NT siblings. I have a ND and a NT son. They are chalk and cheese. Surely we can provide a world where they can co-exist happily, without needing to avoid places like 'swimming pools' as one poster so ignorantly suggested!