AIBU to have expected better from Butlins (and to say no to having a 'do over' break)

[Goldeh]

We took the DC on a break to Butlins. I went in with the expectation that it was going to be good fun, not a five star resort by any stretch of the imagination but nice enough. We booked a premium meal plan as part of our package.

We liked the entertainment, staff were good, and there were lots of activities to do. All positives.

But the 'premium' dining was abysmal to the point that one of the DC was just having crackers and we were buying their food elsewhere. Meanwhile the resort itself was so dirty that I'm surprised we didn't need travel jabs in order to go.

I'm not precious, I don't mind things looking lived in or wear and tear, I also understand that cleaning staff are only human and are doing their best, but I'm talking whole bin bags split open and strewn about and not cleaned up for days. This was coupled with people openly smoking weed in several areas of the resort to the point that our accommodation stank of it and reports to security did nothing to resolve it.

We spoke to guest services while there and followed-up with an email when we got home. I wasn't expecting a full refund or anything like that, I just wanted the problems with resort cleanliness to be acknowledged and perhaps a partial refund of the so-called premium meal plan to reflect the dining issues we told them about. The plan itself was just over £1000 and while I expected mass-catering style food, what we got did not reflect what was advertised and was not of premium quality.

Butlins have come back and offered us a free meal plan upgrade on a future break (i.e., book again with a meal plan and they'll upgrade that meal plan). We said in our feedback that the resort cleanliness and weed smell alone was enough to put us off coming back, never mind the food issues. We turned it down and they've basically said that's tough and it's all they're willing to offer.

DH is now suggesting we take them up on it I've said I'd rather shit in my hands and clap and it would probably still be a cleaner experience than that break was

AIBU to stick to my guns and say no? And AIBU to push this further with them about a partial refund of the meal plan?

Honestly, the activities and entertainment are great. I cannot fault the range of activities and shows or how well run they are by enthusiastic, helpful staff. DC did all sorts while we were there - t-shirt printing, pottery painting, arts and crafts, archery, football coaching, laser tag, target shooting, etc. We saw a panto, a music show, game show, an animal puppets show, acrobats. DC especially loved the funfair and it's all included in the price so they can ride as many times as they like. We went bowling, played pool, played darts, went on go-karts, did climbing walls, high ropes. That bit was all worth every penny, my issues are entirely about sub-standard food and resort hygiene.

YABU but only because you ask AIBU to have expected better from Butlins? The holiday sounds horrendous, absolutely YANBU to have hated it, BUT it’s Butlins and Butlins has had a terrible reputation for decades.

The meal plans are notorious there, they don't seem like good value for money or convenient. I self cater when we go there, occasionally getting a bit of take away

What I don’t understand is that Butlins is not actually that cheap. From what I understand (and in fairness I’ve never been so all second hand info) you can easily spend over £1.5k on a few days there. OP mentions a food plan that costs £1k?!! I do not understand why people pay that kind of money to stay in Bogner or Skegness. Not to mention a quick Google of reviews on e.g. TrustPilot shows 95% of reviewers give 1 star and describe things like human excrement smeared on walls, rubbish everyone, disgusting food, the place reeking of weed. Don’t most people read reviews before booking a holiday? I don’t get it.

We have just returned from a Euro Camp style place in France. It’s a 5 star resort and we stayed in a Premium cottage which cost £780 for the week. We paid £200 return on the shuttle. We did a big shop at the local Carrefour (spent about 200 euros) and have been eating cheap and delicious meals and food from the cheese, meat delis etc. The place is spotless and perfectly do-able with a budget of £1.5k as you can stay on a campsite pitch that costs around £300 rather than a cottage.

@Eastie77Returns it's true. The last time we went to butlins it was about £1300 for an Easter mid week break , no dining plan. The next year we went to centerparcs and paid £1500 for the easter weekend. Almost like for like in the butlins was a 3 bed apartment and cp was 3 bed woodland Lodge. Butlins was 4 nights , and cp 3. Many would disagree , but with butlins recent price hikes it no longer represents good value for money so we pay a little extra for cp. It depends what you're looking for , if you see value in the fairground then butlins obviously works better for you.

I can completely understand paying £1.5k for somewhere like CP. Again, haven’t stayed there but have visited the Spa at the Woburn CP and it looks nice, clean with lots to do.

When I read visitor reports of their stay at Butlins for a similar price involving awful food, substandard accommodation, other guests fighting etc I don’t know why people don’t just boycott the place and seek alternatives. How is the place still operating? My friend went to the one in Minehead and came home early after two days. The ‘highlight’ of her stay was finding used tampons in the swimming pool changing area and that was not the worst incident.

Yep, these places often aren’t actually that cheap once you add it all up. You can often spend the same or less to go somewhere in Europe with much higher standards, better food and a nicer clientele. Holidaying in this country is increasingly bad value for money generally. Grotty accommodation, shitty food, bad customer service, activities that cost an arm and a leg on top.

Problem is there is no other place in the uk that’s as good for children. Parents can loath the place but the children love it.

All the characters, the free fair ground, only decent pool at a holiday dark, big parks.

Center parcs has some things yes but it’s not aimed for 5 year old wanting to meet and great bob the builder or 10 year olds wanting fair ground rides.

If centre parcs was as fun as Butlins it would be a no brainer. Problem is Butlins also attracts the type of people who see no problem leaving their rubbish everywhere and treating like a doss house as it’s just a U.K. break in a poor location.

Butlins need to up its game and up its clientele but that normally means price hikes or becoming “boring”.

Other sites haven I’m eye balling you, need to up their pool game as apart from Hafan which ding ding is an ex Butlins is very poor and even Hafan doesn’t have a dot on current Butlins.

Any where that’s easy to get to, eye balling skeggy here, surrounded by a million caravan sites is going to be rougher than centre parcs but maybe more fun but definitely more rough around the edges.

I do wonder why Butlins pulled out of wales. It’s a lovely location ticking boxes for scenery maybe too hard or expensive for lots of guests to get to however.

I agree that Butlins is the ultimate UK break if your kids want to meet characters and use the fairground. I think the switch to cp was easy for us because our youngest is autistic and as he gets older he seems less able to cope with the sensory overload of somewhere like that. We also stay in more , and cook more so the bigger accommodation of cp just works better. The open , car free space is also a massive plus.

We did have lots of great butlins breaks with the older kids though before the standards of cleanliness started to slip and we genuinely didn't mind paying the premium for an Easter holiday there.

It's sad that things have got so bad.

I seem to be similar to a lot of people in that I do Butlins and CP but it's dependent on what I can afford that year. Will be doing CP in October half term, at double what I paid last year for Butlins in July; though I'm going to Germany in a couple of weeks for longer than we did at Butlins but it's cheaper in Berlin than Skegness. My kids have loved it, for the amount they can do, my youngest finds more to do there than at CP, but I've seen the standards slip as the kids have grown. However, last time we went to CP (2022) we noticed how a lot of things were left in disrepair and that had gone downhill too - I assumed Covid might have caused financial issues, I'm hoping they all get back up to scratch.

Standards have definitely slipped and it is sad because it could be such a great place. In my opinion, it needs a refurb and a spruce up as well as an increase is staffing levels so small issues can be addressed before they become large problems.

They've responded to my follow up email and have repeated that the only offer they're making is a free upgrade on a future dining plan. So if have to book a holiday, pay for some sort of dining plan, and they'd bump it up to the next level of dining plan. Basically, it'll cost me over £1000 to access this "apology".

No response from CEO yet.

@Goldeh I was someone saying upthread that I've had a good experience of Butlins, and that was mainly in response to people being snobby about it.

But Butlin's offer is not any good to you as an apology. When you've had a bad experience, who on earth wants to pay money to do it again. Hope you get somwhere with the CEO.

I'd ask if they'd offer you that same deal to go to the Butlin's in Bognor or Minehead. We've been to both and the premium dining at both are far better than you've described. Bognor, especially, always serves nice enough food.
I don't think they're going to offer you much better than what you've already been offered. I've certainly never seen rubbish strewn about at either resort either, like you've shown in the photos.

The thing is though, I don't want to go to Minehead or Bognor andi don't want to have to pay for another holiday just to access an upgraded dining plan. I want them to refund at least part of the dining plan I paid for that didn't meet what was advertised.

Put in a formal written complaint and tell them you plan to go to trading standards

Stick to your guns Butlins are being ridiculous, you deserve better, please don't back down.

Well I've had no further communication from customer services and no response at all from the CEO.

Definitely push it. We have done the toddler break for the last 3 years, randomly this year they put us & our friends (who were on the same booking as us) in completely different accommodation blocks. It completely detracts from holidaying together when we aren’t accommodated together plus we like to do a bit of baby sitting in the evenings for eachother, it made it impossible when the little ones were asleep. I phoned to get moved, even saying our friends would swap with the people opposite us who hadn’t arrived yet (which would have given the other people a room upgrade to a balcony) & Butlins wouldn’t even ask the other group. We did a meal plan this year for the first time too and also thought it was terrible. It was our worst year in terms of the chaos, agree we saw loads of rubbish every where etc. We aren’t going again next year. The only advice they could give us was complain after the holiday ended but we didn’t get around to it. Life is busy but since you’ve already started the complaints process, I’d say definitely stick firm with it!

eta, Bognor is the one we go to and standards are be where near what they were 3 years ago.

Butlins are members of ABTA.
Tell them you expect a response within the next 48 hours or you will be registering your complaint with ABTA.

I feel your frustration and as I think I said upthread quite a bit - speak to Trading Standards. They can assist with things like a holiday package not being as described.

They can advise on letter content and structure, and laws to quote. What your rights are. And what they are not! I would also suggest any letters you send require a signature eg to the CEO.

I did this in a similar situation after the holiday firm refused to budge - they soon budged. Also if you paid by card, you may be able to get a refund via that route - but get professional advice. I went down the card route and threatened Small Claims as advised by Trading Standards and funnily enough nearly ended up being refunded twice ie by the bank and by the holiday firm. I had to tell the latter that the former had already refunded. They just don’t want the hassle of third parties involved.

Good news! They finally got back to me and we've reached an agreement of a refund of 50% of the cost of the dining package. They're also going to leave the offer of a free dining upgrade on file on cas either do decide to return I'm happy with the 50% though and that it's now resolved.

That does sound like a good resolution!

In case anyone is reading, I posted earlier that I booked a day visit to Minehead due to this thread. I recommend not going on a Monday! Hardly anything is open, as it's mostly a changeover day.

The Splash Park was open, but only partially, so no lazy river and at least one of the chutes and some pool areas were closed.

Most restaurants weren't opening until dinner, so we were disappointed with the few options available for lunch.

No paid activities like archery, climbing wall, etc were available, despite the website showing lots of available slot times for that day. When I tried to book any of these slots, they showed as No Spaces Available.

The good thing was that there were no queues for the fairground rides - although 2 rides were closed. It wasn't noticeably dirty on the site either, but we didn't go to the accommodation areas.

We stayed at the Premier Inn within walking distance and were going to book 2 day visits, but didn't see the point in adding a second day after the disappointment. So we enjoyed the sunshine on Minehead Beach instead.

That's brilliant op.

Op I ve seen many threads over the years on Butlins and awful acmd: seamon stained sheets , fag butts ,vomit in rooms and no one caring.

It's a large faceless business within a business I just wouldn't trust it

Save your money next year and go somewhere like park Astrix , efteling or even Europa park where there are incredibly high standards all around