Butlins experts - advice needed :-)

[Tryingtodoitall]

Hi... we're going to Butlins in Minehead for the first time on Monday for 4 nights. When I booked it I didn't bother with the dining plan but now I'm wondering whether I should have. The premium plan works out at £237 for me, DH, 4 year old DS, 2 year old DS and 9 month old DD.

For those who have been already, did you do the dining plan? Was it worth? Or is it better to pay as you go?!

I love the premium dining plan. The basic one is just that - basic ....

Are you in a room or an apartment?

We've done the room and premium dining combination and found the food pretty good actually - nothing super adventurous but pub type food, plenty the kids would eat. Only downside for me was that dinner is very early, 4-7pm, and on holiday we tend to want to run later. Plus we did then tend to eat out every lunch time as there are no kitchen facilities in the room - however Morrison's is a 10 minute walk and the cafe there is cheap!

If you have an apartment I would mostly feed yourselves and then you can choose to eat out - nice to eat in restaurants in Minehead as well as the chicken place, pizza, diner on resort. Avoid eating at the pub though - shit expensive Wetherspoon's food!

Thanks for your replies! We're staying in one of the lakeside chalet type places - I think they've got self catering facilities...q

We stayed there last year in the lakeside chalet and we went to morissons got all our food and ate when it suited us which seemed much easier. We did go to the diner once as the kids wanted to try the milkshakes ! It's great there we had a lovely time. Going to Bognor this year as the only thing we found with minehead was the lack of spa meant 15 y o dd1 was very bored !

I wouldn't recommend the bognor one at all, we just got back and it was full of rules, everything closed early, staff miserable, found a used condom on arrival! Our bathroom mirror had swear words on it... we didn't do dining plan but ate in the premium buffet once and it was awful. I've heard the Minehead and Skegness ones are not as bad tho to be fair i would still not buy the plan and bring some bread cereal etc as we had breakfast in apartment each morning and was lots easier.

Oh dear sounds worrying! What rules were there ? Sounds a bit odd !
Shame things closed early ? At minehead it all seemed open very late and staff v cheerful

Downstairsmixup that all sounds awful - sorry you had such a bad time!

Cantdothisagain really glad to hear you've been to the same accommodation as us and found it good. I'm starting to sway towards not doing the dining plans, doing a shop at Morrison's when we arrive and eating out when the feelings takes us

We found that worked best for us, just being able to eat when we wanted made it easier and the dcs have a few allergies so it saved us faffing about eating out trying to work out what they could/couldn't have !
The accommodation was lovely and the daily housekeeping really helped although it was a bit annoying it wasn't a set time each day buu that was only an issue for us as dd1 wanted to sleep in

I'd say the dining plan is good value if you were planning to eat all your meals out anyway, but if you have self catering facilities do that and eat out when you fancy it. We did a Morrison's shop when we got there then had a couple of lunches and dinners out.

If you have self catering facilities take food with you and you can set your own pace and eat out when you want to.

Swimming and fairground soft play all closed at 5pm. Literally after that time it was repeated shows, the arcades or the Park outside the beachcomber Inn!

Rules were just daft. Couldn't go on helter skelter without long sleeves, it was baking hot so none of us had jumpers with us or cardis que tantrums. Dodgems my 8 year old couldn't drive (never had it anywhere else) 3 year old wasn't allowed on full stop! Swimming i couldnt swim up the not very deep end with my toddler in his ring, also wasn't allowed on the todder water slides with him. He was about 2cm under the height for the other bit of soft play so couldn't play with his brother. Then we wanted to hire a cycling go kar. Again youngest was "too small" by this point we had enough. Dh and eldest hired it and we met them round the corner and jumped on. Kids had a whale of a time. Smoking designated areas all over but people still smoked all over the park dropping ming fag butts everywhere, staff walking past not enforcing anything. Was not a week of fun !

I took my DCs to Butlins Minehead a couple of years ago on my own and had the premium plan. I have to say it worked brilliantly for me, mainly just for ease. Loads of choice, all self service so they could go up and pick whatever they wanted and if they didnt like it then just picked something else. Ate loads so could skip lunch. This was the first time I had felt brave enough to take the children away on holiday on my own so for me it just took away a lot of additional stress.

Downstairsmixup I'm afraid to say after having been, my review is very very similar to yours. But the kids had a great time and at least we know now that it's not for us !!