Anyone had problems with Butlins in Skegness?

[Chiccadum]

Has anybody recently had problems with Butlins since they have had a change round. We booked and paid for our holiday for this year last June and we have just been told that the accomodation we wanted this year is no longer available.

Don't know when the change was, but we have been there twice. The first time was for the opening of the new style accommodation,and cost is £15 each! We had never been before and were upgraded to the new buildings for booking so early, and had a really good time.
The second time we booked expecting it to be as good ad the last and were really disappointed, from the standard of the rooms to the food, cost of everything and the general shabbiness and unhelpfulness of the staff. Having said that the kids had a great time (except for ds1 who got punched to the ground by another boy - ds was 2 1/2 at the time - which meant I had to have a stand up argument with his mum who thought it was no big deal her son should be sitting on mine punching him in the face)and are always begging us to go back. I think Skegness is miles and away better than the one at Minehead though, for which we got a full refund because of the state of the place!

Sorry if this is a bit depressing!

On the plus side there are a lot of mini shows in the day to jeep kids entertained, and if yours are old enough they can go to the kid clubs and be left for a couple of hours. The swimming pool is great if everything is up and running, and you avoid going in the peak times,and they have a creche. But you probably already know this if you have been before.

Tbh I don't think we will be going again though.

I definatley agree about Skegness being better than Minehead, we went to Skegness last year and really enjoyed ourselves which is why we have booked for 2 weeks this year. We have been upgraded now to the Gold accomodation which is new as from April, bit annoyed though as where we had originally booked was over the road from the beach and where we have been moved to although the accomodation is supposed to be the best it is at least 10-15 minutes walk with 2 children from the beach

What's the gold accommodation? Is it the wooden clapboard buildings or have they built new ones?

As far as i know they are the old Gallert apartments but all revamped. They have maid service, own parking space, widescreen tv, dvd player, tele in bedroom, large squashy sofas, towels all bedding included, hairdryer safe, etc. I'm still waiting for some more info at present.

Wow, sounds like they are really going to town!

I still the price we paid for what we are getting is a good deal, the main thing i am annoyed about is the fact that we will not have a bath therefore we will be struggling on that aspect for 2 weeks having to sit dd1 and dd2 in the shower tray. I don't know if there have been any more changes to the site. Apparantly the Minehead resort was going to be closed down as for the past 3 years there has been a vicious bug that hit it a few times leaving holiday makers really really ill with temperatures, vomiting and the runs, don't know whether they will shut it down though. I know the restaurant for half-board has now changed, last year (we were self-catering and got told) it was waitress service and this year it's all going to be self service.

That's interesting, my brother and SIL went to a Christian weekend thing at Minehead Butlins last year, and were both struck down with the type of bug you describe. It was particularly unpleasant for my SIL as she was suffering from it when they left. There was some problem which left the M5 unusable, and they had to sit in the car for 7 hours (going to Mid-Wales) with her vomiting and pooing where she sat. Their dd was making comments like "what's that horrid smell Daddy".

emsiewill, it has been in the papers although not in great detail. I got speaking to someone who went to Minehead in 2001 and said her, her dh and 3 children all got it, she said the staff were most unhelpful and didn't seem interested. It makes you wonder what sort of bug it is.

We went to minehead in April 99, it was supposed to be a birthday treat for my daughter, paid for by my mum, who had died 6 weeks before. The first flat we were given we couldnt get into, then when we finally found a key that fitted we walked straight out again and asked for another one. They put us right opposite the warehouses, which meant we were woken at 6 am avery day by trucks revving and reversing with their sirens blasting. We found mushrooms growing in the lounge area, the window didn't shut properly, and we had an infestation of ants.

When I complained to customer services they told me that as they were built on marshland what did I expect?!

Anyway I kicked up a huge fuss, and they said they would sort it out. I asked them to move us as we had a 4 month old baby at the time, and thought it couldn't be good for him. Got back to the room to find they had been in and sprayed everywhere with a really toxic smelling pesticide/fungicide (still not sure what it was). It was making my eyes water and as we couldn't leave the windows open without risking everything being stolen we were stuck.Went storming down to customer services again and refused to leave until I saw the manager. He seemed to think there was nothing wrong with sitting in a room full of chemicals, so we told him what we thought of the place and left a few days early. When I got back home i wrote a stiff letter to hq and although they refused to admit the conditions were not up to scratch, I was given a full refund.

Apart from the accommodation the facilities were only running at half speed too. The children's activities I was told would be open, weren't, and there were plenty of other gripes. We ended up going out at night to eat or cooking for ourselves, because we couldn't face another greasy fried burger and chips! Would have killed for a salad there.

And I thought the other guests there were the rudest I have ever come across; refusing to wait their turn for rides, adults pushing my daughter out of the way so their kids could get in first, refusing to share rides. What a nightmare!

it makes you wonder why they keep places like that open. The only argument i had was last year, when you play certain games you get tickets and at the end of your stay you redeem these, my dh and I had been standing in line for 1hr when this woman and her two sons pushed straight in front of us becuase 'her daughter' was queing, if she had given her daughter the tickets i wouldn't have minded so much, but it was so blatant that she was just wanting to get in front, i'd had enough at this time, i was tired, the minibus was late and i wanted my own bed so i had a go, all the other people in the queue applauded when she went to the back of the queue, i am sometimes amazed at the cheek and audacity of some people.

Lou what a horrible experience for you.I'm so glad you got a refund out of them.It must have improved there since then as we went in the Feb of 2000.The pool was lovely as we were told it was new and it's always the main attraction of the place.our accommodation was very nice.We were quite a long walk from the main area though.We only had the burger king food-probably just as well.The only thing that bugged me was I got completely lost the night we left tryng to find the car park and there were no staff around at all anywhere.I never have had a good sense of direction.Shall be trying the Bognor one sometime this year-any horror stories?

Things are going from bad to worse, with our so-called up grade, i have been informed that alot of the extras we paid for in the Deluxe are now no longer available and we no longer have our own car parking space. As far as i am concerned Gold (which we have been upgraded to should have everything the same as offered in deluxe with extras, the main thing is that there is no bath for dd1 & dd2 and neither like showers, any tips on how to keep them from squawking when it;s bath time.