We are back and had a great time!
I'm going to do this in 2 posts otherwise its going to be stupidly long!
So first up the When you are back questions
Overall opinions from you and others in the family
We had a great time, there were a few negatives which I will get to later, and one or two even made it into the video diary, but over all every one was friendly, the activities provided were fun and engaging the shows brilliant and the kids just had an amazing time!
Describe your accommodation
We stayed in the Ocean hotel which was really nice. It was lovely and clean when we got there, I really couldn't fault any of the cleanliness standards at the point of arrival. So as you entered on the left there was the children's bedroom. 2 single beds in a bright pink room. There was a tv with an inbuilt DVD player on the wall and he children loved the novelty of being able to watch a DVD in bed. (we took DVDs with us, but you could hire DVD's free of charge from the reception desk, you just had to leave a deposit with them) The children's beds were too high for DD2 to climb into, however in the bathroom there was a toilet step which she commandeered as her own and carried it everywhere so she could climb up to the beds, sofa, chair etc! The disappointing thing about the children's bedroom was that there wasn't any storage space! there was a little plastic box provided under the beds, but it wasn't big enough to put clothes in, more like a box to contain shoes or toys. So all the clothes for 5 people had to fit in the main living area.
The bathroom was the next room and was lovely and modern, Tiled throughout with a rainfall shower. The only negatives in this room were that the shower door didn't quite reach the top of the bath so there was water leakage on the floor when you had a shower, so no leaving clothes on the floor as they will get wet. Secondly at busy times the shower would run hot and cold for a few seconds.
Next up was the main living area and master bedroom. In here there was a drawer unit for 3 drawers, 1 wardrobe for hanging space which also had an iron and ironing board, 1 wardrobe for shelves (which had 5 shelves, 1 was taken up by a safe and another by bedding, but we were able to move the spare bedding and put it under the beds instead.) The king size bed was very comfortable and was designed to store suitcases under it. There was a 2 seater sofa bed which again was very comfortable to sit on and a dressing table. under the dressing table was a cupboard that housed a very small fridge. It wasn't massive, but would have been big enough to house some bits and pieces to make sandwiches for lunch if you wanted.
finally was the balcony, we were sea facing and on the 4th floor and the view was just stunning! The room was surprisingly big enough to house our double side by side pushchair (we did have to shuffle some furniture by a few inches though, but not too much hassle). Overall it was a lovely little room, it could have done with more storage space, maybe with a couple of drawers under the children's bed for clothes.
Describe your dining experiences
Breakfast was a buffet style breakfast, serving a cooked breakfast, a continental breakfast and a pancake and omelette bar. The pancake and omelette wasn't staffed very well and I actually never saw anyone serving there, lots of people queueing at times, but no one serving. There were rarely queues for anything and lots of staff on hand so you could order coffee and tea (there were jugs of fruit juice and water) Included with the Hotel was a free character breakfast, you just had to book with the butlers. The butlers were keen to express that the breakfast was exactly the same even though it wasn't served at the hotel. It actually wasn't exactly the same, there was no continental breakfast option and no omelette bar, although there were pancakes being served. There was a machine for Coffee and Tea and also for the water and fruit juice. The character breakfast was a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed meeting Billy and Bonnie the bears and singing and dancing to the (really annoying and its now stuck in my head!) choclate song with tambourines.
The only down side was the Character breakfast was offered at 2 times, 9am and I think around 8am, the Hotel breakfast started being served at 7.30am, which seams reasonable enough. However, the parents and tots swim session (on Saturday) and also the hotel exclusive swim session (on Sunday) both started at 8.30am, it was a real squeeze to get fed and over to the swimming pool in time. (On Sunday we chose to go to the character breakfast and not swimming) It would have been useful to start breakfast just 30 minutes earlier, at 7am to make timings a little easier
(I've just realised I forgot to talk about dinner so I'm going to come back and talk about dinner in a minute, I've already been typing for an hour and the kids are getting bored!)
Did your break meet or exceed your expectations?
I think it exceeded expectation in some areas, the entertainment for example, I wasn't expecting there to be so much of it! In terms of accommodation again it exceeded expectations, but only because I'd heard bad things about it, in reality, it wasnt any more than what I would expect in decent family accommodation.
What activities have the kids enjoyed?
Going through the What's On Guide, there wasn't actually that many activities for the 2-5 year old age group (lots of entertainment though) the tots soccer, was on at 2.15-3pm which really was nap time for my children (especially considering the entertainment for them didn't even start till 7.45 some nights). There was also a fun and games activity the girls were looking froward to, but unfortunately I don't think the red coat running it really wanted to be there. Most of the children who turned up were on the 2 end of the 2-5 age bracket, they played a quick game of What's the time Mr Wolf, which went straight over most of their heads as they were too young! and then she decided that as 'only' 8 children had turned up there wasn't enough to play any more games, so she packed up and left. She left 8 very disappointed children and the parents were able to rally round and play a few more tag type games, but it would have been better to have the balls and parachutes she had packed up and taken with her.
What my children loved the most were playing in the fountains getting very very wet and also the little comedy acts that popped up. for example the gnomes that came to the fountains to fish and the builders that were tryng to fix the leaks! There was also a police officer that we saw and a farmer trying to catch is scarecrow's who had run away.
What activities/entertainment did you enjoy as a family?
A highlight was Mike the Knight as the girls love him on Cbeebies and we also loved the redcoat show (although did leave early as the girls were just too tired)
When it came to the entertainment we did feel that the person who had decided what times things should be on hadn't really considered the ages of the children and eating times! For example on the Saturday there was story time with Billy and Bonnie bear at 5-5.20, then at 6pm a photo shoot with Angelina Ballerina and at 6.30 the Skyline gang until 7.15. which meant that we could watch the story time, but then missed the skyline gang by the time we got back to the hotel, ate then got back out it would have already started/be half way through. It would have been better to have more earlier, then a break then have the skyline gang a little later.
Was there anything that surprised you about your break/Butlins?
After all the horror stories I'd heard I was surprised at how clean everything was. However I feel I have to mention a little indecent that happened, tht might make a few of you (a lot of you, hopefully all of you!) go eeewww. I was changing ds's nappy on the bed (using a changing mat) and typical boy wee'd as soon as I took his nappy off. it went all over the sheet of the bed. It wasn't a problem, I rang down to reception to tell them what had happened and ask them to change the sheets (we'd already had DD1 wet the bed the night before, the sheets and mattress protector were changed with out any fuss) the lady asked me if it had gone on the mattress, and it dawned on me there wasn't a mattress protector on the master bed (already my stomach was churning!). A cleaner came up to change the sheets and said, 'well the mattress is a little damp so we'll flip it over', he then asked dh to help flip the mattress and when he did we saw the blood, sweat and ...other stains from previous guests. I really didn't want to sleep on that bed again, but didn't have any choice! Up until that point I hadn't even considered there wouldn't be a mattress protector on the bed! It was a real low point and Butlins if you are reading this PLEASE invest in some mattress protectors for your master beds, no one wants to sleep in anyone else's wee, blood, sweat etc! Its actually what would stop us returning in the future, and if we were to return I would certainly be bringing my own!
Phew! that was long! Right I will be back later to answer the remaining questions and also fish talking about the dinner dining experience.