Butlin’s Minehead Review – Easter Holidays 2018

Butlin’s
Minehead
26-30 April 2018

Here at Chopsy Baby, we are fairly strong advocates of Butlin’s in Minehead as a generally good UK holiday destination. The resort has changed a lot during the eight years we have been going. It’s fresher, full of activities both free and paid for and clearly prides itself on being a family centred venue with high standards. The resort is spotless, well cultivated and apart from the speedsters on the Dino carts, quite safe.

If you go regularly, you will notice how the once cheap and cheerful accommodation has been redeveloped – or ignored. Gold apartments are now swish affairs with balconies or patios. New lodges nestle near Splash Waterworld and silver apartments are next on the poshify list.

Top of the range chalets at premium prices overlook rows of sad, standard accommodation, making Butlin’s holidays a rather two tiered experience and suddenly, a clear class divide.

As a usually brand loyal family based in Bristol, Butlin’s in Minehead is easy to get to by public transport. It’s not far away and has a lovely beach. It’s also not the pollutionfest of inner city Bristol. We prefer to stick to basic accommodation – or rather, we’re stuck with holiday premium prices having kicked the arse out of term time holidays – and spend any additional money on activities such as archery, arts and crafts and bowling.

But basic accommodation shouldn’t mean it looks like a murder scene from Dexter. Basic accommodation should be clean, without blood spatter and not be dangerously near something I would expect from Pontin’s at Brean Sands.

 

Now did we complain about this? No. Because really what is the point? We weren’t surprise guests turning up to annoy in-laws. We’d booked a break, paid for the break and were given room keys. Butlin’s knew the room was this shoddy and because we knew it was shoddy, we didn’t notice the following for 24 hours, which we did complain about…

This is blood sprayed around one of the bedrooms. It was down the back of the door, across walls, on the radiator and initially not noticeable because the rooms were dingy and stained. Now, not only did we have rundown rooms, we had murder rooms. Whilst this should have been noticed and cleaned by Butlin’s staff, what kind of person sprays blood everywhere and makes no attempt to clean it? From the amount and coverage, probably someone being carted off to hospital with a hole in their carotid artery.

After ringing customer services, someone did come to clean the blood off of the walls.

Perhaps when things go wrong on first arrival, it becomes a chain reaction of disaster. After a fairly lengthy journey across Somerset, I popped to the bakery to get some food for my children. This ill thought out junk food attempt came back to bite me on the arse when one of my children discovered plastic chunks in the sausage roll he was eating.

Did I complain? Yes. Contaminants like this in food are bad. Hopefully, this is being traced back along the list of suppliers. I was given my money back for the plastic roll after declining a replacement from the other potential plastic rolls on sale.

 

Could the weekend get any worse? After blood spatter, Brean Sands style accommodation and plastic food you’d think not. But, unless you like your family entertainment with a touch of bigotry, then yes, yes it did. In fairness, I should have walked out when I realised the Circus Hilarious show was created by the same people behind Lights, Camera, Laughter, a show I had walked out of before due to a really inappropriate disablist joke.

But no, my seven year old wanted to watch it and being the hero that I am, was forced to endure a show that made fun of nearly every protected characteristic possible. It was transphobic (perhaps Clive Web and Danny Adams are secret Mumsnetters) homophobic, sexist and made a really inappropriate joke about sexually assaulting women. According to my ten year old, there were too many jokes about penises and nothing was funny.

Two years’ ago when I did complain about the disablism in the previous Webb and Adams’ show, Butlin’s customer service told me the show was based on old fashioned seaside humour, which wasn’t compatible with me. Well actually no, I just don’t think making fun of others for being different is acceptable in 2018 and sexual assault is never something to laugh at.

Amongst the feral, fighting children in the Beachcomber park and the adults effing and blinding at each other and boasting about who had the most arrests last month, we did have a good time.

The old Sun and Moon pub has gone. Good. We went in there once and it was like a cross between a hungover hen party and people who had been kicked out of a betting shop in Bedminster. Now it’s much fresher, cleaner and the horrid down market pub vibe has gone.

The water in Splash Waterworld seemed much cleaner this time and didn’t smell like something had died part way around the lazy river. We were lucky not to encounter the leaked contents of poo nappies, which is a rarity these days.

But what on earth goes through people’s minds in the changing rooms? Do they think?: Right! I must get Lily Mae, Charlotte Mae and Mae Mae changed, then throw under the seat two dirty nappies, a gusset protector from my new swimming costume, half an eaten Jaffa Cake and two empty cartons of apple juice with a handful of my pubic hair.

Butlin’s needs more visual signs around the resort. This is specifically for those adults who cannot read. We managed to pick out the words that scooters are not allowed to be knocking people down in the Skyline. Others did not. Perhaps present these simple rules in the style of Biff, Chip and Kipper.

How about signs with simplified big words and big pictures for adults who think racing family Dino carts at speed through groups of people is fine?

Loudspeaker warnings for parents to get up off their arse, rest the pint down and check that their child isn’t beating seven bells out of someone else’s child on the slide.

Or better still, underneath the Butlin’s sign at the entrance, perhaps a new strapline: Butlin’s – Don’t Behave Like Asshats.

For all its faults, and this time there were many, we will come back. It’s cheapish, it’s convenient, Minehead is close to Bristol and it’s generally family friendly.

It won’t be a surprise visit Butlins! We have booked. That gives you plenty of time to remove DNA from standard accommodation.

Note: This was a paid for family holiday

 

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