Qype: Butlins in Bognor Regis

Bognor Regis - Travel & Hotels - Holiday Parks

I visited this camp a couple of years ago for an SF convention. I won’t go into that (it had its own problems), but the venue was a nightmare.

I was sharing with a friend who uses a wheelchair: she can walk short distances, but has chronic severe pain, is sensitive to cold and has sleeping problems. On arrival at the station we found out that the ‘accessible’ taxis could only take folding chairs, not her powered one, so we had to make our own way to the camp. Not too much fun with heavy bags to carry.

We’d been told that the convention goers would have their own area of villas, well away from other groups using the camp that weekend. Our ‘accessible’ chalet was tiny. Getting the chair in and out was like doing one of those puzzles where you slide bricks about and it had to be left, basically, in the way. It was cold (yes, it was winter, but we’d been told the heating would be up to it) and the sliding door to the loo had to be lifted up so my friend couldn’t close it unless I was around to open it again for her. (We also discovered we both snore, and spent the night alternately keeping each other awake, but I guess that’s not the venue’s fault… except we’d had to push the beds together to get the chair in…)

The second day we did get moved to a newly built accessible two bedroom chalet, which was much nicer. 2 bedrooms, HUGE bathroom, (wet room style so the shower could be used with a chair or a fold-down seat), living room with kitchen. Pretty amazing! (Though I did have to pin some towels over the bathroom windows: staff gave me the pins!). Unfortunately it’s there we discovered the other major problem…

The other big group there that weekend was for Butlin’s own ‘adults only’ weekend. Basically stags, hens and others up for mayhem. Don’t get me wrong, SF fans can party. Some of us even drink, and miss the morning talks because we’ve been up all night. And people have been known to get injured while dancing to ‘Star Trekkin’ (I’m serious, someone had to go to hospital at one con I went to, and I’ve had bruises myself). But generally we party in the party area, are fairly quiet on the way back to our rooms, don’t play loud music there and shut up if asked.

Anyway, we basically got kept up every night after by upstair’s loud music and what sounded like acrobatic displays complete with thumping and cheers (though they were too drunk for that), and had to call security several times to shut them up. We didn’t have the energy to ask for another move. And it probably wouldn’t have helped… Back in the SF con’s allocated accommodation area they had people from the other group passing through on their way home. Shouting, screaming and banging on all the doors as they went. Very scary apparently. Some friends came back one night to find a couple banging on their doorstep, and in this case I don’t mean knocking.

If that wasn’t enough, we shared some venues. Our talks hall was used for their disco at night. One day I went to kneel in the aisle to take a picture and felt a wet patch. Though it had been slightly cleaned there was still enough vomit in the carpet to leave a lovely pink patch on my jeans. On the last morning I did actually (not politely) ask someone I saw coming out upstairs if they minded they’d wrecked our weekend, to which the (also not polite) response was that no, he just wanted to get laid (he put it somewhat less delicately). Though they were a load of louts, I have to lay the blame with Butlins. They’d come expecting to be able to ‘live it up’ all weekend, so being told to shut up must have been annoying. They’d also been giving a list of venues available to them, some of which were actually used by us in the evenings, so they’d got short changed on that too.

As for general facilities… the swimming area was open, but only the same hours as con talks were on, so I never got to use it. For food there were some fast food type places, a supermarket, and a canteen where we got some meals included. I thought the canteen wasn’t bad: a bit institutional of course, but a good range of food choices. Some people hated it, but I’ve had a lot worse. The outside attractions were closed. The big fun fair / amusements type area was open, and was often the quickest route to other places. Clever! While Butlins might be cheap to stay at, this was a total money trap, with coin slots everywhere! Parents taking children, beware…

Generally I found the staff absolutely lovely, and it’s thanks to them this place scrapes 2 stars. (Added note: I did write this before seeing the other reviewers were ex-staff!) However I did rather get the feeling that they knew we’d been screwed, and there was nothing they could do about it. Head office didn’t care.

Check out my review of Butlins - I am moonrising - on Qype