As Butlins turns 90 – is it still a budget-friendly family break?

“There are four pirate hats,” my five-year-old daughter offers enthusiastically, as I’m fumbling various numbers into a lock in an attempt to free ropes attached to iron bars trapping us in a small room.

We’re inside one of the four escape rooms at the indoor Playxperience at Butlins, Bognor Regis, each with a different theme, this one being stories of mysterious pirates and a search for hidden treasure – perfect for younger children, but (embarrassingly) as difficult for adults. Her grandparents and I are just as stumped.

We have an hour, and with clues everywhere, boxes to unlock and pieces of maps to put together, there’s a real air of magic for children, and an opportunity for beyond-the-everyday bonding for families. It’s great fun and we do eventually make it out.

My visit to Butlins comes on the historic holiday company’s 90 year anniversary. The original, Skegness in Lincolnshire, dates back to 1936, and while many have come and gone (at one point in the 1960s there were 10), Bognor, Minehead, and Skegness remain.

Butlins is perhaps best known for its ‘Redcoat’ staff and putting on stage shows. And 2026 sees the introduction of some new ones – Maximum Pro Wrestling, Jack and The Beanstalk pantomime and Peppa’s Pig-Nic Party – which my daughter Seren gives the rave review of “good” for, while my dad is grateful to get out of there. Pegga Pig isn’t for everyone.

The headline acts, in a large arena, do feel more like a high-end production than I had expected though. We settle in to watch The Animal Guyz do an entertaining educational stage show, Animals and Mythical Beasts, featuring life-size animatronic and puppet animals.

The costumes are lifelike enough for smaller children to be open-mouthed in amazement as elephants, giraffes and rhinos grace the stage, and later, a unicorn flies through the air, and its presenters do family-friendly and comedic well – plus we all learn some interesting facts about animals and hear a gentle reminder about climate change effects.

While for fans of ITV’s The Masked Singer, Butlins also do a stage version, with two surprise celebrities (but let’s use the term loosely) performing and unmasking at the end.

Playxperience opened in Bognor in 2024 but it still feels state-of-the-art, with nine activities altogether, including many suitable for teenagers, like Laser Tag, VR-Cade, digital darts and ‘TechPutt’ mini golf – which comes in three themes.

We opt for the neon course, and play nine holes of (sometimes very) crazy golf in the darkness and colourful neon glow. The ‘tech’ element means, much like at a bowling alley, our names pop up on a monitor and scores are automatically detected. The game keeps my daughter’s attention for its entirety and she excitedly waits for the scores each time – based on the number of shots and route taken.

And if that’s not enough neon, ‘glow pong’, is table tennis under the same guise. Besides it is easier to find wayward balls (of which there are many) when they’re glowing under neon lights.

We’re staying just steps away at the Ocean Hotel, conveniently located in the heart of the action. The well-appointed family room has just enough space for four, with a small children’s inlay with twin beds away from the main room. It’s one of the three hotels at Butlins, alongside the self catering chalets.

There are five sit-down restaurants onsite, three fast food ones and one buffet-style eatery within each hotel, for which a package for unlimited breakfast and dinner from £25.95 per day for adults, £15.50 for children and £7.25 for under 6s, is available, but keep culinary expectations relatively low for this price.

There’s certainly nothing flashy here but we sleep well in comfortable beds and enjoy the (albeit grey in February) sea views from the spacious balcony – where we can also handily keep an eye on the queue forming outside the swimming pool building.

The pool space itself – perfect for young children with plenty of slides, shallow splash areas and a wave pool – is clean and modern, but it’s busy in peak times like school holidays. It still took Seren’s top spot as her “favourite thing about Butlins”, however.

For older children and adults there are fast slides, a family raft ride and (what looks to be the most popular) rapids that wind around a heated outdoor area and back into the building.

Also moments away are the fairground rides of every kid’s dreams – a traditional carousel, helter skelter, swing ride and dodgems, and all free of charge, but if you want to hook a duck and play the mini derby roll-a-ball game, extra money is needed – so parents, bring handfuls of pound coins.

The same is true for the huge arcade housed under the famous traditional Butlins white tent (which itself could do with an upgrade). It’s cheaper to persuade children onto the free-to-use indoor rides, like teacups, or the extensive soft play.

New for 2026 is a second ‘Skyline Gang’ soft play nearby. At 3,000 square feet and four-storeys high, it’s an easy place for parents to wind away an hour or two while children tire themselves out around the vast structure at no extra cost. It’s themed on the park’s ‘Skyline Gang’ characters, each with their own colour and personality, so kids can find one to relate to. Seren decides she’s most like ‘Pip’ a purple ‘rock chick’ and spends a lot of the weekend doing the ‘sign of horns’ with her hands.

It’s a 15-minute walk along the seafront to Bognor Regis itself, a place that’s probably fallen into the bracket of ‘traditional forgotten British seaside town’. Once upon a time visitors poured into Bognor after the building of the railway here in 1864, the pier in 1865 and the promenade, turning the quiet fishing village into a popualr Georgian seaside resort.

From the late Victorian era and into the mid-20th century, the town really was in its heyday – the ‘Regis’ in its name was actually added as a recognition of King George Vs three-month stay here to recover from an illness in 1929. So the opening of Butlins in 1960 really cemented it as a premier family destination.

But it’s no secret that many traditional British seaside resorts have struggled to keep up with the competition of cheap flights to Europe and have suffered from a lack of investment. Bognor Regis might be missing the charm it once had, yet still, 50% of guests at Bognor’s Butlins are returning ones, and the resort is aiming for 1.5 million guests this year.

Amenities don’t appear to be plentiful in the town but the 4km long beach is clean and this spot boasts some 1,900 hours of sunshine annually, thanks to its positioning on the south coast, with the South Downs acting as shelter from northerly winds and the Isle of Wight helping to somewhat protect it from wet weather from the west.

In sunnier weather, space must feel like it expands in Butlins – and perhaps the swimmers queuing for the pool would be enjoying the south coast sea instead. But it’s testament to the facilities onsite that we don’t get in the least bit bored during a cold school holiday – complete with almost non-stop blustery sideways rain.

Seren skips from shows, to crafting, to dance lessons, to playgrounds, to swimming, rides and soft play. No one can argue that there isn’t enough for children to do at Butlins – it feels entirely designed around them.

How to book:
Butlin’s offers a three-night Easter break from The Masked Singer Live and Maximum Pro Wrestling staying in a two bedroom Comfort Room in Bognor Regis from £480 (£120pp) on 3 April 2026, for a family of four sharing.
A three-night May Half Term break, including The Masked Singer Live and Maximum Pro Wrestling is from £309 (£78 pp) on 29 May 2026.
The packages include all live shows with access to the pool, unlimited fairground rides, playgrounds and soft play. Escape rooms are from £38pp, and TechPutt from £9.50pp.