As we still don’t have our car we travelled by coach and by train. By the time we got to Bognor we just wanted to get to Butlins and relax for a little bit. When we arrived at the entrance that all changed, Ludo and Cedric were at the gate to meet the guests and we looked around to find trees and bushes sprayed with snow and everything looking really festive. We went to the hotel and the rooms were ready even before Check in time and when we entered the room we found a selection box on each of the girls pillows and a balloon in the main bedroom.
Christmas dinner was pre-booked and the rest of the activities such as story time, character breakfasts and meeting santa were booked in quickly and efficiently at the desk.
I was really pleased to see that there was lots of different Christmas shows to see as well as the normal entertainment but it did mean that it was a full on break, we didn’t even go swimming or play on the funfair. The characters were around a lot more which was really lovely as that is the girls favourite part.. We put Billy Bear to bed on Christmas Eve and he was being very cheeky and not wanting to go to sleep because he was too excited about Santa coming so the children had to tell him to calm down otherwise Santa wouldn’t come. It was all really good for the kids. We headed to our room to find a bag of reindeer dust and a magic key on the side for us to use. We had to sprinkle the dust outside our room and hang the key on the door, it was a lovely touch and really added to the excitement on Christmas Eve. Especially after the firework display after dinner.
The Christmas shows were fantastic with the Magic of Christmas being the girls favourite although I really liked the Skyline Gangs Christmas Chaos show where Sprout comes up naughty on the Naughty/nice machine. We all adored Bjorn the Polar Bear and the Snowstorm was spectacular to watch.
Our Family are well known at Butlins Bognor Regis but we got even more special attention with Elizabeth being ill. This lead to some amazing memories for the girls especially with Sprout. Alison loves Sprout and he is always fantastic with her but when the crowds died down he was still playing with the girls, tickling them, throwing their toys around and just generally acting the fool which is exactly what Sprout is supposed to do. Those 10 minutes were by far the best 10 minutes Alison has ever had at Butlins and she still talks about Sprout putting her ball on his head.
Butlins is a truly magical place but at Christmas it is even better.