Few teens have notched up as many gilded travel experiences as Wayne and Coleen Rooney‘s oldest son Kai. His parents have private jets on speed-dial and a penchant for five-star resorts such as Nobu Marbella and Sandy Lane in Barbados. And yet, according to his famous mum, his ‘best holiday ever’ was, well, more bucket-and-spade than bougie.
Coleen, 39, told her I’m a Celebrity campmates last year how she’d buckled in the face of pester power and taken teenager Kai and his younger brothers Klay, Kit and Cass, to Butlin’s in Skegness. The verdict? Her brood loved it.
The Rooneys aren’t the only celebrities who’ve checked into one of the country’s three Butlin’s resorts; funnyman Romesh Ranganathan is a fan, alongside Ex-EastEnders actress Jacqueline Jossa. TV couple Joe Swash and Stacey Solomon were pictured abseiling and zip-wiring with Stacey’s older sons at the brand’s flagship park in Bognor Regis in 2020: ‘It’s our favourite because of the pool’, the Loose Women star told her social media followers.
Last month, Ed Sheeran revealed he wrote some of the lyrics to Drive, currently on the soundtrack of motorsport blockbuster F1, while heading ‘to Butlin’s for a mate’s stag do’.
It’s no surprise this down-to-earth classic British holiday, with its formula for fun honed over nearly a century, has so many high-profile devotees.
You don’t have to be Wagatha Christie to work out that, for most kids, personal butlers and Michelin-starred dining are no match for a whirl on the waltzers, clouds of candy floss and winning big on 2p slot machines.
I went along this week to see just why it has so many famous names hooked, taking a particularly tough crowd, three Generation Alphas – my two daughters, 11 and 13, and their 14-year-old friend – to the Bognor resort, which sits on 60 acres just behind the pebbly West Sussex coastline.
First, guests get a lot of bang for their buck. A three-night stay for four can cost less than £300 this summer and includes access to a waterpark, funfair and live shows galore, with individual attractions at the three sites, Skegness, Bognor and Minehead.
Butlin’s flagship resort in Bognor Regis, which has of late proven to be quite the hit with household names such as Joe Swash and Stacey Solomon
According to Coleen Rooney’s son, Kai, his ‘best holiday ever’ was more bucket-and-spade than bougie – for the destination was Butlin’s in Skegness
The Bognor resort in particular has seen handsome investment in recent years. A £40million seaside-themed Splash pool complex opened in 2019 and last autumn, PlayXperience, a £15million, 50,000 sq ft shrine to state-of-the-art play, was unveiled.
Wandering the latter’s air-conditioned interiors, all exposed brick, charcoal black walls and gleaming glass, it feels a million miles from the Butlin’s I day-tripped to as a child in the 1980s; when chintzy ballrooms, dismal food and chock-a-block paddling pools ruled.
PlayXperience is catnip to kids and kids at heart. There’s a futuristic virtual reality arcade, Laser Tag, ultra-violet ping- pong, neon mini-golf, digital darts, a batting cage, immersive console games and four escape rooms. None of it is free, mind; a game of golf costs £9pp, for example, but it’s all so slick, it feels worth the money.
A short walk away, Studio 36, a 1,600-seat theatre built in 2021, has similarly impressive technology. I take my 11-year-old to watch Animals & Mythical Beasts, a comedy/musical extravaganza of West End quality. At one point Sir David Attenborough beams a short message across a trio of gargantuan Ultra HD screens.
Through the decades, live entertainment has always been one of Butlin’s biggest draws; ITV’s Stephen Mulhern is a regular and Jason Donovan, Matt Goss and Boney M are all 2025 acts, with a carousel of tribute stars belting out sing-a-long hits too. Who’s in town during our stay? Lewish Capaldi and Pink-ish.
Waterslides are just one of the many attractions drawing young families to Butlin’s
Ever upbeat, the Redcoats keep the crowds buoyed up in the resort’s giant tented entertainment hub, the Skyline Pavilion, which does a good impression of a mini-Vegas with its neon-lit bars, souvenir shop, takeaway outlets, vast arcade, bowling lanes and pool tables.
The wider team are just as jovial too, with British wit served up as freely as the cups of tea. When we pick up golf clubs at TechPutt, the cheeky attendant (if Rob Beckett had a Saturday job) roasts our mortified-looking teens. ‘I can FEEL the social anxiety!’ he says, before promptly dissolving it with a flurry of wisecracks.
It feels super-safe too. We lose the kids to the funfair and the arcades for hours on end and might have enjoyed some downtime in the Ocean Spa had we been better organised but alas, it was fully-booked all weekend.
For all the shiny new stuff, the nostalgia effect remains big business for Butlin’s –with grandparents, who came here as nippers, introducing new generations to the traditional seaside break.
The pastel-hued Art Deco-style pool complex is a 21st-century love letter to Sir Billy’s original vision. Our gang is too big for the cute Helter Skelter but we hurtle down the Stick of Rock slides (tip: hold your nose or risk your sinuses), scream on the inflatable rafts ride and whirl outside on the Seaside Garden rapids.
Accommodation is via rooms, suites and self-catering apartments, with three nautical hotels on site, including the Wave Hotel where we stay.
Our two-bed apartments are clean, spacious and simply furnished, with eye-catching yellow kitchens. We don’t cook but it’d be easy to rustle something up, with the on-site Nisa supermarket reasonably priced.
We dine instead at The Deck, an enormous restaurant for half-boarders. It is canteen style with two ‘live’ cooking stations prepping pastas and burgers. Our Saturday night menu is tasty, with three types of curry, steak and ale pie, pizzas and a kids’ station brimming with bangers and mash.
Of course, it’s not all perfect. For every polished new addition, there’s one that looks in need of a fresh lick of paint.
But Butlin’s is the sum of its parts and the rough and the smooth still add up to one of the most fun holidays families can have in the UK.
The Gen Alphas? They returned home exhausted but very happy campers. And if the kids are happy, the parents are happy… just ask Coleen.
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