Our Review Of The Butlins Winter Wonderland Break This Christmas (2025 Update)

If you only read one Butlins Christmas review make it this one – we’ve visited Butlins half a dozen times (twice at Christmas) and we want to help you have the best trip possible!

One of our best decisions this December was to book a Butlins Winter Festive Wonderland break with some friends. We attended a Friday to Monday Butlins Christmas weekend in Skegness (fitting it around school) and felt it was great value for money. The kids loved having their pals to run around the camp with, and there was so much to see and do for a ridiculously small amount of money.

This isn’t our first visit to Butlins: we’re big Butlins fans and often sing its praises for families, especially if you’re travelling with energetic kids like ours. There’s so much to keep them entertained, we never have to hear the words ‘but I’m bored’ and the value for money is unrivalled. There are 3 Butlins resorts in the UK: Butlins Minehead, Butlins Bognor Regis, and Butlins Skegness. We’ve stayed in them all, but our closest (and the one we visited for Christmas) was Butlins Skegness.

The Butlins Winter Wonderland Experience at Butlins Skegness starts Christmassy (with the team wearing Christmassy gear as they check you in) and only gets more and more festive.

We stayed in a Fairground Apartment (That was it’s name when we booked, this has now been changed to a Comfort Level Apartment) and we paid just under £200 for 4 people for the weekend (Friday to Monday) break.

For that price, we got unlimited swimming and fairground rides, shows (including a ridiculously funny panto), and a private meeting with Santa.

In terms of value, you just couldn’t beat it! We couldn’t have got 4 tickets to see our local panto for that price! But what did we think of the break overall? Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly!

The Accomodation At Butlins

For our Butlins Christmas weekend we stayed in a Fairground apartment (now a comfort apartment). We’ve stayed in this kind of accommodation before (full review here) and were just as happy with it this year as we were last year!

This apartment has two bedrooms (a double bedroom and a twin bedroom), a bathroom with a shower rather than a bath, and a large open plan living room and dining room. There were TVs in the living room and in the main bedroom.

The living area was fairly basic but comfortable: a large L-shaped sofa, small side table and TV with digital channels (including four kids channels, which was handy for entertaining the kids whilst I made breakfast).

In the kitchen area the dining table was small, but there were 4 chairs (the apartment sleeps 4 so this makes sense, but so often we visit apartments that don’t have enough chairs for everyone!) and I had enough room to serve breakfast or simple sandwiches.

In terms of the equipment in the kitchen, there was everything you would need for basic cooking. Plenty of pans and crockery, a small fridge freezer for all of your supplies, and a full oven and microwave too. If you wanted to eat in for every meal, you certainly could here.

I’m not a big fan of cooking when we’re away (I cook every day at home, and it’s my holiday too!) so we mostly used the kitchen for making breakfast, snacks, and sandwiches.

If you have any specific questions about the accommodation that I haven’t answered here, please pop them in the comments below and I’ll answer them all!

💒 READ: Take a Look Inside a Fairground Apartment at Butlins Skegness

The Food At Butlins

We didn’t book a Butlins dining plan, which is why we opted for accommodation with a kitchen. We ate breakfast and dinner in our apartment each day, and then had lunch in one of the resort restaurants. With the exception of our arrival night when we had dinner out, eating off plan.

Top Tip: Kids eat for £1 in the resort restaurants between 12pm-3pm. So eating our main meal at lunch instead of dinner saved us a fortune! The meals were so hearty that we then only wanted a quick sandwich at dinner time.

The restaurants we ate in were Papa Johns, which was an all you can eat pizza buffet. We had this on our first night and the pizzas were excellent. Huge and hot! The buffet also offered 2 types of pasta, garlic bread sticks, and a salad bar.

We then went for lunch in the FireHouse (A Nandos-style chicken restaurant) where the portions were huge and the quality excellent and The Diner. Here we ate huge stacked burgers and ice cream thick shakes.

I’m not calling this haute cuisine! For Butlins to open some fancy French fine dining restaurant just wouldn’t align with their audience! But the quality of the ingredients were good, the portions were huge, and everything was so tasty. We were impressed with the food and the prices thanks to the offer on the kids meals.

And honestly? Because of the huge portion sizes we didn’t have to worry about a second main meal; everyone was so full from lunch they just wanted snacks, which I loved because it was so low effort!

🍟READ: The Food in Butlins Skegness – Eating Off Plan

The Shows At Butlins

Butlins is known for its entertainment for young children and its Tots breaks and term time holidays aimed at toddlers and preschoolers. But I don’t think enough is written about how good Butlins is for older kids too! And in particular the panto that’s included in your Butlins Winter Wonderland break.

All of our kids are a little older (We were travelling with 4 children aged between 8 and 12) so we didn’t watch any of the daytime shows in the Skyline. Characters like Billy and Bonnie Bear, Paw Patrol, etc simply don’t appeal to them any more.

But we did watch the ‘headline’ evening shows for the Butlins Christmas experience. And the kids were old enough to stay up and really appreciate them. On our first night we watched the Animals Versus Dinosaur show. The second we saw the Jay and Joss magic show. Finally on the Sunday afternoon we watched the Panto: Jack and the Beanstalk.

Top Tip: Arrive early to get good seating for the shows! We arrived 15 minutes before the Animals Versus Dinosaur show and were sat quite far back. Because the animals were low on the stage, that made it really hard to see properly. We arrived an hour early for the panto (we’d learnt our lesson!) and got great seats!

Don’t miss the panto! It was everyone’s favourite show (adults and kids). Definitely not one just for littles, it was funny, a little bit rude, and had us all in stitches.

Christmas At Butlins

So was it Christmassy to spend Christmas at Butlins? Yes, on the whole it was! There were Christmas lights and decorations everywhere, and the traditional panto was a nice touch. There were also Christmas ‘specials’ on all of the menus.

The meeting Santa experience was nice, with kids given the opportunity to write their letters to santa, take a naughty or nice test, and then ride the magic elevator to santas house.

The Santa himself? Sadly he was a complete wash out!

If your kids are on the cusp of not being believers then this Santa might tip them over! His stick on moustache was half peeled from his face, and he hasn’t shaved his black beard so you could see it through the straggly white beard placed over the top. Our younger kids know there’s a real Santa and his helpers: but they weren’t sure this guy was even an official helper!

On the bright side? The elves were great and put so much effort and energy into making this a good experience for all of the boys. And the gift the kids were given by Santa was a Cadburys chocolate selection box. Another nice touch. They ate these while watching the evening show.

There’s currently 10% off Butlins Christmas break prices, so if it’s something you’re thinking about then now is a good time to get prices and decide if it’s the right choice for your family.

Thinking of visiting Butlins with older kids? Check out Is Butlins Good For Older Kids? Honest Parent Butlins Review (2026) for tips and our honest opinion on what Butlins looks like with older kids in tow.

The Negatives Of Our Budget Break

We had a great time at Butlins and the kids especially loved every minute. It’s good, old-fashioned, British seaside fun. The only drawback for us, as we were travelling with slightly older kids? Everything shut far too early.

The swimming pool complex and fairground both shut at 5pm. Even the pool hall shut at 6pm. We’re not the kind of family who drag our kids to bars and pubs, so that meant that outside of our allocated evening show (which only lasted 40 minutes) the only thing to do with the kids after 5pm was to spend money in the arcades. Not that the boys were complaining about that: going in the arcades is a huge part of their Butlins experience!

We still had great evenings: we’d packed tonnes of board games and card games and spent evenings in our apartments getting competitive! But it seemed a shame that there weren’t any provided options for us during the evening times.

Packing For A Butlins Winter Wonderland Christmas Break

I’ve added this section because so many people ask what they should pack for a Butlins Christmas break. If you’re staying in an apartment, these come fully loaded. There’s no need to take plates, cutlery etc. In fact, you could just turn up with a suitcase full of clothes and you’re ready to go! From a practical perspective, I recommend:

• Swimming towels and swim gear (including goggles). We pack these separately so we can grab our swim bag and head straight to the pool on our first day!
• Bring toiletries. This isn’t a conventional hotel and these aren’t provided.
• Hairdryer and straighteners. There is a hairdryer in the apartment, but these are a bit pathetic. Bring your own to save the time between swimming sessions!
• Snacks/Any food you might want if you’re cooking. There is a little convenience shop/supermarket on site, but as you can imagine with such a captive audience, prices are expensive.
• Scooters. My boys always insist we pack their scooters because they love whizzing around the site!
• A football/outdoor toys. There are parks and play areas perfect for kicking a ball about.

We did also take some bits that made our Christmassy break extra Christmassy, and that I would recommend.

• Christmas jumpers (We all wore these every day- we all liked the Christmas touch but I really loved not having to think about what to wear or dressing up)
• Christmas blankets (I used these Christmas blankets to decorate the apartment and the boys loved having them to snuggle up in for the journey in the car on the way there/home too)
• Light up Christmas tree necklaces (you could use a torch or even the phone on your torch to light up the path on a dark walk back to your apartment, but my boys loved wearing these)
• Fairy lights. If you have a buggy, wrap these battery-operated fairy lights around the hood – Christmassy and practical
• Christmas treats and chocolates. I filled a bowl on the dining table with these and the kids could help themselves throughout the weekend.
• A mini Christmas tree. We didn’t do this, but I saw lots of people in other apartments do it! So if you’re feeling a bit extra, bring a mini Christmas tree and bring that Christmas spirit into your temporary home!
• Christmas colouring. My boys like to be nonstop on the go, all the time. But having some Christmas activity books (like these ones) to hand means they’re happy to slow down for 5 minutes while I make breakfast/hang up the wet swimming towels/etc.

Conclusion: Would We Visit The Butlins Winter Wonderland Again?

Would we visit the Butlins Winter Wonderland again? That’s a firm yes! It’s magical, affordable, and a great place to reconnect as a family. Our oldest is no longer a ‘believer’ so we’ve been looking for Christmassy experiences that include Santa (for our youngest) but don’t revolve around him, and this is so perfect for that.

Butlins at Christmas has all the fun elements that a Butlins holiday has at any time of year: the amazing pool and waterslides, the fairground, playgrounds and arcades. But many of the entertainment elements have a magical Christmassy twist so that you’re constantly reminded you’re on a Christmas trip.

We managed to get a good deal for our Butlins Winter Wonderland break (they have sales and offers regularly throughout the year) and we paid just £50 each for our Butlins Christmas weekend. I checked, and we couldn’t visit our local panto for that. Or spend a day seeing Santa at Legoland. In terms of fun and value for money, a Butlins Winter Wonderland break simply can’t be beaten.

Keep Making Your Christmas Plans

Not sure if Butlins at Christmas is the right choice for your family? Don’t worry, we have reviewed other options too!

🎄 A Review of Legoland Billund at Christmas
🎅 Should you Visit Lapland UK This Christmas? An Honest Review!
🥐 Thinking of Visiting Disneyland Paris at Christmas? Read This First

Have you visited Butlins at Christmas? I’d love to know what you thought! Interested in spending Christmas at Butlins with your family? Please feel free to share any questions below, and i’ll try to answer as many as I can!

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