did you ever stay at an holiday camp ?

[shanx]

what was it like and where too,have had funny times and bad times

[Doc Spock]

Could not beat a Butlins shag camp. The staff spent all day trying to get the youngsters together and all night trying to keep them apart.

[shanx]

lol what a load of crap they were,the chalets were humming the food was crap,no plughole in the bath,walk a mile to use the toilet lol

[bowiefreak]

spent all my time fightening the red coats off

[Cheesefreek]

Don't know which camp you went to or when shanx, but chalets have their own loos nowadays! I worked in Butlins in Minehead in the 70s and had the best time of my life. But that was cos the staff had a social life going that was separate from the punters. I also vowed never to go to one for a holiday - ever. Anyway, in 2000 we took the kids. It was totally changed, with pretty good self-catering chalets, and the kids loved it. It was good value, and the bars are plentiful!

[saxy_jag]

We used to take groups of learning disabled kids from the special school I worked at. We'd take maybe a dozen or so to Butlins Ingoldmells for a week (Leicester's 'local' one), supervised by half a dozen staff and taking up four or five adjacent chalets.

Not something I'd choose for my family holiday, but the kids we took loved it. Many of them never got holidays otherwise and they just lapped it up - the shows. the funfair, the pool. It made it worthwhile when one very hyperactive twelve-year-old came and sat quietly beside me in the evenings for a bedtime story.

One year, one of the boys took ill in the middle of the night with what turned out to be appendicitis. The camp staff were brilliant. Security had the camp's medical team with us within minutes, then they called for an ambulance and alerted the gate staff to let it straight in and direct it to our chalets. They couldn't have been more attentive. We had another visit from a member of their staff the next day for a 'progress report' on the lad. Also, generally, the redcoats behaved very positively towards our, often very difficult, charges. So I can't fault them there at all.

One memory that stands out is one year, as we were settling in, my colleague came into our chalet and said that now she knew she was among people she understood (ie, Leicester folk). When I asked why, she said she'd just heard a woman yell along a balcony to a child (in a very 'Leicester' accent), "Darren, get yer effin a**e down 'ere!"

[ojread2]

We never went to a holiday camp as kids either. My dad used to say they were not for us lol
We always holidayed abroad and my parents saved long and hard and went without to takes us for 2 weeks every year to some where hot an wonderful. We never went to Spain either because, as my dad said, it's just Margate/Blackpool with a foreign accent. I have never been to Spain as an adult either because of my dad's reasoning lol I doubt I will ever go.
I have, however, been to a Butlins style place with my children and although I didn't hate every minute, I certainly would not choose it as a main holiday. We use the camps as a cheap base when visiting friend up North and don't use the on site facilities.
oj x

[fbg40]

This to The Prophet - Are you really that much of a snob ?