Experiencing the hotel dining plan at Butlins Bognor Regis

AD | Butlins provided us with a dining plan during our stay

When visiting Butlins there are lots of different choices when it comes to food. If you’re staying in an apartment or similar you might want to go self-catering, or, you might choose from the DineAround, Premium or Food Court dining plans. As part of our holiday, we had the Hotel dining plan, which is available if you stay at the Shoreline Hotel or the Ocean Hotel at Butlins Bognor Regis.

At the Shoreline Hotel you dine in the South Coast restaurant which is located just next to reception. There is a board just outside which details the times that the restaurant is usually the busiest and this can help you to decide when you want to eat.

When you go into the restaurant, whether that be for breakfast or dinner, you’ll be asked for your room number and then shown to a table. There was only ever 1 lady doing this, Amanda, but she was amazing and really made us smile each day.

Prices

Prices are correct as of 6th June 2022 and are subject to change.

Adult – £29.95 
Child 6-14 years – £15.00 
Child 2-5 years – £7.50 
Under 2s go free

Breakfast

Breakfast is served daily between 8am and 10:30am. We decided to eat most days right when the restaurant opened and you can expect a queue at this time. We found that people would start to queue around 15-20 minutes before the restaurant opened to make sure they were one of the first ones in there.

At breakfast, you’ll find a range of both hot and cold food options. I loved that there was a really good full English style selection each day with things like sausages, bacon, black pudding, mushrooms, hash browns and beans. I love a hash brown and these were pretty good!

If you want a lighter start to the day you could choose from fruit, yoghurts (although you need to be fast if you want strawberry) and cereals. Everything looked really fresh and appetising every single day and there was always a lot to choose from.

Children have their own breakfast section with things like bacon, sausages, beans, hash browns and scrambled eggs along with a selection of plastic cutlery and plates. Erin really enjoyed being able to help herself to breakfast (with some assistance from us) and choose what she wanted on her own.

You don’t need to worry about drinks at breakfast as there are plenty of juices to choose from as well as a machine full of various hot drinks.

Dinner

Dinner is served from 4:30pm until 7pm which I think is a great range for families. Again, people will queue from just after 4pm if they want to eat early and be one of the first seated. Just like with breakfast, it’s a buffet-style meal so you can help yourself as soon as you have a table.

At dinner, you’ll find quite a big variety of meals to choose from. Some things stay (roughly) the same each night while others change completely. For example, each evening there was a roast meat option with a variety of vegetables and potatoes. I really liked that I knew that there would be something I’d enjoy each day.

There would also be a kind of theme each night as well. During our stay we had a curry night, Chinese night as well as Mexican with things like chilli. We didn’t know in advance what would be available each day so it could be a bit hit and miss if we wanted these options. John’s always up to try something new though and he likes a good variety while we’re on holiday.

Along with the hot food options, you could also go for something cold if you wanted. There was always bread rolls available and a choice of a couple of different salads. It’s great that there’s a lighter option if you don’t want such heavy, cooked meals all week.

At dinner, you’ll also find a great selection of desserts. There’s an ice cream station which was a huge hit with Erin as well as cakes, jelly and hot puddings with custard too! What I will say here is that I didn’t feel like the cakes were alternated enough. I think we had the same options for 3 evenings in a row and it would have been nice to have something different, as nice as they were.

I found the children’s section to be really good and I think Erin would agree with me. Again, children can help themselves with plastic cutlery and plates available next to the food. You’ll find favourites such as sausages and mash, chicken nuggets, fish fingers and pizza on rotation as well as there always being something like chips and a few different vegetables on offer.

Overall thoughts

Having the hotel dining plan really worked for us as a family. The meal times suited us really well and it meant we could plan our day around when we knew we would be likely to want to eat. Not only that but having the food ready as soon as we sat down is a huge thing when you’re with a hungry 6 year old!

For the most part the food was really good quality as well. The turkey roast was absolutely amazing and so fresh but was let down by really cheap frozen roast potatoes. However, with a dining plan at a place such as Butlins I think things like this are to be expected as they cater for so many people in a short space of time.

Some days we had our plates cleared really quickly and on others it seemed like we were waiting for ages, even though staff walked past and we had a table full of dirty plates. This was a bit disappointing at times as it didn’t leave us much room on the table for the food we did want to eat. Other than this, we found the restaurant and food areas to be pretty clean and tidy.

Overall, I think we all enjoyed the food at the Shoreline Hotel and mostly the quality was much better than we’d expected it to be. This is a good choice if you want a quick and easy meal without waiting to order in other restaurants.

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