Mumsnet Talk

We haven't been to France for a few years, looking ahead to next summer I was wondering if you can save money by booking campsite and ferry together, if so, what websites have other people used? We would be taking our own tent rather than Keycamp or similar.

Or is it not much different if you book directly with the campsite and ferry operator? Are there any other ways of saving a few pounds, any tips appreciated.

I think it varies - you have to try it both ways. We are going to France next week via Eurotunnel. It was cheaper to book with Eurotunnel direct than to use one of the "cheap ferries" websites.

Similarly earlier in the year, we booked a Sun holiday. Their ferry prices were nearly £100, but we got it separately for just over £50.

I book them separately because I like the flexibility of being able to move on if we don't like the site or the weather isn't good. I've booked the ferry for next year and was shocked at the price rise. Of course there are cheaper ways of doing it, Eurotunnel can be fairly cheap if you travel during the night.

Thank you both. Brightwell - if you decide to move on but have booked for a whole two weeks, is that a problem? Also, we will be going in school holidays most probably, do most of the good family ones get pretty full?

Whenever I've gone to a new site I only ever book for 2-3 nights, with the option to stay longer. Sites in France do get busy and full during August.

We book the tunnel and campsite separately. I do loads of research to find a site we like -and yes if it's really good site or in apopular area then it will get booked up for the school holidays. we travel south and the weather isn't usually an issue for us

We book the crossing and never book the campsite. I object to paying the booking fee that many French campsites charge, plus we like to follow the weather, like brightwell. We book an early morning crossing to go and a midnight-ish crossing to come back.

I We usually decide beforehand what area we want to visit so I sort of have an idea of the prices of sites and the names of some, but mostly we drive until we want to stop (at about 4 pm) and see what campsite we reach. We've never been turned away, but we do always go the second two weeks of August. Also, we don't go for the hugely expensive popular, all-singing, all-dancing sites.

We tried the just drive around and find one approach a few years ago (pre DCs) and moslty it was fine, but we did end up in one of the municipal ones once which was pretty grim, motorbikes revving loudly all night, the worst toilets I've ever seen in my life, but we seemed to be in an area completely devoid of any other campsites. Needless to say we only stayed one night!

if you have tesco clubcard vouchers it costs around £35 in vouchers to get august crossings on eurotunnel worth around £138 which means we don't have to be too careful about timings. We'll be doing that as we can't afford the real price added onto our booking. we'll probably go eurocamp as they are good value and reliable - we hate having to take everything with 3 kids in teh car!

Where are you crossing?

We found Norfolk line - Dover - Dunkerque quite reasonable if you book in advance.

wow! that's amazing - it would be £62 max for the dates we're thinking of - not bad at all!
but using clubcard vouchers is still best option for us so that's what we'll do. now to find teh very cheapest campsite near messanges which is where we want to go

Is Messanges in the south west? Seems to ring a bell....

yes it is on that strip on teh coast north of biarritz but south of royan - gascony i think most brochures call it

AH yes!! we were there once for a holiday - great beaches!!!!!