If you had a eurocamp holiday in France booked for the summer

[zippyswife]

Have you cancelled it?

We’re due to go in August. I’ve assumed it won’t be happening but don’t have to pay the balance until mid June.

The website says they’ll contact 2 weeks before the holiday date to advise whether it will be open or not. By which time we will have had to pay the deposit and decide either way.

I know it’s highly unlikely it would be open but just wondered what anyone else is doing.

I'm in this exact same position. I don't know whether to pay or not!

Not eurocamp but similar. We'd already paid the balance and can't decide whether to book transport.

It does seem like most of europe is gearing up to accept tourists.

Yes I had thought It was definitely off the cards but now places seem to be opening up. It’s a tough one. To be honest if it is open we’ll probably go. But I’m also one of those terrible people that plans their kids back to school as soon as it’s open too.

I think the campsite will almost certainly be open, particularly if you have accommodation with its own bathroom. But you may have to self isolate for 14 days when you get back, depending on what they finally do with visitors from France. Are you going to be prepared to do that?

Just so you know, we learned last night, if you want to cancel free of charge you need to do do 84 days before your holiday starts. We were 80 days....therefore only option is to transfer to next year or to be liable for part of the cost. We knew there would be a cut off but 84 days seems early so we were surprised.

We also felt that as hospitality there isn't due to open until July 24th, our holiday starting on 1st August didn't give much room for manoeuvre.

@thenewaveragebear1983 is that with eurocamp? I thought it was 6 weeks?

14 days quarantine isn’t ideal- ds1 would miss his first week of school but theyVe missed so much already I think I’d probably do it to be honest.

Where does that stand with employers if we may have to self isolate when we get back? We would like to go if self to do so but it's end of August. Even if the campsite opens not sure about ferries.

We haven't booked through Eurocamp but we have booked a Yelloh! village campsite. They've been a bit quiet about what's happening and the balance is due at the end of June. To complicate matters, we had booked 10 days in the campsite and 5 in an Airbnb in the Disneyland Paris area. It really doesn't appeal anymore even if DLP opens its doors, so we're stuck. Even if we went to the campsite, we wouldn't have anywhere to stay after that and our return trip on the Eurotunnel is 5 days after the campsite booking ends. I also think the campsite won't be the experience we were all looking forward to (kids' club, bar, pool) so we won't be getting what we paid for. Really difficult to know whether to pay the balance or not and I wish the FCO would say how long their travel advisory was going to be in place for.

@zippyswife yes eurocamp. We're booked for 8th August. We had to travel through the t&c yesterday, I'll see if I can find it. We haven't paid our balance (not sure if that makes any difference) but it said if you cancel with less than 84 days to go you begin to incur costs as % of total booking. Whether they would actually do this I don't know as they will probably be lenient in order to retain your custom for next year

@Dickorydockwhatthe I genuinely can't see employers being too supportive of people needing to self isolate as a result of unnecessary travel.

www.eurocamp.co.uk/information/coronavirus-update#faq

@zippyswife

It says here that although payment isn't due til 6 weeks before, cancellation t&c remain the same. In you email confirming your booking you'll have the t&c, outs definitely said 84 days to cancel (12 weeks)

It's a tough one isn't it? We've debated at length what to do but to be honest I found it so stressful not knowing that we've in the end just made the decision to cancel because that way we can transfer to next year and have our first choice of accommodation and location. I suppose the alternative is to hold out and hope that it goes ahead, and if it doesn't just get your money back or transfer at that stage.

@newaveragebear - we found the same. I've had a very careful read of the ta and can and it looks like you can move the Euro amp holiday to next year (paying any extra) but you have to pay on full this year, and if for any reason you have to cancel next year, it is as though you're cancelling this year's holiday (if you see what I mean).

So if we decide two weeks before that our journey isn't going to work, we can move the holiday to next year, but even if we cancel next year with 6 month's notice, we'd only get a very small refund. This makes it really hard as we can't book annual leave until January so would be taking a huge chance that we'd be able to make those dates for next year.

I'm trying to decide what to do now. Our campsite is in Italy which is opening up, but we're driving through France so any french quarantine will make it unworkable. Tbh the quarantine on return is less of an issue, as both dh and I are wfh anyway, and we'll be back by mid August. Aargh!

@SorrelBlackbeak we didn't read as far as that we just read that we can transfer to next year....did not see that it needed to be paid this year though!! Paid up by what would originally have been the payment date? Or just by the end of the year?
Currently we have only paid £99 so no way are we paying 1500 in a few weeks for a holiday next year!

France is gearing up for the holidays. The government has called on French people to go ahead and plan/book their own holidays (within France) for July and August. There is another announcement due tomorrow about how things are going to work.

So far I have seen reference to pools being more heavily chlorinated, kids' club using school-type social distancing regulations (fun!) and obviously social distancing applying as you'd expect in restaurants and so on.

The whole west coast and south is in the green zone as far as both infection rates and hospital capacity so I think tourists will be welcomed for economic reasons but of course things won't be quite the same...

I would assume it will be open....france seems to be opening up. I think the quarantine idea will get dropped. How much fun it will be is another question

Everyone looking at booking next year, whether holidays or flights is finding out they are charging massively more, unless they cancel your holiday in which case you are entitled to a refund.

Positively, at least you are pretty safe on the Eurotunnel as opposed to a plane.

We were due to go to a Eurocamp in Italy in August. We umm-ed and ahh-ed for ages, in the end we decided to just cancel. We did it early enough to just lose the deposit. We just didn't want to risk losing more, or ending up going but it being a compromise of the holiday we wanted (restrictions, quarantining etc) I'm sure the would have let us change the dates but at the moment it would have meant a fee. It was a difficult decision though

@newaveragebear you pay the lot now, as though you're going this year but transfer the fully paid for holiday over to next as far as I can see.

@SorrelBlackbeak that sucks. I'm so pissed off with the whole thing, and we can't get through to anyone to sort it out obviously. The website is quite vague isn't it but reading with your insight to that does suggest that we need to pay the balance to then transfer.

I’ve only paid the deposit so far so won’t be paying the balance to transfer. I guess I’ll just keep an eye on developments until my final date to pay up the balance. Are they saying you have to quarantine in France? That would be impossible at a eurocamp- if that was the case I’d just cancel sadly and the book again for next year hoping things might improve.

They do a refund voucher, although can't see how to actually apply for that. Had anyone tried??
Annoyingly we have missed the cut off to cancel without penalty so will have to book for next year with a wing and a prayer and hope that nothing arises that means we can't travel. At least we have a few weeks now to find the money.

Me again....

I think that paying in full for this year (or cancelling if you are within 12 weeks) and then applying for a refund note to use next year is the way to go. Transferring booking seems to leave you with very few rights if it were to be cancelled again (although can't confirm this without going through the entire booking process...) whereas paying in full and then getting a credit note means your 2021 booking is a new booking, plus if you don't use the voucher by March 2021 they reimburse the money as cash

disclaimer this is only what I have gleaned from this chat and quick check of the t&c

Glad I found this chat, thanks everyone!

Had this conversation with DH this morning. We have decided to move the booking to next year, as even if it can go ahead we don't want to risk things not being open/running as normal and it not being the holiday we had planned.

Exactly what @sporkle said. We've moved our France hol to Next year as it's unlikely things will be open as normal and we have plans to go all over the region

We have moved our summer eurocamp holiday to Easter next year. It came in as £700 cheaper! We are using this credit as the deposit for another eurocamp holiday for next summer.