anyone been on a canvas holiday?

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and if so was it any good?!

We have! We have ben on Canvas, Eurocamp, Keycamp, French Life - done the lot!

We love them but I think that the holiday is only as good as your campsite - where are you going?

not sure actually - want to go to france but not sure which one to go to (needs to be not too far from ferry i guess so not south). is there anything in france you could recommend (any company)? ta

we went with canvas last year to benodet in brittany. we had a fabulous relaxing time with our dd who was nearly 5 at the time. dd really enjoyed the children's club and choose to go quite often. there were lots of children around in the neighbouring caravans and she always had someone to play with. nice little village, restaurants and cafes. can recommend benodet and canvas

thanks mercedes. i think we've decided to give it a go.

Went with my own family as a teenager (At the time I particularly loved the big sites on the coast of France with disco's etc). For a young family, or for some peace and quiet but still things to do, I would recommend the smaller sites I did like these too, even as a teenager - if I was to take my own family now (ds 2.4) I would choose them because we went to a couple that had beautiful views, were quiet, near to historic sites and good restaurants in small French towns and still had a swimming pool and some outdoors activities on site. Of course, I did go a long, long time ago...

Have a great holiday!

Have a search of the archives - there are lots of posts about canvas. I haven't been myself, but was considering it so did the same search recently.

I've been with several of the companies and there's not much to choose between them. Pick a site you like and see who has the best price. Try Thomson Al Fresco, Leisure Direction, Siblu, Matthews, Carisma as well as those already mentioned.
If you don't want to drive too far, consider the western channel crossings from portsmouth, poole, plymouth to Caen, Cherbourg, St Malo, Roscoff. You'll spend more time on the boat but less time driving to Brittany and the Vendee.
Most of the brochures (or online) classify the sites according to how good they are for pre-schoolers, older children, teenagers etc. Many have great swimming pools. Kids clubs if your DC are old enough.
Have a good look at the mobile homes too. We prefer smaller bedrooms and larger living area. And a proper fridge-freezer and cooker. Not all have these.

We go every year with French Life as we can use our tesco vouchers with them!!!

We always stay ina mobile as we get more space, more security and as CM says you get things like fridge freezers, ovens etc! We tend to BBQ most nights though!

The campsites are great for families, we tend to go to brittany and the vendee and we love them!!

The ones we've been to are:

Camping la Bois masson in St jean de monts - very busy and quite British in nature (owned by Siblu/Haven so that's probably why)
camping Mane Guernehue - fantastic site!! best pool complx ever!!! Lovely restaurant/takeawaya nd loads for kids. has 3 fishing lakes and a couple of fields of goats and donkeys which the kids liked. Only drawback was that we were at the bottom of a big hill!! Noce short walk into village and surrounding area is gorgeeous.
Camping Village la Plage in Le Guivenic - excelelnt location as right on a beach and the surrounding area is lovely. A more basic site which actually closed down on us while we were still there at the end of the season!!!

Camping Acapulco, St Jean de Monts. Great location and site. Would go back. Really close ot loads of good places and can walk to a beach.

Hope that helps!