Is Eurocamp nice?

[Orangeinmybluelightcup]

Has anyone done a Eurocamp hol, and was it reasonable? I'm eyeing up the south of France.

I’ve heard good things. The facilities at each camp are v different so check out the camps carefully. Their phone line is pretty good for general queries too.

Have done a number of these types of holidays, as a parent and as child when I was young. What do you want to know? Are they nice is rather vague but happy to share experience.

We've been to a couple in the south of France. We loved it except both times the outdoor swimming pools were freezing. This was in July. Everyone would crowd into the tiny indoor pool as you really couldn't swim with little ones in the outdoor pool for more than a few minutes. We gave up on Eurocamp after that. But their kids clubs are fun and safe and the accommodation is basic but nice. If they just heated their pools a little bit we'd go back every year.

We did south of France last year.

• Camp is nice.
• Pools are nice
• Restaurants on site are nice, but far more expensive that I imagined - €200 for 4 of us for an evening meal, and that's with two kids having pizza. Without wine.
• Chalets are nice. Do pay extra for aircon, it's muggy as all hell and the AC is lovely
• The staff are bloody useless. Like, totally useless. We had some issues on arrival - no key, dirty cot, no linen (which we had ordered), backed up shower - and they just shrugged at us. I ended up on chat to the UK, who were brilliant, and put a rocket up their arse about three hours later.
• They require a full on clean when you leave. It takes a bloody age to pack, clean, trek all the rubbish up to the bins (at the entrance to the camp) and although I had been cleaning as I went, I did get the arse on when I found myself mopping on the last day of my 'holiday'

Financially, when you factor in the accommodation, travel, cost of eating out, a million trips to carrefour, and all the pissing about, financially we found it didn't work out much cheaper than an all inclusive. Of course, if you cook every meal yourself, it'll be financially better, but then it's a total busman's holiday in my opinion 🤷🏻‍♀️

Suffice to say, we won't be Eurocamping again...

Friends went to the Languedoc one this year and loved it but said the pool was freezing in July and the kids didn’t get the most out of it because of this.
It put me off.

We have not had such negative experiences. We have always enjoyed great pools on the sites we have visited. We have not been with eurocamp for a while. Typically on the campsites there are lots of different companies with mobile homes, tents or other types of accommodation but this year we stayed at a Sandaya site that was responsible for all. Our kids (11 and 8 year old boys) have enjoyed the independence of going off playing football in an evening, making friends and hanging out in the day which gives us all space. I do find the self catering aspect a challenge but it's out weighed by other elements. We also choose safari tents because I prefer the space to what you get in mobile homes but I miss the dishwasher. We rarely eat out on-site because it can be expensive but prefer to eat locally (so making sure the site is not too isolated is important to us). Hope this is useful.

We go for nearly every holiday. DS is autistic and the predictably of the cabins been more or less the same wherever you go, and the ability to cook his normal meals and keep aspects of his routine really helps. The pools have always been fine, though lots are sun heated, so get better later in summer.

We are just back from a Sandaya one.
The chalets are lovely and big with aircon and a nice deck. You have to make your own beds which I hate. We paid for a clean at the end which made life easier. I don't want my hol to be a total slog.
The staff are pretty crap. They didn't give us enough towels and it took us three days to get some as they had basically run out. Every time we went down they said they would send some down and they never appeared.

The pools were fab. Warm. Lots of slides etc. Plenty of sun beds and not much of the annoying saving them all day going on. Only very peak times you struggled to get one.

The evening entertainment was totally annoying, too loud and spoilt what would have been a lovely ahtmoshere. Prefered the weekends when there was nothing on. There are lots of those machines the kids put coins into get crap plastic toys and a lot of time was spent being harassed for them. It did put me off going down to the bar area especially as they wouldn't give change.
We did days out so cant comment on the kids club.

Its all very middle class, much more so than all inclusives in the med. Lots of lovely Dutch at ours as well as French and nice families. It was nice to see the kids mixing and playing football with different nationalities.
But yes it is more hard work than a proper hotel holiday. If you like days out and exploring rather than sitting around a pool every day it might be for you. But expect to be knackered at the end of it.

We used them a lot when the kids were young, we did all over France, including Alps and Italy and Austria, camp wolfengut near zell am see was prob our favourite.

Staff are usually great, sorry pp had a bad experience, they’re often young student’s on a gap year and sometimes will offer babysitting services to earn extra cash, they usually have a good variety of board games you can borrow. Obviously the sites differ with facilities but the kids get a nice sense of freedom and plenty of others to play with. Not sure if they still do but they also used to do Eurocamp independent, which we used one year when funds were particularly tight where you can take your own tent but use all their services.

The accommodation is basic but fine and the reps are normally helpful. The facilities depend on the site. Some are huge and have pools with multiple slides, parks, entertainment. Others are smaller and potentially quieter. Depends what you are looking for in a site.

If they just heated their pools a little bit we'd go back every year.

Eurocamp don't own or run the actual sites, they just rent pitches and run some clubs. So I would check reviews of the site separately to reviews of eurocamp.

Every campsite is different, check the reviews carefully! We had a campsite in Brittany this summer with a lovely heated pool.
Sometimes Eurocamp only has basic caravans on a site, but the site itself has more luxurious options. So always google if there are other options to book through other companies.

Thank you for these really helpful replies!

That. The Eurocamp bit is just the accommodation and staff. The campsites are independent of the company and have nothing in common other than that Eurocamp rent some of their pitches.

Research the camps, not the company.

Ive never been but have to looked at hut topia? My friends go to the Bordeaux one every year and rave about it

Are they good as a base for exploring?
We want to go to Holland next year with our adult dc, so won't necessarily need all the family friendly facilities!
We haven't got a massive budget so they look appealing!

We had amazing Eurocamp holidays when the kids were younger. Never had any negative experiences. We did the south of France plus Normandy , The Vendee and The Loire Valley and Holland ( Duinrell is amazing) We always did a lot of day trips and used the park as a base to explore from.

Air con is a must in the summer but it's usually only in the main living area so you need to leave the bedroom doors open and take a couple of fans with you too.

Don't remember the cleaning being an issue but they may have changed the rules post Covid. I always just did a sweep of the floor if it was needed and a quick clean of the sinks and loo with antibac wipes. Most that we stayed in even had dishwashers.

The pools in the French ones have the Speedo rule which put my husband off of swimming there and eventually as my DS got older he decided he didn't want to wear tight swimwear either so that was the end of our Eurocamp adventures!

Yes, loved our Eurocamp holidays around France and Italy 😊 For south of France, check out Sandaya’s website as well. They actually run their own sites, so slightly different from Eurocamp in that respect. We found they had a good quality of accommodation, a lot of newer mobile homes.

Check out https://www.les-castels.co.uk/ for good french sites and book directly

We always book from the campsite directly (or Yelloh). I’m open to correction but from experience, Eurocamp are generally the more basic accommodation on those sites.

This year we went to a French campsite and booked their premium accommodation- it was bigger than the other chalets, included Wi-Fi and end of stay cleaning, beds were made on arrival etc. Much bigger outdoor space.

We stayed in a more basic chalet once and had to bring our own bed linen (maybe we could have rented it, I can’t remember), it was very small and cramped and we had to either pay a charge for cleaning or clean it ourselves. It was much cheaper but I wouldn’t choose it again.

Campsites are a lovely holiday, but just keep your expectations low. Ours was called a 5 star campsite. It was fine, nothing wrong with it, but it’s probably what I would consider a 3/3.5 star.

We've done a few in France (3 sites) and overall loved it but a few minor niggles at each place - nothing that would stop us going again. The sites are all quite different as Eurocamp just lease the plots for the lodges so I think the experience could really differ and your best bet is to find a site you're interested in and research the hell out of it. There's a FB group for example.

This year we did an AI in Turkey so a very different holiday and much 'easier' than Eurocamp but we're itching to go back to France again as we prefer the Eurocamp 'vibe'

@AngelsWithSilverWings speedo rule!!!!!!! Er!

We've done quite a few with different companies in France and Italy over the years and have stayed in some lovely places. Always get the biggest/newest mobile you can afford, with a covered deck and aircon if possible. Dd always made a friend or 2 and was great for growing independence over the years.

My favourites were Les Peneyrals in the Dordogne, Les Ranchisses in the Ardeche, Park Albatros in Tuscany (it's massive though) and Kon Tiki at St Tropez. La Carabasse (Siblu) is great for teenagers.