French campsites and the speedo issue

[hippospot]

Anyone have experience of Huttopia campsites in France?

Before booking I phoned them and asked about their speedo policy and was told that swimming shorts that are mid-thigh not knee-length would be acceptable.

I've made the assumption that Huttopia is popular with Brits and that as a consequence they'll be a bit more relaxed about swimwear rules than the average French pool.

I've scrutinised any pool scenes online that I could find and it does indeed look like DH and DS will be ok with 13" speedo swim shorts.

My fear is we'll get there and it'll be budgie smugglers compulsory and I'll have 50% of the family refusing to swim!

This is what I understood

That brings back bad memories, particularly of the first time we went and had to do an emergency trip to the local supermarket!

Meanwhile women just wear skintight Lycra swimwear and get on with it.

I’d struggle to take men and their fragile egos seriously on this, I’m afraid. And why is it always the woman pandering to it and looking g for viable alternatives?

Never seen the rule enforced in 20 years of French campsite vacations.
DH's emergency speedos came on every trip and returned unworn. Ditto the boys' tight shorts.

I bloody don't wear skin tight lycra! I wear women's board shorts and a rash vest. You know, like a normal person

I can't believe this is real

😂😂

Who knew

Agree with this. Why wouldn't all the DHs and DSs wear Speedos if every other man there is wearing them? Even to the point of refusing to go in the pool at all.

Stop being so bloody precious.

My ds16 was caught out by this. He wore his 11 year old brother's costume that was skintight on him. 😂 I also don't really get the angst - when in Rome! Seems silly to miss out on swimming because of a costume.

We've been to a few French campsites where the rule was definitely enforced. I wouldn't take the chance.

Agreed. This thread comes up every summer and there’s always a few ‘Well, my DH just won’t wear them!’ type posts. Well, he won’t go in the pool then, will he? Nobody’s ‘DH’ is too important to follow the rules.

😁😁😁

I bloody don't wear skin tight lycra! I wear women's board shorts and a rash vest. You know, like a normal person

i don’t think that’s normal. I wear the same and have never seen another female over 14 wearing a rash vest, let alone shorts. i know my teens wouldn’t be seen dead in anything with that much coverage.

Swimming costumes are rare now as well, it seems to be exclusively bikinis. In fact my last holiday we had a skimpy scale, as it now seems to be the fashion to wear your bikini bottoms up your arse.

We went to huttopia. It was fine to wear shorts

We've had this issue at some campsites in France and Italy but this site
www.camping-panorama.com/
Doesn't have the policy and is quite possibly the best campsite we have stayed at (13 times).
I remember on a school trip in the 80s, staying in a Austrian hotel with a pool, they had naked swimming once a week but you must wear a swimming hat 😂

My son had to wear the very tight fitting swim shorts (like you posted that your son would hate op) for his school swimming lessons. He's 11 and absolutely hates going because of the shorts rule!

We're in Huttopia in the Ardeche at the moment - I've not taken a great deal of notice but husband has been fine in board shorts with no eyelids batted. Have a lovely holiday!

That's where we went, it's a great place isn't it?

We have stayed at various Huttopia sites - rille, senonches and another. DH and DS have always worn board short styles with no problem. Staff are pretty laid back in my experience. Have a great time!

Why not just ring and ask the site?

Ringing the site may be tricky as you'll need someone with good enough English to debate all the finer points and there's no guarantee what's said will be the same rules at the pool.
I'd post a question on Tripadvisor- lots more traffic there, probably on the forum rather than against the site and/or anything from Decathlon is acceptable and cheap so just buy something from there, sizes run small so go up.

That’s what the OP did…..
Just read the first post.

That’s not what a ‘normal person’ wears unless this is 1905. Most women wear bikinis or swimsuits and I have never seen a woman in a rash vest and shorts whilst holidaying in France.

Idk how strict the campsite will be op. Dh doesn’t own any tight Lycra shorts and there has never been an issue in the places we’ve stayed, admittedly not the same company.

Do they have the same issue with women if they wear board shorts?

those tight shorts are called jammers. Surely they will be fine almost anywhere - they’re what most male competitive swimmers wear. They’re not leisurewear.

Why are men so resistant to wearing swimwear? “leisure shorts” aren’t really swimwear- i mean jammers, shorts etc that are the male equivalent of a swimsuit.

body issues?
worries about people judging their “size”?

or simply male privilege resisting being told to wear something other than what they want? It must be a fairly rare occurrence for most men.

dh swam competitively until his late teens so jammers etc are normal swimwear for him. The leisure shorts are too flappy and waterlogged.

those with really resistant dh’s google “drag shorts”. They’re still swim shorts but with a loose cut as they’re designed to drag and provide water resistance while training. They are still normally worn over speedos/shorts/jammers though.