French Campsite Recommendation...please!!

[DanX5]

Looking to PH for assistance - anyone a regular French campsite user and care to share their knowledge??

We have over 2 weeks free from 13/8 to 30/8 and we want to go over to France for anything from 7 to 14 days, pretty flexible tbh.

Ferry'ing from Poole to Cherbourg probably so looking at max one day travel so up to 6hrs ish from Cherbourg - looked at Brittany, Vendee and Charante-Maritime as possibilities but open to any suggestion.

So......HELP PLEASE!!

Broad criteria:

- available for the period we want
- luxury mobile home preferred (2 or 3 bed) where the quality is known to be good
- child friendly as 5 and 11 year old
- up to £1,500 inc ferry (£348 if booked seperately) if poss
- looking for something at least semi-authentic French rather than Pontins / Butlins overseas

Any help really appreciated as after 2 nights of looking I am fed up and no further than when I started.

Cheers for any replies,

Dan

[smifffymoto]

Choose which region to go so as to narrow down the options.

Do you want an pool on site,do you want 3 or 4 stars.

Your best bet is to look on WWW.ukcampsites.co.uk and read the camp site review page and trawl the camping abroad forum.

If you ever fancy the Pyrenees I could do a deal.

[GBB]

We've used http://www.directcamping.co.uk for the last 4 yrs and from what I've seen they've still got some availability and prices are very good. I'm not sure how "luxury" you want, we stay in a static van which suits are needs perfectly and are paying £300 ish for the last week in August at a site with lots of facilities.

Downside is you need to sort your own Ferry and no kids club but as the sites have plenty of facilities it's not been a problem and I like going on holiday to see my kids not farm them out for the morning.

Edited by GBB on Thursday 4th August 08:11

[DanX5]

Thanks for the replies

Pyranees a bit far I think!

Which site did you stay at with www.directcamping.co.uk?

[LFB531]

Vendee is a good option, done it loads of times and always try and get close to the beach, means we can get away from 'pool people' if we need to and the sea is great down there. Having not done this for a number of years, we're being lazy and using Keycamp to Camping Bel at La Tranche for 6 nights. That was (and hopefully still is) a nice little site, camping Dunes a bit further up is also in a great spot for the water http://www.matthewsfrance.co.uk/latranche.html, a bit more lively!

Six hours should be fine unless you go on a Saturday when anything can happen but it's autoroute all the way and you only start paying when you get past Nantes.

[Si 330]

We have stayed at both of these below several times.

http://www.camping-castels.co.uk/camping-l-etang-d...

http://www.camping-castels.co.uk/camping-la-garang...

[Melman Giraffe]

Stayed at this one last year. Excellent

http://www.camping-castels.co.uk/camping-la-garang...

[DanX5]

Thanks for the above. Looks like la garangeoire is the one to go for then.

For those having been to the site, is there any noticeable difference between the various companies that have mobile homes on the site? It seems that as well as castels, it is also advertised through Thomson Alfresco, Eurocamp, Canvas, etc.

What I mean is are there areas in which each company is based within the site and do each have different standards of homes???

[Melman Giraffe]

DanX5 said:

Thanks for the above. Looks like la garangeoire is the one to go for then.

For those having been to the site, is there any noticeable difference between the various companies that have mobile homes on the site? It seems that as well as castels, it is also advertised through Thomson Alfresco, Eurocamp, Canvas, etc.

What I mean is are there areas in which each company is based within the site and do each have different standards of homes???

The statics are all over the site. We go with euro camp and have always had a good pitch within 5 mins of the pool etc. Are you driving down? If so I would suggest a night stop near La Man there and back to brake the drive up.

[GBB]

DanX5 said:

Thanks for the replies

Pyranees a bit far I think!

Which site did you stay at with www.directcamping.co.uk?

We stayed at Les Genets - though it's not their smartest site but some good kids pools including lazy river. We like it as it's 500 yds from a good beach with good body boarding (if weather is right) and 10 mins drive from St. Jeans de Monts and St. Gilles aux Croix.

I stayed at La Garangeoire 30 yrs ago as a kid, it looks like it's changed a lot since then. I'm sure LG will be a nicer site, but further away from stuff.

[DanX5]

Just booked 5 nights at La Garangeoire (Vendee) with Keycamp and 4 nights at Ty Nadan (Brittany) with Eurocamp.

Not quite the cheapie last minute getaway we thought, but not much left at this stage to choose from unfortunately so can't grumble.