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Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
12/6/2024 at 4:28pm
Location: Lancashire
Outfit: Leisuredrive VW T6 campervan
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Joined: 21/7/2009 Diamond Member 
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Our answer is d too. We've never pre-booked a site outside the UK, apart from last year when we were returning over Whit weekend, busy in France, and needed to be convenient to the Channel before crossing back. We stayed at that site on our way down, and booked and paid for the 2 nights before we crossed back before we left. The previous year we tried 3 campsites on the Channel coast and they were full, and only got in where we did by some fluke, so it unnerved us a little.
We seldom camp in the UK, but intend to do so in a weeks time, just 1 night to visit family. Chose a campsite on here, sent an email enquiry, no reply.
Rang the landline, man said he didn't do the bookings, Pitch up did them.
Nowhere on the website does it say this. No wonder he has to charge £40. And yes, we are paying that for the convenience only. He also asked if I knew it was adults only, yes, I said, I've read the website.
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Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
12/6/2024 at 6:29pm
Location: London
Outfit: Lunar Cosmos 524
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Joined: 17/9/2015 Diamond Member
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Perhaps a slightly different situation to most, but we travel to France most years in June or July for the Le Mans motor races, and often bundle in a bit of D-Day Normandy beaches stuff. So a/, we ALWAYS book camp sites in advance and direct with the site.
Our camping at the race is on temporary 'pop up' sites actually in and around the circuit and owned/operated by the race organiser, and they get fully booked within a couple of weeks of tickets going on sale in probably February (in the case of the most popular sites, they are sold out the year before on the waiting lists of various ticket agents!) so it's with certainty a case of book or be damned! You REALLY don't want to find yourself a few miles away and trying to travel in, traffic/buses are chaotic and crawl for hours to do only a few miles. There are something like 300,000 attending the race, so it gets very 'busy' to put it mildly!
We usually do the Caen ferry, so if we need a campsite coming or going, we want certainty of where we are staying. There aren't too many campsites to choose from in the area, so we nab the best for us at Ranville. They are good with ferry times, convenient for both the ferry and all our other interests in the area as good location with regard to road access.
It's reckoned 85,000 Brits descend on Le Mans for the weekend of 24Hr race, and huge numbers camp, rather a lot take the Caen ferry, NOT booking our camp near the ferry in advance is little short of downright foolish!
I suppose you can liken the weekend to the peak holiday season, would you chance finding somewhere specific at a popular destination during the French holidays! 40 years of it has taught us DON'T gamble, BOOK!
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Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
13/6/2024 at 3:49pm
Location: Somerset
Outfit: Murvi Morello
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Joined: 05/10/2002 Platinum Member 
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We've done a,b,c & d depending on the time of year, the area, the campsite.
Out of season we rarely book unless we are aware that it is French BH, there's a special event on locally that we want to attend or a particular site we want, then we book via ACSI if the site accepts ACSI bookings (some don't - the book/app tells you if this is possible) or bite the bullet and book at the non ACSI price if it's a site we particularly want.
For example we attend a vintage bike festival in late June/1st weekend July in Saumur nearly every year. Technically it's out of season so should have space but in actual fact it gets booked up very early in the year for that weekend. I've lost count of the number of people we've met at Reception bewildered why the site, and adjacent aire and many of the other local sites are all full, and have no alternative plans.
If, while we are away, we notice that sites are getting busy, or we think they might be were we are travelling to, we phone in advance as we've been caught out a couple of times when the weather has got/stayed nice out of season meaning sites were busier than usual and have just missed out on the last pitches available.
If we go in main season, which we have to this year for various reasons, we book in advance at sites we know will be busy, such as in coastal and popular holiday regions. For inland and less popular regions we have a list of possible sites and ring in advance to save wasted journeys.
Planning is the key.
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