We were at les amiaux from 1st - 10th August and I wasn't particularly happy with it - but I think that was mainly down to our location on the site.
We went with Canvas in a tent - which meant no choice of pitch - the Canvas tents are pitched at the far side of the 'older' reception side of the site - and right beneath the busy 'back road'... it was like living in a layby - cars and heavy lorries from 5am till 2am... and a 10ft breeze block wall right in front of the road to act as a great big loudspeaker. The pitches are sandy at that point of the site - it was very upsetting to realise that almost everywhere else on the site they were 'large grassy emplacements' as promised in the brochure.
Our particular emplacment was large - so why was our tent pitched within 2ft of a mobile home? every footstep reverberated and the toilet fan created an incessant hum...luckily the people who lived in it offered to switch it off!
The Canvas tents on the row behind us (which appeared to have been squeezed in) were pitched side-on to ours - at all other sites we have been to the tents have been 'back to back' - so you have quite a distance between people sitting outside their tents talking and your own tent - in this case we had the people behind us chatting till 1am directly behind the kids bedroom.
The toilets were very smelly - they had a nominal clean twice a day, but because no toilet paper is provided we found them quite often covered in wee and on 2 occasions smeared with excrement - nice! of course it isn't the campsites fault that we happened to be sharing with manky b&strds that week!
Thats the bad news, the good news is that the shop and restaurant were reasonably priced, the pools (although at first I thought didn't look it) were clean, and the slides looked excellent - the day my kids tried them was cold and it put them off trying again. The indoor pool was fantastic and there were always enough chairs/sunbeds even on the really hot days at all 3 pools.
The beach was glorious - but it took us ages to find it,and even though our tent was within spitting distance of the road running along it we had to walk right back to main reception and then out again as the gate from the back of the site has been closed so it was a fair trek - after the first attempt we drove to the beach. We cycled to both Jean de Monts and Notre Dame de Monts and both were lovely bike rides.
There is loads to do in the area, we visited the causeway at Nourmoutier, a working windmill, and the highlight was a mediavel banquet on the 6th August (this is an annual thing).
So - if you have the choice of where to be located, definitely opt for the 'new' side of the site - it looked lovely! but be as far away as possible from the road running through the site because that is also pretty noisy - dh thought it was noisier than 'our' road - but I thought it was a more constant hum so might have been less annoying. If you are in a caravan it probably doesn't matter either way.
Christine
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Topic: les amiaux
