I like to plan my itinerary ahead and always book campsites and tunnel crossings well in advance.
The site where I am now insisted a 7-night stay when I tried to book online in late September 2023, citing my stay would be during the Whitsun holiday on Sunday 19 and Monday 20 May 2024.
I had to change my itinerary and cut down on the number of nights at other campsites in order to fit that in, good job it was the first site I tried to book for this 2-week trip!
To my annoyance, I witnessed other units staying for less than 7 nights; some just overnight during the weekend!!!
So I challenged them about it, and the response was that, they would like longer stays as much as possible when they opened the booking for 2024, especially over public holidays.
If pitches were still available nearer the time later in the year, the booking system would allow shorter durations.
This is what I had expected as their response, however, I am still rather miffed about it though, as I wanted to stay at another site in NL near my friends for longer so that I could go out and about with them to explore where they live.
Just cutting down by 1 night and stayed for 6 nights would have been great, hey ho!
Not sure if anyone else have experienced something similar.
DK
------------- Apple The Campervan - A Van For Work, Rest & Play!
- 2027: ? NL+DE+FR
- 2026: FR+DE
- 2025: 17/77
'24: 10/49; '23: 9/47;'22: 8/46; '21: 9/34
* Ex-tenter
* Treat life events like a dog: if you can't eat it, play with it or hump it, p1$$ on it and walk away!
Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
It's 'dynamic booking', the same as 'dynamic pricing' but kind of in reverse! The closer you get to the date, the more flexible they become to sell as many places rather than have them empty! - it's a bit of a bummer if you like to plan in advance by didn't want the minimum stay or more!
Yes, I have come across it before, they didn't get my booking in the first place, and didn't get my booking when being more accommodating as I'd already made arrangements elsewhere! Double edged sword, doesn't always work in their favour if people are planers and need certainty well in advance!
We usually go outside of the main season, we don't tend to book, we make a great deal of use of ACSI sites but not exclusively so. We stay 3 nights tops.
It's a bit different if you definitely want to be somewhere, you want to be sure of getting in. It does sound like you could've booked for less time.
We have found though that ACSI was very popular last year and we did struggle to get into some places.
We're on our 4th campsite in France - the first (British owned 6 pitch site near our storage) was pretty much full for our 3 night stay, the next 3 sites (all bigger, up to 60 pitches) have had only a handful of pitches occupied, even over a Bank
Holiday weekend!
Very few caravans in evidence, by the way, mostly campervans/motorhomes.
Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
In forty odd years of caravanning we've only booked twice. Last year we wanted to spend time with our families, on one site, with two adjacent pitches, and we booked. In 1997 when my son was 17 he wanted to join us with several of his friends, so again we booked. That's it. We've NEVER (and that includes July and August) failed to get a pitch. We have had to wait outside one night at Camping L'Ardechois at Vallon (a very poopular site) but were found a pitch the following morning.
Although it obviously isn't or everyone we've never had a problem, and if a site didn't have pitches then we'd be happy to look elsewhere. It does give us complete flexibility to move on if the weather is bad (the usual reason and many times over the years), if the site doesn't meet expectations (once), if we have very noisy neighbours (twice or more) or if we just want a change. We have turned up expecting to stay for a week and not liked the site so driven off without even booking in, and found somewhere else. We have stayed for three weeks on a site intended for just an overnight stop!
We have only been caravaning for 14 years, but have been to France around 30 times at a guess, top to bottom, West to East and have never ever booked a site, never, and only once, Tranche Sur Mer, on ringing a day or two before have we not got onto a site we enquired about.
For us the beauty of France and caravaning is flexibility. We were down in the foothills of the Pyrenees a couple of years ago with absolutely no plans and ended up in a lovely site in the Dordogne, then another in Brittany. Last year this time, the weather in Brittany looked good and set fair, so I rang a site we knew about, and booked a ferry, we were there 36 hours later. Incidentally, we stayed at Camping Pors Peron, the weather was absolutely amazing the whole ten days we were there, and what a fantastic time we had. The site is lovely, the owners are so friendly and the area is simply stunning. Brittany when the weather is good takes some beating.
Last year we decided on a few days on Exmoor, swapping one Moor for another, I rang a site, they had pitches available for the next day, then she asked for a deposit, I very politely refused asking that if we just turned up, did they have space, “oh yes, plenty” so we turned up the next day, they were a third full.
Never book ahead, genuinely do not see the point, as a very good Irish friend of mine says “If you make plans…….you may just have to change them”
We don't book outside of July late August. However we visited Vannes this year - Camping Conleau - where our preferred dates were 'not available' when I checked online. This included May 8th and 9th with a day each side - I changed this to arrive a day earlier and it said ONE possible pitch which I did book. When we arrived there was no choice of pitch offered and when I asked they said they were full - which indeed the next day they were BUT what really annoyed me was we saw people arrive who had clearly been given a site map with a choice of pitch available.
PS not a site I would recommend unless you really want to visit Vannes. Review to follow!
PPS the likelyhood of getting a pitch at either of our summer haunts late July up to the weekend after Aug 15th are very slim - "COMPLET" used signed at entrance!
------------- Grahame
Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
I am writing as someone who has booked her monthly hair appointment up to February 2026, yes 2026, to fit around events I already have in my diary, no joke!
Planning and booking ahead is my way of performing due diligence and risk assessment.
It has worked for me all my life and I am not going to change the habit of a lifetime.
DK
------------- Apple The Campervan - A Van For Work, Rest & Play!
- 2027: ? NL+DE+FR
- 2026: FR+DE
- 2025: 17/77
'24: 10/49; '23: 9/47;'22: 8/46; '21: 9/34
* Ex-tenter
* Treat life events like a dog: if you can't eat it, play with it or hump it, p1$$ on it and walk away!
Quote: Originally posted by dk168 on 21/5/2024
Each to their own with regard to planning ahead...
...Planning and booking ahead is my way of performing due diligence and risk assessment.
You're right, each to their own. Whilst we don't book ahead, an awful lot of planning goes on long beforehand (that's what the long winter nights are for).
For our next trip, we know which geographical area we want to be in, I've recce'd the routes to see if they're viable via Streetview, I don't like surprises when it comes to our moho.
I've got a list of 109 potential stops (a mixture of campsites, aires and France Passion stops). What we won't know is which of them we'll be using, we certainly don't have 109 nights to fill, so there's a large element of spontaneity within reason.
Quote: It has worked for me all my life and I am not going to change the habit of a lifetime.
DK
We usually book for France because we are usually on foot and don't have the luxury of driving somewhere else.
Anywhere that stipulates a minimum stay gets rejected
I think the idea of an initial minimum booking period is becoming more common. Our favourite site in the UK has just opened its bookings for the 2025 season but only for bookings of 7 nights or more. This is so that people who want a full week (or more) are able to book it without the weekends at either end already being booked. Around September they reduce the minimum number of nights you can book to 3 and then closer to the start of next season they will allow bookings of any number of nights to fill any gaps they have.
------------- Pixie
Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
There’s a site not far from us at Loch Ken. You can only book online for 7 nights, but you can turn up for a night or three & get a pitch if one is available.
I’m cross at CCC however - 2 or even 3 nights minimum. Yet you can be there & see empty pitches that could have been filled by one-nighters.
Quote: Originally posted by Fiona W on 22/5/2024
I’m cross at CCC however - 2 or even 3 nights minimum. Yet you can be there & see empty pitches that could have been filled by one-nighters.
Agreed! However we have been known to get round that by phoning the site direct. Not sure how far in advance you could do that though.
Quote: Originally posted by Fiona W on 22/5/2024
There’s a site not far from us at Loch Ken. You can only book online for 7 nights, but you can turn up for a night or three & get a pitch if one is available.
Loch Ken do take bookings of less than 7 days- you have to ring as you say the online is 7 days minimum.
They are happy to take advance bookings for any number of nights over phone ( I was talking to them last week )
Not one for booking ahead normally. Just had a fortnight away in UK & didn't even get to the county we intended to be the main focus of our holiday as we found plenty to do & see before we got there!
A day of all things motorhome and campervan. The show is held both in the main indoor arena and across the grounds. Catering, hot drinks and food options are available. Easy access to the site and free parking included. Win one of five pairs of day tickets
Topic: Miffed about booking in advance!
via mobile 20/5/2024 at 9:08pm
