Another question folks, mostly for those who use ACSI sites and therefore travel outside of peak season or else use municipals.
When you arrive at a site in France / Spain, typically have you
a/ booked beforehand direct with the site
b/ booked beforehand through ACSI (if its an ACSI site)
c/ phoned the site before you left the last site to make sure it wasn't full
d/ no contact with the site at all, just wing it
e/ something else
Thanks all !
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Answer: d
We use ACSI quite a lot, but not exclusively so. Have never booked a site via that scheme.
The only time I've phoned beforehand was last year, the week before Whitsun, when one site was full. So rang another and they had space.
The only other time I've phoned was yesterday actually. The site we initially went to was disappointing, and we didn't want to stay. Good job we hadn't booked that one! The website of the one we picked instead said they only open at 4pm, so wanted to double-check that, good job, as they actually open at 2pm
Prefer not to book anything as it then ties you to dates/sites, when plans could change.
Never booked a site abroad or phoned. How’s my French ? Terrible. Turn up & they are happy to see you. Plenty let you pay when you leave.
Contrast that with UK. Even off peak they expect you to phone & they want full payment over the phone. I recall last year we arrived at a site in Devon off peak. One of the few UK sites that takes ACSI & I could see the site was about a quarter full. Into reception. Have you a booking ? No. Oh we prefer people to phone first. Have we got to go ? Oh no we will find you a space somewhere. We stayed a week & the site was never more than half full.
Our 90 days over here is up on Jul 19 & then we are back with all that UK site palaver for rest of summer. Roll on Jul 4 & we might start to get back what we had.
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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Done all but B, depending on the circumstances.
If it's somewhere we need to be on particular dates and it's our preferred site (eg. when collecting or dropping off the van to storage) then I book a pitch (if it's an ACSI site then I make sure I mention that I'll be using my ACSI card).
I never book a site where you have to pay a booking fee or a deposit though. Often an email or phone enquiry direct to the site avoids these!
I sometimes phone or email a site to check availability when we're thinking about moving on, or to check whether we can get onto a site before the official opening time, especially if it's a municipal or similar.
I have also been known to phone a site en route. We also do the "just turn up" option but less often now that so many of the smaller sites in France seem to have closed or become Motorhome Aires or part of the Camping-car Park network or similar, as we tour with a caravan.
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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I think it just courteous to book with the campsite, rather than just turn up, we always go in June so use ACSI, and to be fair, had we not booked we will have still got on the campsite, it's just what we do.
My information is a bit out of date but when we toured in Europe we rarely booked ahead or even telephoned ahead. We were never away in the peak season of July/August so perhaps easier not to need to book. I can only recall arriving at one site in the S o F which was full although they did offer us to stay on the car park until the next day when they said there would be vacancies. On another occasion in Italy we had to park up on the sports field until a slot became available, which it did a couple of hours later. I suppose the general advice is always to have a Plan B but if you need to be in a specific place for a specific reason why not book ahead to make it all stress free?
(a) as I always plan and book in advance, being very risk-averse travelling as a lone female with a dog.
DK
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Don't forget to leave a review of the French and other European campsites you have visited!
Always 'd' - only twice in forty two years have we booked anywhere and that was at the request of our family. Like others we prefer not to book as in the past we have been disappointed by sites that we thought looked OK. In those cases we've had a look around and driven off and found sites elsewhere.
Even in peak season (UK school holidays in July/August in 2019) we were staying in the grounds of a Gite with our son and his family, and had planned to take our caravan back into storage in the Ardeche. We then had a phone call from the storage owner to say the site was threatened with flooding and was currently very wet. We decided to stay near where we were and thought 'The Lot is very nice - let's go there'. We found a site we'd not thought of along the Cele river - and liked it so much we stayed an extra fortnight. No booking needed and we got a riverside pitch! Last year in August we found a lovely pitch on a site on the Mediterranean and others at two sites in the Gard with no problems at all.
Something else? We have slept outside a site when we did an overnight trip and thought 'it looks nice, let's stay here'!
We travel in France 3 times a year and have done for about 12 years,always away from peak season and we use ACSI a lot. We tend to wander, a couple of days here, a few days there, and have never booked a site. The only time we have not been able to get on the site we wanted was last month when un-beknown to us there was a public holiday and they were full. The beauty of camping in France is that we drove on another 25 miles and found a site new to us that was really good, spent 5 days there and will return.
As someone mentioned earlier you are very rarely expected to pay when you arrive, most sites ask you to settle up the evening before you leave.
Usually D out of main season but have noticed in the last few years that May 8th and Ascension day that sites fill up so we try to either arrive earlier or do C and ring the day before. Summer we are regulars at some sites so they would 'find' space but generally we book or ing to check.
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.
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: Arriving at sites and booking
via mobile 12/6/2024 at 3:38pm
