Our First Eurocamp holiday in France

When I was young, my family did a lot of camping in France and Spain. And while I'm not necessarily a fan of canvas, I'm keen for my children to have outdoors holidays with lots of activities on their doorstep. I'd heard good things about Eurocamp holidays so I set about investigating the various options.

The Park we chose for our First Eurocamp holiday

It was quite daunting booking our first Eurocamp holiday. There are 242 Eurocamp parks in France alone so there are a lot of options. I can't talk about how many hours I spent trawling through all the various options and deliberating about what sort of location and park we wanted.

The Toddler Pool at Fontaine Vielle

In the end, we decided we wanted a small to medium sized park as my youngest can't walk too far. Definitely one with a water park, a shop and restaurant and ideally with a beach within a short walk. 

We eventually booked 7 nights at the Fontaine Vielle in the Gironde region of France. This one stood out to us because of the English Speaking kids camp and the newly refurbished aqua park. As we can't cope without air conditioning, we chose a Comfort XL holiday chalet with three bedrooms and outside decking. 

The water slides at our Eurocamp
holiday in France

The kids had a really lovely time and, therefore, so did the adults! Most of our days were spent in the pool with our kids burning off a lot of energy going up and down the slides and leaping in and out of the water. My eldest even made a little holiday friend which made it really special. One night we went to the Moules Frites night at the restaurant and we also played petanque and went to the gorgeous beach which was on the edge of the park.

Fontaine Vielle is a really rustic sort of park in the middle of a forest. And we absolutely loved the natural and relaxed vibe of the place. Overall we felt really safe and we really liked how easy it was to get to where we needed to be whether by the pool, in the park shop or at the beach.

We also enjoyed exploring the nearby area. Including visiting the Dune du Pilat, Andernos les Bains and a nearby bird sanctuary.

Here's what would have made the holiday better:

I think we would choose a Eurocamp holiday again, but it wasn't perfect. Here are some of the things that weren't ideal.

Coming out of the park to
the beach

- Better location for our holiday home - our holiday home was in a very overlooked location, with the outdoor decking looking directly onto the rear of another holiday home. And because we were directly facing another holiday home and we were within the forest, we got little to no sunlight on our decking or outside space. Because of this it was hard to dry our swimming clothes and we came home to everything smelling damp in our bags. I love sitting in the sunshine on holiday and that wasn't really possible with the location of our holiday home. 

I contacted Eurocamp customer services when I got home and they told me that you could request a specific location on the park. The cost varies according to the Parc but is generally between £50 to £85. They explained that it was difficult to take generic requests like "please can we have sun on our outside area". But that we could look at a map and ask for a home near the pools or away from the facilities. We will definitely explore this next time as the location of our van was very depressing!

The slip n slide

-  More space in the main bedroom and living areas: Our double bedroom was unbelievably small. You could hardly get round the bed as there was less than a foot around the bed against the walls. Another family we met also had a Comfort XL holiday home and they also couldn't believe how small their bedroom was. We also could not shut out bedroom door without moving a chair out of the way because it was in the way. I think we would opt for a premium home next time or an ultimate home in the hope that we get slightly more space.

- More kitchen utensils: The details for our property said it was a "well equipped kitchen" which couldn't be further from the truth! There wasn't even a bottle opener or lids for the pans. We were also promised a stove top kettle in the details and there was not one. Another couple we met were disappointed about there being no kettle (I mean we are English, we need our tea!) but when I asked the Eurocamp rep about it he didn't even know what a kettle was! When we first arrived we had to go an buy things like a bottle opener, a lighter for the stove, cloths and tea towels. I'm going to write a separate post on the things that I think it would be useful to pack. Otherwise you'll end up spending money on things you could bring from home.

A drink at the bar

- Multi socket extension leads: so the kids' room had one plug in there. Given their night lights, music player and fan, this wasn't really enough for us. Thankfully we had one multi socket extension lead but a few more would have been really useful to charge everything up.

If we go again, we would definitely opt for a slightly larger park and perhaps one that is close to a town or village. I've been looking at some of the parks near to Vias Plage which is an area we know well. And we were there recently when we went on our Canal Boat holiday.

Now that we have been once, I think we would be more equipped for another time. And we would know what to look for when doing our research. I hope this has helped you if you're thinking of booking your first Eurocamp holiday in France or elsewhere. If you have any tips for me, I'd love to hear them!

The beach outside our Eurocamp Park