Campeggio Les Sables ****

We visited 25/5/13 for 3 nights. Reception is closed from 12-2pm. Closes at 6pm. No entry allowed & queues built up. Noisy both day & night. Generator running all night. Both local access roads have restrictions on vehicles above 3.5T. You cannot access site from Aytre exit. Restaurant was open during our visit. Noise during day from sports area was EXCESSIVE. A train line runs alongside campsite.

worst campsite we have ever stayed at. Next to a train track that runs every hour from 6 till 10pm. Child friendly...not unless your child is up for drunken parties till 5am.

This evaluation has been obtained by our inspector from a questionnaire at the camp site.

We booked in March to stay at the site in June for 10 nights, reserving our pitches and recieved confirmation e-mail detailing our requests including pitch numbers. When we arrived we were told that our pitches were not available and we had been given alternatives. We spent a long time explaining to the girl on reception that this was not acceptable to be told there was nothing that they could do our pitches had been given to someone else. We asked to speak to the site manager and were told that she did not know where the manager was and did not have a contact number for her. We asked for a refund on our deposit which we were told was not possible. We ended up staying on the pitches they had given us for two nights to cover our deposit. When we left they tried to charge us 16 euros booking fee, cheek!! This is an OK site if you dont have any problems - management are non existent.

We stopped at this site at the start of June 2011. The directions in the book are a waste of time. You have to go through a housing estate, then over a level crossing, along the beach parking area. Through a derelict home area, past a derelict holiday park, then over the rail way again. The site is on the left. You have to do this route every time you want to go anywhere. When we were there, there was a travelers camp of over 50 vans 500 yrds up the road.
I found the roads to be very tight and hedges round the plot where about eight foot high, made you feel as though you were in a prison cell. We picked this site because of the water slides it shows on the website, but there was only one pool open.
We stayed two nights, certainly would not stop there again.

Thoroughly enjoyed our stay. It was out of season so very quiet. We were within 10 metres of both pool and sanitair which were clean and tidy. Reception staff were helpful and pleasent. Intende staying for 5 days but stayed for 8.

The campsite is not as near to the beach as the literature suggests and involves a walk across a railway line. The nearby town of La Rochelle is full of interest and has one of the largest marinas full of superb boats. The beach is very popular with windsurfers and kite surfers so it is clearly windy quite often. The area around the site has several abandoned or derelict campsites and the Sables is in need of updating.

We have just returned from one week at Les Sables, having rented a 3 bedroom chalet. Whilst the chalet and the on-site restaurant were great, my major concerns were as follows:
1. Les Sables website states the site is 200 meters from the beach. That may well be but a railway line separates the site from the beach so have to go a contorted route past a demolition site to reach the beach. Easy access to the beach was a priority for us as we have 3 kids and I personally believe the website is misleading and unclear.
2. At night-time there were always noisy drinking-sessions going on into the small hours. We left a day early as on the Thursday night our neighbours kept us awake until 6 am partying. I don't begrudge people enjoying the cheap wine but I do like to have a decent night's kip and my kids were very moany most mornings as they had been kept awake late... When we left I told reception about the noise and they told me 'there was no security guard that night'.