At the start of the Easter holidays we had a little adventure at a Eurocamp in France. It was the first time we had driven overseas and our first trip to a Eurocamp. There are so many locations to choose from, across Europe, we chose La Croix du Vieux Pont. With a 90 minute drive to Paris it is the perfect location to explore the romance capital of the world and Disneyland Paris if you wanted to. I would say there is plenty to do onsite though!
La Croix du Vieux Pont
The parc is just so beautiful. It is full of greenery and beautiful, glistening, lakes. The manmade beach area is brilliant too, perfect to give that holiday by the beach vibe. There are a variety of lodges on the parc, I loved the ones with the pitched roof, they looked really magical at night too. They offer some great deals throughout the year, but you have to find them via Emma. Emma runs Best Child Friendly Holidays and this is who we booked our trip through, Emma lists so many fab deals and features Eurocamp sites from across the continent.
The parc has lots of different areas for different activities, there is a shop on site and a bakery. The bakery was amazing, we had a fresh baguette every morning and it was delicious. There are restaurants and a takeaway on site too. The newly refurbished bar was really lovely and opened whilst we were there. There is a bar on the ground floor, bowling alley next door and upstairs an array of pool tables. It was a nice place to be together in the evenings, lots for us to do.
Activities
The parc has so much to offer. There are 3 swimming pools and a splash park area. 1 of the pools is outside and the other 2 are inside but the roof is retractable for hot days. Such a great idea. The splash park is under the roof too and next to the children’s indoor pool. There is a manmade pool area, lakes that you can fish in or get on a kayak across the water. The crazy golf was fun, the boys did that a few times during our stay and said it was really good. You can pay for the activities at the central cafe by the lake. You can get drinks and ice creams most of the day and make sure you get the token deal for the activities. You can pay for the tokens in bulk, which means you get more for your money. We bought 50 euros worth of tokens but the kids got 70 euros worth of activities. I hope that makes sense! he tokens are needed for the soft play, trampolines, bungees, go karts and the boats for the lake. They loved them all. It felt safe sitting at the cafe whilst the children all ran around on the activities.
Our lodge
We loved the lodge. We stayed in the 3 bedroom Deckhouse lodge and we really liked the location of the lodge too. We had to walk under the main road into a different area with the lodges. There are Eurocamp lodges and other company owned lodges too, a bit of a mixture. There was a park and lots of grassy areas. It looked really lovely. Our lodge had an open plan living area, with kitchen and diner. We really loved it and the fridge had an ice machine which was amazing. The TV did not work as it did not have an aerial, but if you wanted to bring a HDMI lead and console you could use it for that.
The lodge has 3 bedrooms: 1 with a double, 1 with a twin (which had a mattress under neath a bed too) and a bunkbed room which had 2 bunkbeds. So, in all the lodge would have slept 9 people. That is not including the sofa. There were 2 shower rooms too, with a separate toilet. Only one toilet!
Location
The parc is north of Paris, it took us just over 2.5 hours from Dover and we are about 2 hours from home to Dover. So in all we drove for just over 5.5 hours. The ferry was brilliant, we have never done it before and I couldn’t believe how stress free it was. We got to Dover 3 hours early and got straight onto a ferry, it was so brilliant. The parc itself is in a lovely village, you can walk from the parc up to the mountains or the local boulangerie. We used the chemist too as Hubby hurt his back and they were really helpful and spoke English too.
We took a walk up into the mountains as the shop assistant suggested we find the caves. The caves were completely breathtaking and overwhelming. It was built in World War 1 to protect the local women and children during the German invasions. I did find out, when we got back to England, that the caves have been declared unsafe. However, when we were up there we could see no warning messages. If you do head up there, please be careful and ensure you have a torch, or two.
Overall, we really enjoyed our stay at La Croix du Vieux Pont with Eurocamp, we could see how fabulous it would be later into the season. We got there in the first week and everything was just warming up, literally, the pool wasn’t quite warmed up and the kids club hadn’t started yet and some of the activities were not up and running. I think the kids club started the following week, so we only missed out as we got there on that first week. There was still so much for the kids to do and they had lots of fun in the pool. The retractable roof comes in handy at the tail ends of the seasons!
Check out our other adventures, fun family travel.
Some beautiful photos. Looks like a great holiday.