France Ferry & Campsite info (use Search function) mod warning post 1

Baybay

kildarecommuter wrote: »

Serignan is nice as is Portiranges and Marseillan. Lots to do in the area and there’s also outdoor activities such as canoeing etc in parc haut Languedoc little bit inland from there.
Carcassone is a horrible airport and I’d have a preference for Montpellier but understand if you can fly from Cork rather than Dublin.

I don’t know anything about the campsite itself but as said, there’s lots to do in the area for children & adults.
There’s lots of beaches & marinas with associated water sports at some, Vendres plage in particular springs to mind. Serignan plage itself also has a nice beachfront restaurant.
The canal du midi offers opportunities for tow path cycling, boat hire, lunch or dinner cruises etc. Seeing some of the locks in operation is fun too.
There’s also karting, a water park, kayaking, an amusement park, golf etc within easy reach.
Carcassonne old cite is a lovely day out. Yes, the airport itself isn’t the greatest but much improved on what it was & very small to get around. Ground staff are picky too & seem to love the challenge of trying catch people out! But that might be just my observation! Montpellier is a much nicer airport but possibly at best only a few minutes closer to Serignan.

anacc

MorganIRL wrote: »

Just wondering has anyone stayed at this site, www.campinglapinede.com, looking for nxt year at this place is just at the edge of our journey length. Haven't seen it come up before in the forum, and just wondering. Looks to have good facilities etc. TIA

Yeah we stayed there a few years ago with kelair. It's a nice enough campsite, the kids loved the pool because there's a huge amount of slides - it's like having a waterpark in the campsite. It's a nice enough area, there's a zoo and some nice beaches nearby. There's a Luna Park (a large funfair) across the road which is fun once or twice but because it was so close the kids nagged to go every night which costs a fortune.

MorganIRL

anacc wrote: »

Yeah we stayed there a few years ago with kelair. It's a nice enough campsite, the kids loved the pool because there's a huge amount of slides - it's like having a waterpark in the campsite. It's a nice enough area, there's a zoo and some nice beaches nearby. There's a Luna Park (a large funfair) across the road which is fun once or twice but because it was so close the kids nagged to go every night which costs a fortune.

Thanks very much, I knew someone had mentioned it but I couldn't find the post when I went back through them. Is it a large site, as in loads of mobiles? I ask cause we don't want to go back to as big of a site as le clarys Plage. Did ye use the bike trails? We not really into beaches so looking for somewhere with stuff to do on bikes etc. TIA

anacc

MorganIRL wrote: »

Thanks very much, I knew someone had mentioned it but I couldn't find the post when I went back through them. Is it a large site, as in loads of mobiles? I ask cause we don't want to go back to as big of a site as le clarys Plage. Did ye use the bike trails? We not really into beaches so looking for somewhere with stuff to do on bikes etc. TIA

It's a pretty small site compared to others we have stayed in but it's long and narrow. I think we were about halfway down from the pool/reception area. If you were down the back it might be a bit of a dose. We did a fair bit of cycling alright, and there's lots of forest in the surrounding area.

average_runner

kildarecommuter wrote: »

Serignan is nice as is Portiranges and Marseillan. Lots to do in the area and there’s also outdoor activities such as canoeing etc in parc haut Languedoc little bit inland from there.
Carcassone is a horrible airport and I’d have a preference for Montpellier but understand if you can fly from Cork rather than Dublin.

For the canoeing, Saint Guilhem le desert is amazing. A bit further but a great day out. We fly into toulouse as better times for flights and drive to vias.

54and56

MorganIRL wrote: »

Thanks very much, I knew someone had mentioned it but I couldn't find the post when I went back through them. Is it a large site, as in loads of mobiles? I ask cause we don't want to go back to as big of a site as le clarys Plage. Did ye use the bike trails? We not really into beaches so looking for somewhere with stuff to do on bikes etc. TIA

Bonne Anse Plage is nearby, is one of the best run sites we have used in the past (over 5 years ago now) but critically, if you're into cycling as we are, there's a dedicated bike path running right past the rest gate of the site all along the coastline in both directions through forest trails etc

MorganIRL

anacc wrote: »

It's a pretty small site compared to others we have stayed in but it's long and narrow. I think we were about halfway down from the pool/reception area. If you were down the back it might be a bit of a dose. We did a fair bit of cycling alright, and there's lots of forest in the surrounding area.

Had ye any problem with mosquitoes, read on TripAdvisor that there may be an issue. Somehow the better half gets attacked most yrs by the buggers.

54and56

So having my coffee on the Stena Horizon this morning and my name is called out over the tannoy to come to reception. I'm parked on the exposed upper deck with 3 bikes on a tow bar bike rack on the back of my car which is an automatic with auto handbrake.

Turns out the car parked behind me didn't put his handbrake on correctly (according to the Stena officer) and slid forward into the back of my bikes/car damaging his own front and pushed the right hand side of my bikes towards my rear right brake light. It's hard to describe but instead of the bikes being one foot parallel to the rear of the car they are now at an angle with the right hand side (as you look from behind) almost touching the rear brake light and the left hand side two feet away from the rear brake light. The tow bar is very tightly secured so it takes serious weight/force to move it.

The result that I can see is that the car that moved had it's front number plate ripped off as it tangled with my bikes and some scratching to the bonnet.

The only damage i can see to my property is that the metal plate on the tow bar which holds the electrical socket for the tailboard was pushed back about 40 degrees to the right so the socket now comes out at an angle instead of straight out but it still appears to work and there is a tiny scratch on the bumper which I'm not at all worried about, I'm not that precious!

What I don't know is what damage is done to the three bikes which cost about €2,000 in total including a new bike purchased for €1,100 just 5 weeks ago. Hopefully there's no damage but it looks like they've been wedged together and acted as a sandwich between the car which moved and my car.

If there is any material damage to the bikes such as cracked carbon frame or buckled wheel rims which wasn't apparent with the 2 minute visual inspection Stena allowed me I'll need to make some sort of claim.

Stena gave me an incident report and immediately told me I'd have to claim off the French owner of the unsecured french registered car.

Hopefully there won't be any need to claim as I know it'll be a painful process and I don't know exactly what happened as Stena had moved the other car back into place and secured it by the time they called me so I only have their word for what happened thus making a claim off the French car owner even more difficult.

My immediate thought is that this is an issue between me and Stena as it's up to them to ensure the safety of my car on board. They put wedges under all wheels of all cars (or some wheels not sure about all) to prevent them moving around but it clearly wasn't effective or they didn't apply them correctly.

The crossing was moderately rough but nothing outrageous.

Anyone got any experience of an incident like this on board?

kindalen

Sorry can not help, but I would suggest you ring your car insurance company ASAP and see what advice they give. And might be worth sending National Transport Authority an E-mail:

info@nationaltransport.ie

Peckham

I agree with you. I'd expect that it's between you and Stena.

I'd be surprised if the other owner's insurance company would get involved. I'd expect their view would be that Stena was transporting the car. While they were transporting it, it caused damage to a third party. Nothing to do with the car's owner.

First Up

Peckham wrote:

I'd be surprised if the other owner's insurance company would get involved. I'd expect their view would be that Stena was transporting the car. While they were transporting it, it caused damage to a third party. Nothing to do with the car's owner.

I'd be very surprised if ferry companies left themselves so wide open to claims caused by the negligence of passengers.

54and56

First Up wrote: »

I'd be very surprised if ferry companies left themselves so wide open to claims caused by the negligence of passengers.

I don't know whose negligence it was as i didn't witness what happened.

Two elements contribute to securing cars on the deck:-

1. The driver is asked to apply the handbrake.

2. Stena staff insert wedges in front of and behind one or more wheels on each car.

Either the driver didn't apply the handbrake or Stena didn't apply the wedges correctly or both. I'd no way to determine who didn't fulfil their obligation as I was only invited on deck after the event happened and (more importantly) after Stena had returned the moved car back to it's place.

Also, as it turns out there was some fairly serious damage done to one of the bikes.

We had three bikes on the bike rack.

The one closest to the car that moved which received the direct contact doesn't appear to be damaged at all other than cosmetic scratches which aren't a problem. The bike (my bike) closest to the rear of my car had it's chain ring buckled presumably from the force of the moving car pressing against the bike rack but again no big deal, €50 or so.

The big issue and where the fight will be is that the new bike, which was in the middle of the other two bikes, does indeed have a bent front fork and as it's carbon fibre so it can't be repaired. That means a new frame for a 5 week old bike to which the existing gears, brakes etc can be fitted.

Total cost to order the parts and effect the repairs from the local bike shop this afternoon is just shy of €900.

There's also a couple of cosmetic scratches to the lip of the boot where the bikes were pushed against the car but again I'm not worried about those providing i get the €900 paid out without either hassle or delay.

No one was injured so no big deal but €900 is worth claiming for and is on my to-do list for Monday morning.

pmpa

Sorry to read about the accident on the ferry 54&56. Not a nice way to end your holiday. Hopefully you will get reimbursed quickly and without any hassle.

54and56

pmpa wrote: »

Sorry to read about the accident on the ferry 54&56. Not a nice way to end your holiday. Hopefully you will get reimbursed quickly and without any hassle.

Thanks PMPA, a little fender bender like this isn't going to spoil the great holiday we had in La Reserve, it just gets better for us each year as we discover more places to explore and eat in.

pmpa

54&56 wrote: »

Thanks PMPA, a little fender bender like this isn't going to spoil the great holiday we had in La Reserve, it just gets better for us each year as we discover more places to explore and eat in.

That is good to hear. Am I right in presuming you will be booking La Reserve for next year from that sentence?

54and56

pmpa wrote: »

That is good to hear. Am I right in presuming you will be booking La Reserve for next year from that sentence?

Yes, almost certainly. Might wait until Brexit panic is at its height late Oct or early Nov to see if the Pound drops further and Siblu are offering discounts to their British customers via the .co.uk website before booking.

Also want to wait to see what the ferry schedules are like next year before booking.

May not book the exact same mobile though as we'll likely have one less traveler next year so will only need a 2 bed mobile.

pmpa

54&56 wrote: »

Yes, almost certainly. Might wait until Brexit panic is at its height late Oct or early Nov to see if the Pound drops further and Siblu are offering discounts to their British customers via the .co.uk website before booking.

Also want to wait to see what the ferry schedules are like next year before booking.

May not book the exact same mobile though as we'll likely have one less traveler next year so will only need a 2 bed mobile.

It will be interesting to see how Brexit will affect the price for the campsites. I'm watching Brittany Ferries as the Pont Aven is supposed to be going for an engine refit so wondering will they have a boat to take the same capacity for the normally booked out Summer season as I read somewhere it will take at least six months to do the refit.

McSween

Does the air conditioning work in cabins in the WBY? It was very stuffy on OW last year.

darragh o meara

McSween wrote: »

Does the air conditioning work in cabins in the WBY? It was very stuffy on OW last year.

Yes, it works fine. In fact it worked a little better than normal in our cabin

amor3

McSween wrote: »

Does the air conditioning work in cabins in the WBY? It was very stuffy on OW last year.

It does indeed, had to turn it down yesterday/today sailing home...

And on that sad note, I've been looking around for next year and wondering if anyone has sailed to Santander and then drove to France. Was looking at La reserve and it would only be a 4 and a half hour drive if we did it this way??

54and56

amor3 wrote: »

It does indeed, had to turn it down yesterday/today sailing home...

And on that sad note, I've been looking around for next year and wondering if anyone has sailed to Santander and then drove to France. Was looking at La reserve and it would only be a 4 and a half hour drive if we did it this way??

I considered that route to La Reserve this year but IMHO the longer sailing isn't offset by a short drive the other side, you still have a 4.5 hour drive which is half what you'd be doing from Roscoff or Cherbourg.

A sailing to St Nazaire like LD Lines had in 2014 on the other hand.........

amor3

54&56 wrote: »

I considered that route to La Reserve this year but IMHO the longer sailing isn't offset by a short drive the other side, you still have a 4.5 hour drive which is half what you'd be doing from Roscoff or Cherbourg.

A sailing to St Nazaire like LD Lines had in 2014 on the other hand.........

Thanks for that! Hadn't realised it was a much longer sailing.. back to the drawing board so! Or else just back to our usual place (les charmettes) :-)

First Up

amor3 wrote:

Thanks for that! Hadn't realised it was a much longer sailing.. back to the drawing board so! Or else just back to our usual place (les charmettes) :-)

You hadn't realised that a sailing down the full length of France would take longer than one just crossing the English Channel?

josip

pmpa wrote: »

Sorry to read about the accident on the ferry 54&56. Not a nice way to end your holiday. Hopefully you will get reimbursed quickly and without any hassle.

Made me smile to see a post from 'pmpa' about an insurance-related topic.
Are we still paying a levy in our motor insurance premiums for their collapse 35 years ago?

average_runner

54&56 wrote: »

Yes, almost certainly. Might wait until Brexit panic is at its height late Oct or early Nov to see if the Pound drops further and Siblu are offering discounts to their British customers via the .co.uk website before booking.

Also want to wait to see what the ferry schedules are like next year before booking.

May not book the exact same mobile though as we'll likely have one less traveler next year so will only need a 2 bed mobile.

Sorry to hear about your bikes, but i would of thought stena are responsible for your car once on their boat, maybe check the small print.

Siblu offered us a deal we couldn't resist before leaving la carabasse, blew the private renters out of the market. Siblu also keep putting the fun passes up in price.

amor3

average_runner wrote: »

Sorry to hear about your bikes, but i would of thought stena are responsible for your car once on their boat, maybe check the small print.

Siblu offered us a deal we couldn't resist before leaving la carabasse, blew the private renters out of the market. Siblu also keep putting the fun passes up in price.

Same, the deal was great, for a bigger 3 bed, very modern mobile. We were up in the air about it though as we were not sure if we wanted somewhere different, we kinda left it a bit to late but decided to try put the 50 euro deposit down while we were checking out, but no manager was on so we left our details in the hope that we can still go with the quote!

anacc

MorganIRL wrote: »

Had ye any problem with mosquitoes, read on TripAdvisor that there may be an issue. Somehow the better half gets attacked most yrs by the buggers.

Yes. We were eaten alive by mozzies. There’s some salt marshes nearby and it's probably because of that.

MorganIRL

amor3 wrote: »

Thanks for that! Hadn't realised it was a much longer sailing.. back to the drawing board so! Or else just back to our usual place (les charmettes) :-)

Hi is Les Charmettes a large site? The large chance of mozzies at la pinede has put herself of the site.. TIA

amor3

MorganIRL wrote: »

Hi is Les Charmettes a large site? The large chance of mozzies at la pinede has put herself of the site.. TIA

Yeah it's big.. they have even extended it in the last couple of years, it is a fantastic site though! But just to note, my hubby got a fair few bites.. just him though, me and the kids were fine. He did buy a repellent in the on site supermarket which definitely seemed to help!

amor3

MorganIRL a pic of the site map.... if it works!!!