Rural France with Homair
30 August 2024 at 10:51:29
My husband and I stayed for 10 nights in mid-August with our teenage daughter & son (15 & 13). Although we usually do this type of holiday, this was our first trip to the Dordogne and also our first time with Homair. I booked a 3 bedroom Comfort Plus (they've now been renamed to Comfort XL), which suited... our family as they have a double room and 2 twin bedrooms - my two are a bit big for bunk beds now.
The park is holiday-village style. I'd say primary school children would probably get the most from it, with the kids' clubs, playground, mini disco, park mascots, crazy golf. We didn't play the crazy golf on park as we went to Univerland in Le Bugue near the beginning of the holiday and played there, and once was enough apparently. My husband and son did make use of the park's ping-pong tables. There was a teens club and various sporting activities, but my two aren't really that way inclined, so we'd planned to use the park mainly as a base for seeing the area and enjoying some French food and wine along the way.
You need to like the countryside as the park is set deep within it. Le Bugue is the nearest town and is 9km drive away, the first 3km from the park are down windy country lanes before you reach the main road. On a good run, you can be in Le Bugue in 10 minutes or so. We arrived on park on a Monday and wanted to go to the Intermarche on the Tuesday morning. Unfortunately for us Tuesday is market day so we sat in traffic for about 50 minutes. A couple of days later was a French public holiday and we got stuck in traffic again. On a third occassion it wasn't clear what the hold up was other than a large lorry passing through the centre of town.
The countryside setting is, however, lovely and peaceful. The mobile homes are set amoungst trees, and we woke in the mornings to the sound of pigeons cooing and no road noise whatsoever. We were able to watch the tree creepers having their breakfast in the trees while we sat on the deck in the mornings having ours.
The park compensates for being in the middle of nowhere by having good facilities - mini-market, bar, takeaway and its own restaurant.
A downside of the area is the mobile data connection is shockingly poor. You'd sometimes see a teenager sitting in a random spot around the park as they'd found a signal. The park provides wifi at €30 for 4 devices for 1 week. We purchased this from Wednesday to Wedneday. It worked better than our data, but still not great. My daughter wasn't able to watch TikToks or go on call with her friends as it cut out too much. She could send messages though. My two both seemed to survive and had a nice holiday in spite of the rubbish internet.
Getting there: We got the shuttle and drove from Calais, stopping overnight in Orléans on the way out and just north of Paris on the way back. We wouldn't have wanted to have driven a lot further. When the kids were small, we used to cross from Portsmouth to Saint Malo or Caen on the overnight ferry, and this would have made the drive a bit shorter.
Check-in: Homair and Eurocamp are represented by the Marvilla parks reception team, as they're all part of the same company. They don't have the old style couriers on site with a caravan where you can borrow games, etc. We arrived just after 4pm, there was only a short queue in reception and we were given the keys to our mobile home. We didn't have to pay a cash deposit for cleaning as I'd already checked in online and given them my credit card number. They let us have two sets of keys, which was appreciated. They took our number plate for the barrier (although I'd already provided this online). We were given a map of the park with our mobile home marked on it. It took us ages to find as ours was in the middle of a circle of others. The numbers don't run in rows like streets. I did notice that Roan have their own separate reception caravan and show guests to their moble homes with their golf buggy.
Mobile home: We were allocated one of Marvilla Parks' own mobile homes, which exceeded my expectations. It was very clean, new smelling, well equipped and in a pretty good location, not too far from the pool and all the facilities. I'd phoned Homair before we left the UK and asked to be positioned near to the wifi, although whether this request was taken into account wasn't really clear (I don't think it works particularly well wherever you are on the park).
There's absolutely no welcome pack, so no washing up sponge, not even a loo roll!
We had toaster, kettle, 4 ring gas hob, charcoal barbecue, coffee filter jug. There's no oven, but that seems to be fairly standard. There was a mirror in every room. Plenty of electrical sockets, a couple of USB points. A heater in the shower room (not needed). Air-con (only needed a couple of times). Big deck with table, chairs, a couple of plastic easy chairs, good outside light. The main bedroom had a queen-sized bed and enough space to walk around the bed, not like previous mobile homes we've stayed in. The matress was covered in horrble plastic so the flat sheet provided kept coming off. The loo was in its own cubicle with no hand basin as often seems to be the case nowadays. The shower room was a good size with enough storage and hooks for towels. There were hooks in the bedrooms and living room too.
Our plot didn't get much sun at all, which was a shame. We were shaded by all the trees and had a fully covered, east-facing deck.
We did have a couple of minor issues during our stay. I'd ordered 1 double and 2 single bedding & towel packs at an extra €75. They give you one bath towel each. No hand / hair towels and no bath mat. One of the bath towels was heavily stained, so I took it to reception to ask for a replacement. They were unable to replace it as the laundry hadn't been delivered. They'd had to do the laundry themselves, hence the stains hadn't washed out. They assured me it was clean, but I found the large yellowy-brown stain too off-putting, so asked for a refund. They refused to refund me for just one towel, so I was left without a satisfactory resolution. If you have any issues during your stay, be prepared for the reception team to try and fob you off.
The second issue we had was a few days in. Alongside the new caravan smell, we started to notice another far from pleasant smell coming from behind our fridge. We carefully moved the fridge out to discover the drip tray at the back was full of rotten smelling liquid and a fat-berg looking thing. Not knowing what it was or how it got there (and never having needed to check the back of a fridge before), hubby went to reception in the afternoon for some assistance. They told him they'd send someone immediately, so he took them literally and went back to the caravan and waited. No one came, so it was a bit misleading to say they'd send someone immediately. The next morning, when we went to get our breakfast pastries from the shop, he went back to reception, this time with his angry hat on, to complain and also ask again for a clean towel. They didn't seem to have a record that we'd already reported these issues. We returned to our mobile home, and whilst we were having breakfast, housekeeping appeared with a clean towel, then the maintenance man arrived and cleaned out our drip tray. The housekeeping lady and the maintenance man were both polite and helpful.
It's a shame my husband had to complain and speak to the manager to get the team to resolve what were minor issues. We'd prefer to be relaxing on our holidays, not having to kick up a fuss to achieve what should be a basic level of service.
Pools: The pool complex is good if a little tired. As others have mentioned, some of the patio slabs are loose. There are footbaths between the various different pools. These are needed as some of the complex is set on grass, and there's a large grassy terrace with sunloungers. I saw staff cleaning the pool regularly, but they're up against it with all that grass and dirt plus the age of the complex. There's, I think, five or six pools, enough for the number of guests and something for kids of all ages, from toddlers right through to early teens. My son certainly enjoyed the pools. There are a couple of slides you go down on your rubber ring (available to buy in the park shop for about €6 or bring them from home), one of the slides is quite fast. Lots of boys & men were in regular swimming shorts even though you're not supposed to wear them - they don't enforce it, which suited my son. There's a pool bar for drinks and snacks, which we didn't use, but good to have the option. They could do with a few more sunloungers in high season. We only went to the pool after our days out, so usually managed to find a couple. We saw a few people marching to the pool with their bag of towels as we were going to the shop in the morning for croissants but this isn't the sort of park where people queue up and run for a sunlounger.
Shop: Open 8am to 8pm and didn't close for lunch. The shop stocked most things you need for self-catering and some souvenirs, toys, pool inflatables, flip-flops, etc and wasn't hideously priced for groceries. I was disappointed with the quality of the croissants and chocolatines as they weren't particularly crispy. In fairness, they were tasty and reasonably priced. Four croissants for €1.50, or €0.95 each or four chocolatines for €2, or €1.05 each. Baguettes €1.30.
Takeaway & Bar: Pizzas and burger & chips from the takeaway were very nice. Cheeseburger was, I think, €10.90 and the pizzas range from €10.90 to €14.50 and are big. They have Carte D'or ice creams, €2.10 for one scoop. The crepes were reheated, so not very nice. Beer starts from €5.90 for a half litre. As is often the case in France, the wine was a bargain at €13.50 a litre. The white was particularly enjoyable. Lots of reasonably priced aperitifs too, for example €3.90 for a Ricard, a walnut wine, a kir and various others. Soft drinks were a bit expensive at €3.50 for a coke or fanta. Cocktails ranged from €7.50 to €8.20.
Restaraunt: The park has its own restaurant, Le Chaudron. We only went once for the moules frites evening on a Tuesday. We've had better moules frites at restaraunts on the west coast, but for the price of €18 for the set menu, we were happy with the meal. You had a choice of moules marinieres, moules curry or moules maroilles, which turned out to be mussels in a delicious cheese sauce. Included in the price, we got a quarter litre of wine each (or you could have a Hoegaarden), and the kids got a coke or fanta. Dessert was two scoops of ice cream, served unattractively in a clear disposable plastic pot. I believe the restaurant serves the same food as the takeaway too, so pizzas, burgers, salads and also some traditional perigord food.
Entertainment: We didn't get involved with the daytime entertainment but saw from the programme they did some sports tournaments and some things in the pool. My husband and I went to the evening entertainment a few times. The stage is on a big outdoor terrace next to all the other facilities. There are loads of tables and chairs where you can have food from the takeaway or just a drink from the bar. The entertainment team appeared energetic and bouncy, as you'd hope. It was typical caravan park entertainment with something different at 9pm each night - eg bingo, a different live band each week, a disco with a DJ from French radio station NRJ. I'm all for a bit of noughties dance and europop, but the NRJ DJ night was cheesy even by my standards. On the night of 15 August (a French holiday) they had fireworks on the park at 11pm, which was an unexpected treat and bonus of being there in peak season; I even persuaded our teens to join us for that one.
Weather: I think we were a bit unlucky with the weather when we went in August as it was a bit mixed. We had six days of cloudy, sometimes showery, weather followed by three days of clear blue skies and warm, bordering on hot, sunshine. The daytime temperatures ranged from 22°C to 28°C. It was always shorts-weather, even on the cloudy days. I needed a warm top first thing in the morning and in the evenings, but hubby was alright without. A couple of evenings it got too cold to sit out, but mostly it was fine. We went to Spain last year and the weather was uncomfortably hot so it was great not to be too hot and much more practical for days out and sightseeing and also barbecues and meals on the deck.
Days out: There's plenty to see and do in the local area - for a cave visit we picked Rouffignac for affordability then followed up with a nice set menu lunch at Chez Ana in the village of Rouffignac itself.
For kayaking, we used Canoe Vacances in La Roque-Gageac. On the 9km trip as well as great views of La Roque-Gageac, you get to see the chateaux of Castelnaud, Beynac and Les Milandes from the Dordogne river.
For a swim in the Dordogne, we tried Limeuil beach where the Dordogne and the Vésère meet, but the current was strong. We prefered Plage du Buisson de Cadouin where the water was calmer. The term beach is a bit generous I think; riverbank is more apt. You can lay your towels or picnic blanket on the grassy river bank, and there are picnic tables. The 'beach' is some stones that hurt your feet. I wasn't overly keen on the riverbank as people didn't always pick up after their dogs (eww). My husband and son enjoyed cooling off in the water though, and my daughter liked it there as she could get 4G! When we got back to the park and went to the pool hubby and I agreed laying on a sunbed was a more comfortable experience than laying by the river.
For a trip into town, Le Bugue is nearest. It's a small town on the Vésère river with a handful of restaurants and cafes, a high-quality bakery, charcuterie, some antiques shops, gift shops, church, post office. Some of the shops are derelict. Crazy-busy on market day. Very laid back and quiet other days.
For a good value, fun trip out we liked the wild boar farm 10 minutes drive from the park - Les Sangliers de Mortemart. Just a small low-key attraction but worth a visit.
We didn't go to a market, which seemed a shame, but we were put off by the traffic jams round Le Bugue on market day. We went to Sarlat on a Sunday (non-market day) and got parked okay.
Would I recommend Saint Avit Loisirs? I think so long as you go in with realistic expectations - it's a camping park and priced accordingly. The particular mobile home we were allocated was good value for money. We all enjoyed our Dordogne holiday. It was nice to see the region and explore somewhere we'd not been before. I don't think we'll be returning to the Dordogne any time soon as the drive was a bit long for us. I'd give other Marvilla Parks a go, though, and look forward to returning to one of my favouries, La Croix du Vieux Pont, in northern France one day.
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