Campsite La Noue des Rois ****

We arrived at 1300 hrs for a scheduled & pre-arranged 4 X night stay. As the reception office was closed for lunch, we had our lunchtime snack in our caravan. At 1400 hrs the door to reception was still locked but there was clearly someone inside so we knocked on the door. A very surly women unlocked the door and indicated that she didn\'t speak or understand English. Our French was limited but we managed to explain who we were and shortly afterwards another lady arrived and took over the procedure of checking us in. The surly lady walked off and went back to what seemed like a back office. Perhaps she wasn\'t a member if the reception staff and felt annoyed at having her lunch break disturbed.

Anyway, we were shown which gate to use to access the pitches. There were two. When we arrived at the pitches available; three or maybe four on a large area of white gravel/pebbles and covered in long weeds, we were so disappointed. The pre-cast concrete barbecue nearest us was full of burnt out ashes and covered, & I mean covered in used cigarette ends. Clearly, little had been done to welcome newcomers to this site. My concerns were justified when I had to make a quick visit to the sanitary block - if that is the right description. It certainly didn\'t look very sanitary and there wasn\'t any soap dispensers or toilet tissue that I could see. Furthermore, there wasn\'t a chemical disposal point or a stand pipe for fresh water. I resorted to using the sinks in the laundry room to fill my water bottles.

Having explained the latter to my wife she was in total agreement that we should head into town, find some diesel for our car and cut our stay to one night only. The area where we were allocated a pitch was ugly, uncared for and yet had a very new looking, sparkling, big HOBBY caravan opposite with long grass hiding it\'s four wheels. The underside of that\' an could not be seen. The only thing missing was a pie-bold pony!!

We were hungry by 7.00 pm so ventured up to the restaurant in \'the other\' site (where the swimming pool is situated). The restaurant was a delight, the ladies who were running it could not have been more helpful & charming and the food was extremely tasty - although from a limited menu.

Needless to say, we will not be back, we have put a large Red Cross across the entry in our ACSI brochure and we have no hesitation in advising others to check the site first before checking in & have an alternative site ready to go to. We didn\'t but we were able to add three extra nights to out next scheduled stop.

This is a good campsite; not perfect but good. There has obviously been a lot of work carried out since the previous poor reviews. Given the poor reviews from previous years we had initially discounted it but as we were due to pass by en route to another (municipal) site we decided to give it the “once-over”. As noted in other reviews the reception was closed from 1200 to 1400 so we walked the site whilst waiting. Yes there are lots of “statics” but 95%+ are well maintained and the general appearance of the site is one of tidiness. The swimming pool/s are excellent, we didn’t use the mini-golf or tennis. The toilets and showers are a tad “tired” but are satisfactory. There is a decent restaurant / bar onsite and essentials are on sale in the reception. Bread can be ordered from reception. There’s plenty of room to exercise a dog. The staff dont have a lot of English but are generally helpful. A couple of quibbles - mosquitos abound given the number of fishing lakes and ponds on site,there was no chemical WC disposal point in the sanitaire on the side of the campsite where we had our pitch; both sanitaires on the other side of the camp did have disposal points though and the motorhome service point outside the site was not particularly clean. Would we come back ? Yes we would.

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First impressions were poor, the general feeling on arrival were not encouraging.
After booking in and finding a pitch our feelings were confirmed. The pitch was uneven and gravel placed on the grass to look like a hard standing. As in alł previous comments the site is full of run down chalets with some having dodgy looking tenants. The site had a 2014 ACSI inspected sticker which I do not understand.
Please re inspect as like several visitors since 2011 we turned round and left immediately!