Route du Littoral
66702
ARGELES sur MER Cédex
France
Tel: +33(0)468811448
Website: http://www.camping-le-soleil.fr/

August 2016  Unit 6 berth tent.

This was our first visit to this site but our 2nd visit to this area and indeed Angeles Sur Mer.

We found this site on the internet actually on Google Maps, looking at the area in satellite view. The plus for this site was that is was closer to the beach than the first site we had visited in this area. In fact it was almost right next door.

The site boarder is in fact the beach. Can’t get much closer. There is a short walk from the site through the small dunes to the wide sandy beach. The site have added a blue carpet like flooring on the path through the dunes which makes the walk very easy and even pushchair/wheelchair friendly.

The site is as far as we can tell independently owned but is very well kept and is used by all the major European Camping companies, keycamp, eurocamp etc… It’s not a small site with over 1000 pitches and we expected it to be very crowded. It wasn’t even though the site was full it didn’t feel too full.

We had booked our pitch early to avoid disappointment, and so had booked via email and paid €125.00 deposit by international bank transfer. Balance to be paid on aerival. No problem, we received all the usual confirmation and even our allocated pitch number…. Cool we could even see where on site we would be.

On arrival we parked in the car park and walked to reception armed with all our paperwork to be greeted with a cheery Bonjour! To which I replied in my usual allo allo style French. He mappel monsiour Hickman from Angletter. At which point the receptionist immediately switches to English which made proceedings much smoother. We paid the balance for our stay and were given a map of the site shown where our pitch was and told that if it’s empty we can move in right away.

Facilities include

• Shop
• Large Pool
• Restaurant x2
• Take Away
• Newsagent
• Snack Bar
• Bar
• Pool Bar
• Night Club
• Large Outdoor Entertainment Area
• Kids club
• Teen Club
• Sports Courts
• Spa
• Climbing Wall

I’ve probably forgotten some but isn’t that enough for anyone?

The shop is well stocked and I’m sure that if you didn’t want to you would not need to shop anywhere else for your entire stay. Prices were a little higher than the local supermarket but by no means extortionate. Like just about every French campsite Bread, Croissant etc is baked fresh on site throughout the day. There was also a good choice of wine, beer, soft drinks and both canned and fresh food and a small freezer section. The shop also sold beech goods, umbrellas, toys, inflatables etc….

The Restaurant is kind of split into 2, part being casual dining and the other part being a little more formal. During our stay we used the casual side which served a nice selection of food along with some nice wines, many of which were locally produced. Although we didn’t use the more formal side food and service looked of a good quality. I would recommend a reservation for either sides as both are well used! The Take Away serves similar food to the restaurant I can recommend the ham and pineapple pizza but steer clear of the 4 cheese if you don’t like goats cheese! Should have read the menu, 4 cheese French style….On a couple of nights we grilled a steak at the tent and nipped to the Take Away for some frites to go with it.

The pool is large with enough space for plenty of campers. Although it seemed fairly new it is still a pretty plain pool in comparison to some with very little elaborate theming. There is a wooden bridge over one section which leads to the outside entertainment / bar / nightclub area. If you stay in the pool and swim under the bridge you can access the pool bar.

The evening entertainment is not exactly Las Vegas quality but it was far better than the usual “French Campsite Entertainment” which is a site to behold. It usually consists of something like Very Loud Drumming to which some scantily clad women shake their bits. Actually now I read that it sounds quite entertaining, however believe me it’s not!
Camping Le Soliel however provided some very passable bands to watch. The one we saw was “Captain Jack” a middle aged guy in a sailor suit, who played guitar and sang in 3 languages and did very well. He theme song seemed to be the theme from the TV show “The Love Boat”

Our pitch was very close to one of the toilet blocks which we were a little nervous about as usually the loos are a congregating point for youths after dark. Not here, to our surprise it was very quiet. During one of my usual night time trips (yes it’s an age thing, nothing to do with the wine. Honest!) I found out why. There is a security guard stationed at the toilet block during the night. He really had nothing more to do than sit and read his book and do a bit of cleaning throughout the night.
Toilets, showers and washing sinks etc were always spotless. Showers were always warm and plenty of hot water.

We found all staff that we interacted with helpful, friendly and pleasant. In fairness we didn’t need to interact with many staff as everything was perfect. There really was nothing to fault at this site. The only slight niggle is if they could warm up the sea a little? Not sure how they could do that but it would be nice.

So would we go again? Well watch this space. We are booked to return this year 2017 but this time with our new caravan!