Great family holiday from UK - great kids club, beach, entertainment, slightly crammed in pitches but overall brilliant

3 September 2025 at 16:13:18
We came as a British family with 3 primary school age children for 9 nights in the middle of August 2025 camping on a beach pitch. Overall we had a great family holiday, would highly recommend this site and would happily come back. It's proximity to a great beach is the main draw, but also having a pool,... good kids club, fun kids entertainment, fitness/running/yoga for adults and nice bike rides on the doorstep make it a fairly unrivalled combination for a great holiday within 5hrs drive of the ferry. The compromise is that the beach pitches are fairly crammed in but overall this is worth it for what the site gives you.
To comment on a few things particularly:
Noise: I was fairly nervous having read some reviews of noisy entertainment going on late into the evening and keeping kids awake. However, we did not find this to be the case at all. Our pitch was probably mid-distance from the entertainment area and we barely knew if there was anything going on. The site was generally surprising silent given the number of pitches and people. Through the night you could hear a faint humm of the main road (albeit some half a mile away or so) and sometimes the sound of waves crashing on the beach, but nothing to disturb. This all said, there are probably a dozen pitches and lodge accommodations immediately adjacent to the entertainment/bar area in the centre of the resort that I would avoid as the evening disco/quiz was on most nights.
Beach: we booked late (c. 6 weeks prior) so didn’t manage to get a pitch right next to the footpath to the beach but still we were 2-3mins walk from tent to sea. The sand was lovely and the beach always busy but big enough that you didn’t have to walk more than 20 yards to find a clear patch for yourselves. Don’t bother with a surfboard but do bring bodyboards, paddleboards, kite and wingfoil/windsurf according to your interest - these were all in good use from campers on the beach while we were here. The onsite shop sells chilled drinks/ice creams and being able to nip there for a cold bottle of rose to bring back to the beach and enjoy while the kids make sandcastles into the early evening knowing your accomodation is a stones throw away is fairly unbeatable.
Pitches: the beach pitches are a bit crammed in and on first arrival it felt a bit like a shanty town due to proximity to other pitches and the mix of tents, caravans, campervans and cars. We didn’t book early enough to get a bigger pitch but despite this we managed to fit a large family airbeam tunnel style tent, a separate toilet tent, our car, a trailer, 5 bikes and paddle board on the pitch with room for a table and chairs outside too so can’t complain. It wasn’t clear to me what the rule on trailers was but we didn’t pay an extra for it and it seems to be allowable if you can fit it on your pitch - I did see one tent with a RIB on a trailer on the pitch so this seems fine too.
Kids club: our biggest surprise was how good the kids activities were here. Our kids enjoy kids club at more expensive resort holidays like Neilson/Mark Warner but we hadn’t intended doing it here however once they tried one session of it just to see they were hooked and wanted to go every day. We had to prize them away for family time! Our kids don’t speak French and the clubs are primarily in French but the leaders will translate the essentials so they are included which we felt was good to help get our kids a bit better at the language and there were a few other English and bilingual kids there. The kids club leaders were superb and really make it into an experience for the kids that rivals much more expensive resorts. Their energy and warmth was infectious and credit has to be given to both the individuals here this year but also Sandaya on recruitment, training and leadership to set this up.
Entertainment: the daily running, fitness and occasional yoga/stretching were great adult activities put on that we enjoyed and our kids loved the daily “crazy piscine” (lunchtime pool disco for 30mins) as well as the daily kids “cool disco”. These were again all led by great Sandaya staff - headed by Max who was superb. This is what makes the difference from tacky campsite “entertainment” and instead makes these events into fun, inclusive and energetic classes for the kids and adults. To have such well organised, appropriately age-pitched activities all included in a camp site was a real surprise and would pull be back to Sandaya.
Facilities: fine. Perfectly clean, never too busy, staff very friendly. It’s a campsite not a hotel but with this in mind it’s all fine. Cleaning teams seemed to be regularly and thoroughly cleaning the toilet and showers which were plentiful for the site size. Tennis court was good - booking at reception for €7 per hour slot, with racquets and ball available if needed.
Cycling:
We brought our own bikes but there were plenty to hire from the campsite. Lots of cycling over the island with a mix of on-road and cycle-only paths. The best cycling though was the other end of the island around Noirmoutier-en-ile and the Boise-de-la-chase area which we drove our bikes over to as its a bit of a distance for kids to cycle to and then around. The cycling around the campsite area is ok but we find a bit monotonous with long cycle paths that run alongside the main arterial roads. A small but very useful Decathlon is on the island too for essentials.
Improvements: there are two areas I felt should be improved:
1) bar and hot food service were both very slow. The staff were all very friendly but I’m sure an investment in twice as many staff serving drinks and food in the evenings and perhaps a bigger bar area would pay for itself quickly in drink and food sales - there was often a 15min queue and a 30min wait on food which led to us giving up on a few occasions and getting a beer from the shop instead.
2) There didn’t appear to be any check-in waiting area for cars/campervans/caravans. Which along with a single entrance gate, means that on occasion if you’ve popped out in your car for the morning when you return there can be a queue of vehicles at the gate waiting on the drivers to be given their check-in briefings and packs at reception. A minor inconvenience but a bit odd for a well established camp site not to have resolved this already.
Overall a really good site and very good team running the kids and adult entertainment. Reception team also very friendly and helpful. Very good value for money overall too.
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