ACSI and C&CC

[JohnGriffiths]

This year the Camping and Caravan Club decided to drop their off peak overseas offerings (Freedom Camping) and they now just offer the dutch ACSI card as an alternative. Now we have travelled extensively in the past using Freedom but also took the ACSI as a backup. I have to say I found this year much harder work deciding where to stay. Freedom camping gave you a couple of hundred well documented sites, ACSI gives a couple of thousand but with very limited info. We made a couple of big mistakes this year and learned that 4* sites are not necessarily good sites. Does anyone else regret the passing of Freedom vouchers?

 

[ValA.]

We've never used Freedom Vouchers - but have used an ACSI card for the last three or four years, usually in addition to Camping Cheques - and sometimes only for a couple of nights. We've only ever found one (ACSI) site which was sufficiently off-putting for us to not want to stay there - everywhere else we've stayed has been lovely. This year for the first time we spent more time on ACSI sites than on those accepting Camping Cheques.

I don't know what sort of sites Freedom Vouchers used to be accepted at - but we certainly find that between ACSI and Camping Cheques we have more choice of the sort of sites we want to stay at. Yes, the choice can be a little bewildering, but most of us have a specific area we head for, and it is nice to try some different sites.

By the way, where were the 'big mistake' sites? It's possible that you've just been unlucky - I wouldn't say that the ACSI sites we've used are in any way less 'four star' than any other sites we've stayed at.

 

[DavidKlyne]

John

If you are talking about Frence site then the rating system is more of an indicaion of quantity of facilities rather than quality! I am not a member of the C&CC so I don't know a lot about the Freedom Vouchers except I have been on the same sites with people using them. Clearly the C&CC will not be bringing back Freedom Vouchers so it looks as though you are stuck with the ACSI Book! However, might I suggest you invest in the ACSI DVD, available from Vicarious Books, this gives far more information on each campsite and you can also search geographically. So if you want to be near to Lyon it will show all the campsites for up to 50kms from Lyon which makes finding the right site much easier.

David

 

[TD42]

In addition to Davids reccomendation,The ACIS DVD also gives you a very good route finder from where ever you are to any where you want to go & allowes you to choose sites that have the facilities you want.

The only snag with it is not all the campsites it contains accept the ACIS card fixed prices which I found strange

 

[MowCopKen]

Hi

we use ACSI and look at their website, rather than the book. Plenty of info and you can search by regions with plenty of filters to choose (we have a twin axle and always look for whether they accept longer caravans and motor vehicles). Some sites have links to their own webpages, others don't, but its worth a quick search anyway - many do have their own sites, but haven't a link on the ACSI site.

Once we've narrowed it down, we also have a quick look at Google Earth and have been happy so far!

 

[JohnGriffiths]

Thanks for your views, it looks like I might have been the only customer of Freedom Camping, no wonder they dropped it. It was my intention to take the DVD but as usual things got rushed. Sometimes we head for an area and stay a couple of weeks at each site, as this was our first (and probably last ) trip on the eastern side we thought moving around every few days would let us see the most but in the end it was too much like hard work, trying to find sites that suited us. We did manage to to find plenty of good ones however, we enjoyed La Samaritaine at Buzancy, Chateau Chigy, Halte de Mainville, La Belle Roche Lalley etc. but I don't want to upset anyone so won't mention the mistakes. Oh well, back to the South West next time.

 

[ValA.]

You should mention 'the mistakes' - it's often just as useful to have recommendations of where not to go, as where to go! We've only found a couple of sites we definitely wouldn't go back to at all - but I've mentioned them to anyone who's asked. There are also sites which people recommend for overnights, which personally I just find unsuitable for one reason or another.

For instance, people have mentioned on other forums, overnighting at Camping Indigo, at Royat, in the Auvergne, but for us it's just too far from the autoroute to overnight, and too complicated a journey through the suburbs of Clermont Ferrand for first-timers just looking for a stop-over. Finding the autoroute again next morning is even more difficult!! It's a lovely site for longer stays, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it for overnight, and I've said so in response to any subsequent posts which have recommended it!

I always think the more information you have about somewhere the better! I know different people have their own opinions, but sometimes you do go somewhere and think 'I wish I'd listened to ......'!

 

[John_miller]

We used ACSI this year for the first time and were very pleased with our choices (we've previously used Camping Cheques, and still do). I agree about the lack of information but I also have a copy of the CC Caravan Europe book and looked up the entries in there after choosing a likely site as the CC entries include user criticisms.

John M