Huttopia Gorges du Tarn — Hotel in Florac

We have never had such a disappointing holiday in France as with Huttopia Gorges du Tarn. Our discontent with Huttopia is based on 3 points, namely:

Misleading advertising about a ‘private beach’ that isn’t there, at all.

Not mentioning multiple inflows of source water from the camp site to the river, making the river to cold to swim in without a wetsuit.

Staff members are only concerned with headquarter policies, and get extremely rude when you have a complaint.

Our expectations: We expected nothing more than a place where we could lay down next to the river to have refreshing swims in it while we sun bath 90% of our time.

There is no beach: Even though the Huttopia Gorges du Tarn website and advertisement clearly state there is a private beach, there is none. If you want to go for a swim you can use a specified empty tent-spot that is near the river on which they placed a picknick table, and walk to the river from there. With hardly any sun coming to this spot, sunbathing all day is impossible near the water. Instead you will have to share a small swimming pool, which is totally not what we came for. Also the advertisement said there are no canoe routes running by the camping, which turned out to be not true either. Source water inflows:Even though the staff tried to rudely deny it first, it is not normal for ‘source water’ to be running in the river at the point where camping guests swim. Simply for the fact the source water is “ice cold”. So cold that when you go Canyoning in the mountains, where the source water is coming from, they give everybody wetsuits to prevent hypothermia. When we told the receptionist named Jesse about the misleading advertising and how we are disappointed about the beach and source water, we were met with laughter. Jesse told us repeatedly that we are crazy to expect 20-degree water (which we never said or asked for), and that people like us should go to place like Nice to sit on a beach. We spoke to what he called his manager Emanuel the day after, who wasn’t as rude as Jesse, but told us it actually was normal to have source water on a campsite and that he couldn’t change nature so we should stop complaining. So, the day after we went to the camping next to Huttopia, called La Blaquière (8-minute drive), and what do think? The river was perfectly fine there, no source water making the river a lot better in temperature and even a beach big enough for 2 campings. Upon return the one called Emanuel now suddenly admitted that it was in fact only at this specific Huttopia campsite that there is so much inflow of source water.

Rude staff members: So after Jesse laughed at us for asking why Huttopia doesn’t honestly tell on their website that the water at the campsite is source water and that the beach is not a beach but simply “access to the river”, Emanuel seemed to wise up when we asked if this is really how they want to treat customers. He said he didn’t want us unhappy, so if we wanted to go to the other camping then we should go. We were surprised and told him we would go to the other camping (La Blaquière) to check if they still had an accommodation we could rent. When we came back from La Blaquière ready to finally go enjoy our holiday the really nasty part of our experience started as Emanuel quickly told us we would need to speak to his manager because he wasn't the one that can arrange those affairs. Apart from the fact that Emanuel apparently wasn’t the manager at all like Jesse said, the woman that turned out to be the manager told us we were not going to get any of our money back (760 euros), even though they were the ones with the misleading advertisement and we had filed our complain the day of arrival. The whole conversation was a drama, with us getting angrier by the minute and Jesse sitting there still laughing and telling us to stop crying.

We left Huttopia after only 2 days eventhough they didnt want to refund our payment for a 14 day stay because we didn't want to throw away...

This was our first time booking with Huttopia and we're very pleased with the whole experience. The location of this campsite is truly fantastic! We specifically booked a river side pitch, which are by far, much better than the ones in the middle of the site. The views of the river are well worth it, throughout the day and evening.

The facilities were cleaned regularly and all areas of the site were well presented. The staff were all very welcoming, friendly and helpful at all times.

There were plenty of activities available on site and also lots of areas to explore within the whole Gorges du Tarn area. We made use of the paddle boards for hire on multiple occasions and also took a canoe trip with Canoe 2000 (highly recommended). Overall, we had a really fantastic time and will definitely now look to explore other Huttopia sites.

Points to consider... By chance, we were allocated pitch 1, which was at the far end of the site... a bit of a trek to the facilities but worth it to be tucked away from the more crowded areas. In my opinion, many of the pitches seemed quite close together (but this is a personal preference though, I like to be out of the way!) There are also a lot of insects - this is not a complaint as it's to be expected in the rural areas by a river. However, it is worth bringing repellents for the body as well as...

Nice camping site, really quiet and beautiful surrounding. The staff is nice and they try to help you out. The sanitation area is cleaned once a day, toilet paper and soap is most of the time available.

You can order baguette and pain Au Chocolat and get a few things in the store (but quiet expensive).

The swimming pool was clean most of the time, it's a nice spot to relax there after a hike.

Also the food truck and the cafe area is nice to hang around and drink a beer, vine or pastis. The vegetarian plate was really good, something different but the pizza was rather disappointing for the price and compared to the rest.

I would give five stars but the camping parcelles do not have any privacy (even though we booked in advance online) which is for the price a little bit disappointing.

Also it's really hard to get into the river from the camping site which in my opinion is an misleading advertisment on the website. But you can walk to the village and have the opportunity to use the beach there.

Another thing: a lot of flys everywhere. Weirdly not in the village but only on the campsite. I know it's not the fault of the camping space but I think it should be pointed out because it makes eating in the evening really...