Camping Sandaya Le Soleil Vivarais - Ardèche — Hotel in Largentière

We chose this site due to its fantastic location only 20 minutes drive to the famous Pont D'Arc and 10 minutes to the town of Vallon Pont D'Arc as well as under 40 minutes drive to multiple towns for days out. In addition, after arriving from the UK to Marseille this was only a 2 hour drive north. ||Prior we had only stayed in Eurocamp accommodation and decided to try a different operator instead.||The site did not disappoint in terms of accessibility to a variety of river spots for swimming and beautiful towns in the south Ardeche region. Only 7-10 mins drive to a Lidl and Super U supermarket too.||Site itself is clean & modern with great local shop selling fresh baguettes and an onsite restaurant. Evening entertainment is LOUD and is on each night but we only went to see one show which was terrible (Baby Shark in French with little kids on stage). We could not have our 10 yo child attend the club's as they are all in French, it's a very French site too. Pool and playground great for babies up to 8 years, so our tween-age daughter felt it was a bit babyish and slides were definitely for little ones. ||The accommodation we chose was a premium Arizona style cabin. Aesthetically very nice with 'designer' looking accessories but not very practical for self catering accommodation. ||We were very surprised to see there was NO worktop space at all for food preparation. We had to conduct all chopping and prep on the medium sized dining table behind us which, when also trying to set the table to get ready to eat, was next to impossible. The kettle and coffee machine provided had no choice but to sit on the draining board area next to the sink to access the plug, so after washing up any items it became crowded very quickly.||Whoever designed this clearly had not thought that to provide a stove top and fridge also means you're needing to set up a family to actually prepare meal times! ||A BBQ for your accommodation is not standard at this site which was a surprise. An electric BBQ was available to rent for €25 for the week which we decided to do. We realised there was no outside plug, so had to run it with an extension cable provided to the inside which didn't seem particularly safe or tidy. Then we realised the space outside had no side unit area to place the BBQ on, so we had to place it down on the decking floor. We did not want to place it on the nice looking outside table in case of heat burns. Again, not set up for practical use. ||Privacy is also a factor to mention. Sitting in the front of the deck there was no cover or low fencing around the space so totally open to your neighbours who can see you and vice versa for them.||This accommodation is perfect if you plan to eat out for lunch and dinner every day of the holiday and only use the kitchen for making drinks. ||We would come back to the region but look at a Eurocamp site next...

A gem of a campsite. We had a great welcoming on arrival and everyone in the team is very friendly. For us,it was perfect balance between animations and tranquility. Kids loved the evening mini disco. We found Quartier des jardins perfect for nice rest. The mobile homes are new, good space inside and very clean. Swiming pools really nice for kids at the jardin. The slides are less adventures than other campsites we went to but the kids had tons of fun in them. I am not putting 5* only because I think the restaurants need improvement. They are expensive for what they serve (often the case in campsites but disappointing here as the camping iq so great).Loved the atmosphere of "The chill" (and great cocktails, beers, music) but at that restaurant, the entrecôte is tiny, also 3 nuggets on a children menu is not enough and they refused changing chips for a bit of pasta in the child menu although fresh pasta is available on the menu . It's common now that restaurants offer alternatives to chips in children menu, not here. Do not get tempted by the BBQ night, there is nothing in the plate (half an entrecôte and 2 tiny belly porc strips). Mussels night is better in quantity but they were too cooked. The other restaurant at the river is I think supposed to be a bit more up market but we were also disappointed. The service is really slow and lacking customer focus (I got served a desert that had been tasted on another table : chunck of it was missing). Menu is very spare, the burger is ok but not fabulous. Pizza are nicely cooked and probably the nicest thing on the menu. We also enjoyed the spa, the massages are really really nice, the spa itself is very well done too. Avoid the waxing though! But go for it for the massages! So for sure we'll come back. We loved it here. We loved ardeche and we will recommend this campsite to our friends too. Just please work on your catering, it needs to be better for a 5* campsite. Thanks a lot for...

I don’t like writing poor reviews but unfortunately our stay at this resort was very disappointing. We were 4 families staying here and all had the same issues. |1. We paid €35 each to be near each other but unfortunately were not and it meant the kids couldn’t go between cottages without an adult due to cars on the road. We were told we booked too late (early February)…. And even if you pay it doesn’t mean you will be near each other. |2. The Wi-Fi is awful. It kicks you off and you have to log in several times and Only 2 devices per cottage regardless of number of people staying in the cottage. To have more devices you have to pay them more|3. The evening music is sooooo loud if you stay in the garden quarters. Our 5 & 10 years were crying because they couldn’t get to sleep. It goes on until 11-11:30 EVERY NIGHT. |4. Staff don’t seem to care too much e.g. gym opening hours say 8am but staff turn up about 9:30 to open up, lifeguards we’re on their phones not paying attention.|5. The parking is not near your chalet although some people chose to park their cars near their chalets anyway. |6. The garden and Rivera resorts are VERY SEPARATE RESORTS! Although you can use the other you need to walk along a busy road - so not suitable for kids to go between. |7. We had 2 power outages on 2 consecutive days. The first was for about 8 hours and this meant you couldn’t cook anything (including the electric bbq you have to pay to hire). This meant we couldn’t cook dinner and had to eat at their pizza oven restaurant. I understand these things happen, but to provide no info or compensation/meal vouchers or apology is what bothered me. ||The reception staff we encountered when we asked about the above were not helpful - In fact were quite rude - just shrugged and said it wasn’t their problem and nothing...