Camping Homair - La Vallée — Hotel in Lisieux

Just back from a week at La Vallée. On the whole a very pleasant stay. The location has some great facilities for kids. We stayed in a 3 bed Premium Azure lodge. Was very nice, decent sized fridge, smaller freezer (wasn’t used), hob, kettle, toaster. Didn’t have an oven, wasn’t expecting an oven.|Ample plug sockets in the rooms including bedrooms.|Couldn’t connect tv to WiFi but plenty of channels had radio stations playing familiar tunes. Not sure why they have smart TVs if can’t hook up to the internet, minor gripe.||WiFi itself is €39 for 2 devices for a week. Pricey and not all homes got the service, we did but if you’re mobile data covers you I would avoid the extra wifi cost.||BBQ and decking area decent. Despite a gas ignition we still needed a lighter so worth taking one.||Only one toilet roll provided on arrival so come prepared.|Small scourer and small amount of washing up liquid provided.||Negative with the room (given the additional cleaning costs charged in France), we found a pair of unworn kids underwear, chocolate wrappers and a Euro coin under separate beds. There was also some cobwebs on the air con. Air con covers the main living space but would be ideal if places closer to the centre to get to the bedrooms.||There are loads of activities for kids. Kids club (did not use), decent sized pool which was generally warm. Good slides and splash pad for younger children.|Ample amount of sun loungers if the weather allows. Not your typical boozy poolside area which was a nice change.||Lots of other activities, football, tennis, table tennis, play area, games room etc. Kids will love this place.||We were close to the pool and restaurant/bar area so potentially got lucky as did not hear the supposed noise some have commented on re speedway/bike track.||Gates to the park are opening 24/7 I believe but the barrier to the lodges does not open til 7am so worth knowing if you have an early ferry.||Bar was expensive for drinks, the takeaway options were limited and we enjoyed the chips and burgers. €3 and €13.50 respectively. Burger comes with chips.|Pizza was ok and not as bad as some other reviewers have suggested.|Didn’t see pepperoni as an option.||The shop is small but has the essentials. Pre ordering bread/croissants etc is before 7pm for next morning pick up. Always served with a smile the shop staff are very friendly and the bread/croissants are relatively cheap and very tasty (baked fresh overnight I would guess).||For a wider selection of food and drink there is a super U and intermarche supermarket 10 mins away (along with a McDonald’s).||Houlgate itself is a beautiful little village. Very clean and lots of good restaurants and lots of seafood on offer.||Cabourg is a little bigger and only a 15 min drive.||Took a few trips - Pégasus bridge museum (30 mins), sword beach (40 mins), and the cemetery at Bayeaux (1 hour with traffic).||We had an enjoyable week...

We booked to stay in an apartment via Eurocamp who had the park listed as great for activities, with onsite activities such as scuba diving, archery and climbing wall. When we tried booking these activities on the first morning, we were told they didn't have any of these activities on the park. We were told to speak to the Eurocamp rep at reception, who told us none of these activites were available, and even asked what website we had read this on. We replied correctly that it's on THEIR own Eurocamp website. He fobbed me off saying I should ask up at the pool area, could tell he just wasn't interested as noone up there had a clue. So don't book this park if looking for an activity holiday. As we have teenager this was important part of our booking here, so immediately hugely disappointed. Our first experience of the park before this was being told we needed 150 euros cash for a deposit as the room's cleanliness is inspected on the last day, so I had to go and find a cash machine in the village. When I got back a different receptionist told me I can pay by cash or card, so wasted an hour or so looking for a cashpoint pointlessly. My kids loved the pool, but the slides are unsupervised which is a mixed blessing. The largest fastest slide has a section where lots of young children chose to stay in the ride, not continue sliding down, causing collisions and just disasters waiting to happen. The fact all men have to wear speedo/speedo style shorts is ridiculous in this day and age. The evening entertainment was OK, but the layout of the bar area is really poor. When performers are on, the area where they are has no tables, so can't properly have drinks in there. The bar area where you can have drinks is small and overcrowded. The evening entertainment outdoor area with tables near the kid's playpark isn't lit — all they need is a few lights. The bar is understaffed so repeatedly have to wait in a queue for 20 minutes to get a drink which isn't fun. One day they had some marker trader stalls in the park, one person gave my wife a portion of hummous and said it was 18 Euros. My wife got a bit flustered and paid, and I then said no that's way too expensive, went back to the trader, who then said they wouldn't give a refund. Even though the hummous was in an airtight container, still sealed, I'd not gone anywhere, and had literally just been given it. Totally ripped us off. The accomodation is OK but very basic, no sinks in the toilet, smell of gas in cupboard, one light not working in bedroom, broken fan not working. The positives of the park are the pool which my kids loved, and ordering bread/coissants etc for the morning, but that's it. 2 stars...

Very disappointed. Was looking forward to my holiday here but things just went from bad to worse. Grass outside caravan was as high as my knees when we arrived, had to request it was cut, weeds growing up the decking (stingers). Paid for air con but didn’t get it so the added an extra fan, caravan had no oven, dishwasher was clogged up and could not use it, kettle was disgusting, the boiler worked sometimes but had a fault, the microwave was yellow from age rather than white, gas hob worked but only 3 rings out of 4. With no oven, microwave not great and gas hob only half working it proved very difficult to cook food for 4 adults.

With just 2 days left of our holiday, they wanted to access the caravan to add the air con unit, which I refused as I was very poorly.

Over a week into our holiday they decided to change the rules on what the men can wear around the pool and in the water, no chlorine used to clean outdoor pool, looks clean but actually it’s not. You’re not allowed to eat or drink (not even soft drinks) around the pool, the bar closes between 12-4, there is no shade around the pool. There is a restaurant but it’s actually just a bar with very expensive bar snacks (burgers are nice). Even if the bar area is busy, they kick you out and close at 10.30pm!! They state entertainment but it’s a 30 minute music quiz 3 days a week at 7.15pm, then that’s it!! Nothing else on those days. Best night was karaoke but that’s only once a week.

There are a few staff there that are amazing, so friendly and helpful but the park itself is not run great and the manager just doesn’t care, he just drives round on his buggy thinking he is the dog **.

What’s worse is after all that, after paying for everything on this holiday, we had a phone call around an hour after checking out saying we owed more money, French taxes, which we had already paid. The member of staff who rang said we hadn’t paid and threatened us saying if we don’t pay now then we will regret it and have to pay more. We said we had paid this but he continued to threaten us.

Photos attached to prove everything.

I will never...