Camping du Valentin — Hotel in Oloron-Sainte-Marie

We recently stayed at this campsite and had a mostly positive experience, though there are a few major drawbacks that future guests should be aware of.

Positive: The staff were absolutely lovely – attentive, friendly, and always willing to help. The location is fantastic if you have a car. It’s a perfect base for hiking, with many trails within driving distance. The campsite is beautiful, especially at night. Surrounded by mountain tops, the view of the stars is stunning. There’s a small grocery store on-site with the basics. Prices are slightly higher than in a supermarket but still fair. You can relax on the sofa at the back of the restaurant, even if you don’t order anything – a nice touch. The toilets usually had paper and were quite clean.

Neutral: There’s no lighting at all inside the campsite at night. This helps with stargazing, but you’ll definitely need a flashlight or your phone to find your way to the toilets. I’ve never seen this in a campsite before. It’s quite far from town, which can be either a pro or a con depending on what you’re looking for.

Negative: The biggest issue is the shower queue. Between 18:30 and 20:30, expect to wait up to 30 minutes. Many reviews mention this, and while the owner points out the number of showers meet the legal minimum, it’s not enough. One extra sanitary block would make a big difference. No matter how good the rest of the stay is, it’s hard to enjoy it when you’re always queuing for a shower. There are also often queues for the toilets, especially in the morning. Alternately one of the two blocks is closed for cleaning between 8:30 and 10:30 – which is exactly when everyone’s trying to get ready for hikes. I’d suggest a quick check at 8:30 for toilet paper and then doing the full clean later in the morning. We booked a comfort pitch, which in every other campsite we’ve stayed at included a private picnic table and sometimes even a couple of lounge chairs. Here, comfort just meant electricity – nothing else. To make matters worse, there were no public picnic tables anywhere on the grounds. In other campsites, we’ve eaten meals at the shared tables. I’ve stayed at hundreds of campsites, and this is the first one I’ve seen without a single public picnic table! Our comfort pitch was on a noticeable slope. The staff were apologetic and did offer to try to move us, which we appreciated. But it’s hard to understand how this spot is sold as a comfort pitch in the first place. It wouldn’t take much effort to level the ground properly. It leaves the impression that the campsite is more focused on maximizing profit than on providing a genuinely comfortable experience. The pool is small and the “spa” is tiny. There were a lot of very rowdy children in both areas. I’d suggest reserving the spa for adults only and enforcing a no-jumping rule in the pool when it’s busy. There aren't enough loungers or chairs around the pool. I think they could easily double the number without making it feel crowded. A shelf for belongings and a sign reminding guests not to reserve loungers with towels while they swim would help too – most loungers were taken up by towels, not people. Finally, there are no outdoor water taps outside the sanitary blocks – something I’ve never seen in a campsite before.

I am being very generous and giving this camping a 3 star review, mostly because of the lovely staff, it probably only...

We went there for just one night of stay and I checked their prices online. It was saying 17.60€ per night for two people (we sleep in the car so there is no additional costs). However, they charged us 35.20€ at the reception. That was the last place in the camping so we didn’t want to miss it while checking other campings and stayed there but it is crazy that they show half the price on the internet for 2-3 days later (I was not looking at the winter prices or smt.) The pitches were nice but there were very few showers and toilets for such a huge camping full of people. On top of that, they were doing cleaning in one of the two sanitary areas at 9:30 in the morning when everyone needs it the most. There were queues for toilet in the morning in the other sanitary area and queues for showers everywhere in the evening. Totally unacceptable for paying 35.20€ per night. Later we stayed at a municipal camping after the center of Laruns, it was amazing with fewer people (so no queues anywhere) and really fair prices.

Edit: After the reply of the owner, I added one more screenshot to show you that the price of 17.60€ was final. It is not the starting price as they lied in their answer. I could book the pitch for this price and I didn’t because I thought that we will find the same price when we arrive there because that’s how it should have been in a place where...

Después de leer tu respuesta y viendo que te falta capacidad autocrítica, decirte que sigue ausente tu buena educación. Como entenderás , mi bienestar no depende de vuestro camping ni de la situación y por si te preocupaba, (dado que lo has mencionado) estas tres semanas he seguido disfrutando de mis vacaciones🥰✨ , pero demuestras una vez más con tu comentario de que pie cojeas. En los argumentos que das sobre la historia muchísimas cosas son inventadas, pero recuerda que YO NO fui a coger los 20 euros, fue mi pareja (por cierto, al que le dijiste que fuese a recepción porque querías pedirme disculpas por tu mal comportamiento) Te mando un abrazo enorme y mucho mucho amor❤️❤️❤️

Haciendo dos reservas (por dos noches) nos dieron un número de parcela únicamente. La segunda noche al llegar al camping nos encontramos una tienda de un desconocido en nuestra parcela. Esa persona tenía el mismo número que nosotros por lo que intentamos buscar una solución. Sobre las 19.30hrs La recepción estaba cerrada , nadie contestaba las llamadas, no había ninguna persona trabajadora en todo el camping y tampoco respondían a la llamada de emergencia. Deja mucho que desear una gestión así donde si necesitas algo nadie está para atenderte. Les envié varios emails y la dueña vino a llamar a nuestra tienda cuando estábamos durmiendo a las 22.30 de la noche para disculparse y decir que en el pueblo estaban de fiestas y que nos devolvería el dinero al día siguiente. Al día siguiente la mujer de recepción me discutió, me hizo responsable de la situación y no me quiso dar ninguna solución( en ningún momento se disculpó). Además tras pedirle una hoja de reclamaciones se negó a dármela y me dijo que no tenían. La manera en que me habló me pareció maleducada y fuera de lugar. Solo me decía que yo tendría que haber ido a solicitar el cambio de parcela cuando ellos abriesen la recepción a la mañana siguiente sin tener en cuenta que 1) yo ya tenía un número de parcela y pregunté si tenía que pasar por recepción y dijo que no y 2) en el momento que abren la recepción el siguiente día yo me encuentro fuera del camping ya que madrugo para aprovechar. Ella solapó dos parcelas para la misma noche. Finalmente tras hablar ella con el dueño, me “lanzó” 20 euros por la mitad del importe de la parcela y me obligó a tener que haber compartido la parcela sin yo querer (dado que no me reembolso el importe entero de la parcela por su error, ni me dio otra solución) la gestión , la mala educación y su tono despectivo me dejó sin palabras....