# Euro Tunnel & French Campsites



## jon-ee (Oct 7, 2011)

I am travelling to France next July using the Euro tunnel, I would like to ask if anyone has any advice on booking the Euro tunnel. Is it better to purchase the return tickets in advance or wait until the time of departure? We are hoping to travel down as far as Lyon and would appreciate any advice on good campsites in the area. I am travelling with my two carers so really do not need the large family amenity campsites. My motor home is a Mercedes bespoke vehicle based on the 814 Vario and weighs 5.5 tons, total length 8 metres. I will also be taking my car on an A-frame. So would appreciate taking this into consideration when recommending campsites please.
Look forward to your comments.
Kindest regards
Jon Clayton


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## CurlyBoy (Jan 13, 2008)

I would recommend you book your crossing, if you just turn up you will have to travel within 2 hours and could incur a fare of £175. This happened to a young Dutch couple we met at Folkestone this year!!
A lot of people on this web site use their Tesco vouchers for the fare as they are trebled up, ie a fare of say £150 would need only £50 of Tesco vouchers.
curlyboy


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## adonisito (Nov 6, 2009)

Hi,

I would book the crossings personally. However you still have some felxibility, we have turned up a day earlier and crossed without difficulty. Generally they seem to get you on as soon as they can, although I'm not sure if it'll be like that with a larger van and tow car. 
Just South of Grenoble ( about 2 hours from Lyon) we did find a pleasant aire on a lake which would take your van. Its not a campsite obviously but we liked it there for a couple of nights. Its at Treffort.

Peter


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## bognormike (May 10, 2005)

yes, definitely book it, if you know the dates you wnat to travel. Do it on line direct, but check with CC or CCC to see if their deals are better. And I had a flier from Tesco yesterday saying that the voucher deals are going back to 4 times (not 3), so that could help. 

Can't help with the sites, but with a unit that size you would have a problem with a tow car on aires, and some sites as well! In july you would need to do some research on sites, especially if you need some assistannce.


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## GEMMY (Jun 19, 2006)

Mike, only on certain deals:

http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/deals/

tony


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## martin1485 (Jul 17, 2009)

Hi Jon
We returned from France last Thursday via Eurotunnel. It was a week earlier than originally planned but there was no trouble in changing the ticket. The only issue was the train time that I originally wanted was going to cost an additional £200 +. To be fair though, they did advise on a train just an hour earlier which eventually cost £14 extra. We used the Tesco scheme and it was great.

One thing to be careful though - we stayed on the car park specifically for Camping Cars on the Cite Europe site in Calais the night before our return thinking that we could fill up with diesel beforehand. Mistake! - Cite Europe service station has access barriers with a 2.1 metre limit. We went round and round but could not find a way in (unless someone else knows differently??) so I will now always ensure that I've tanked up before I get to Calais. Saves the wife getting uptight and giving me a hard time for ages afterwards as we were on the low warning light - 

We also visited Lyon - a great city but I would advise finding a site away from the city with access to a local railway station. Lyon itself is a huge and it's bad enough traversing it on the motorway. We stayed at a beautiful site in St Valliers sur Rhone which was just under an hour away (south side) and right alongside the River Rhone. Great views of the river traffic and across country. See this link: http://www.saintvallier.com/
The campsite was across the road from the SNCF station and there were some pretty big units on site. Ours is just under 4m and I got on quite comfortably. Hope that helps. French railways are also very impressive putting our local trains to shame.


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## martin1485 (Jul 17, 2009)

Correction - ours is just under 8m long (just under 4m high!!!)


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## bognormike (May 10, 2005)

GEMMY said:


> Mike, only on certain deals:
> 
> http://www.tesco.com/clubcard/deals/
> 
> tony


damn - missed the "up to" :roll:


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## BrianJP (Sep 17, 2010)

If you are not sure of return date book one way only.However you need to watch Tunnel website and usualy book about 1 week in advance for best price otherwise it starts to creep up to the max if you leave it too late. I travel via Eurotunnel about 12 times a year and never book return journey.


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## Losos (Oct 28, 2009)

BrianJP said:


> I travel via Eurotunnel about 12 times a year and never book return journey.


Same here, I do about 8 to 10 trips a year on the chunnel, always book the outward journey, if you don't you will pay a lot more, with the 'frequent traveler' account you can leave booking the return to as little as 12 hours before traveling.


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## joedenise (Jul 20, 2007)

Martin 

To fill up after staying at Cite Europe we always go to the Auchen garage, it's only about 5 minutes away and the cheapest diesel around Calais.

Joe


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## John_H (Aug 22, 2011)

martin1485 said:


> <snip>
> One thing to be careful though - we stayed on the car park specifically for Camping Cars on the Cite Europe site in Calais the night before our return thinking that we could fill up with diesel beforehand. Mistake! - Cite Europe service station has access barriers with a 2.1 metre limit. We went round and round but could not find a way in (unless someone else knows differently??) so I will now always ensure that I've tanked up before I get to Calais. Saves the wife getting uptight and giving me a hard time for ages afterwards as we were on the low warning light -


If you're in Calais and need diesel head for the Hypermarché Auchan Calais on Avenue Roger Salengro, 62100 Calais. They even have a truck-size fuel bay for the big RV's and they accept English Cards on the 24HR pumps.


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## ChrisandJohn (Feb 3, 2008)

Martin,

We had the same problem with the height barriers at Cite Europe when we tried to get fuel after an overnight stop. Eventually a member of staff at Carrefour explained to us how to get to the nearest service station. 

There is a service station for the A16 near junction 41 which actually has an access road from Cite Europe. It's a right turn off the road sign-posted to the A16 junction 41. Confusingly it's marked 'access to services only', which is why when Garmin first took us there we ignored it and went back to Cite Europe again. It is however possible to use it without joining the A16. It's not the least expensive fuel around, but the nearest to Cite Europe you can get access to in a motorhome.

Fortunately our overnight stop was at the beginning of our French trip so it just delayed our journey south. We'd have been even more frustrated if we'd had to catch a ferry or get to the tunnel in time.


Chris


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