Diary Of A CAMC Escorted Tour
This year, we took the plunge and joined in with our first CAMC Escorted Tour. We’ve chosen to explore the Netherlands via the Club’s Dutch Bulb Fields Tour. Truth be told, I’ve got no idea what to expect! So thought I’d create a blog of our trip here to share our first-hand experiences with other members, as the tour unfolds.
What is an Escorted Tour? It’s a set tour organised by the CAMC, which includes your campsite booking, a pre-arranged itinerary, tickets to attractions, transport to attractions in most cases and a few additions such as morning coffee on some excursions and a group meal at the end of the week. The tours are a set price for two people, with single person supplements available. The advantage of an Escorted Tour is that the Club takes all the planning out of your hands. Simply pack up your caravan or motorhome and head to the first campsite. Please note - the ferry/tunnel crossing is not included within the price, but the CAMC usually offers some of the best rates if you book crossings via the Club.
No one knows each other beforehand, tours include “free days” to explore at your own pace and the planned excursions usually centre around getting you to an attraction and leaving each member of the tour to explore at their own leisure, though I expect that some elements of the itinerary will include more guided activities. Our tour hosts - Yvonne and Steve - have been wonderful so far, adding everyone to a group WhatsApp a week before the tour departed, so we’ve been chatting freely on there and getting to know each other a bit, in addition to sharing tips about travelling abroad. It quickly became apparent that there’s a real mixed bag of tour guests - experienced long-time members, first time visitors to the continent in their leisure vehicle, solo travellers, experienced continental travellers… there really is no ”average” attendee.
Day One 1️⃣
We chose to sail from Hull to Rotterdam via P&O Ferries, which was booked via the CAMC. We live in West Yorkshire, so it’s an easy journey for us to Hull. I wanted an easy trip to run in our “new” towcar - a 1972 Rover P5b Coupé - a brave first trip, I know! With passports checked, we were on the ferry within minutes. The advantage of sailing from Hull is that you can board several hours before the boat actually sails. In our case, we could get on at 17:00hrs and it didn’t set sail until 20:00hrs.
Once on board, we enjoyed a well-earned drink in the Skylounge and dropped our bags off in our upgraded cabin. We also made reservations in the Brasserie restaurant, which does fill up quickly. If you sail on this route, I recommend booking a table in the Brasserie restaurant as soon as you board the ship to guarantee a table the time that you want.
It was a great meal in the Brasserie, the service was top-notch. Thankfully, it was a very smooth crossing, and we headed to bed and slept pretty well.
We disembarked at 8:20hrs but it took a further half an hour to clear customs. Once en route, it was an easy run to Camping Koningshof, which is a CAMC award-winning site under the Alan Rogers scheme. It was a nice surprise that the campsite have bumped us all up to serviced pitches too as part of the deal - not that our 60-year-old Cheltenham caravan benefits from that! The trip went without any problems, apart from being fleeced for E5 petrol at a service area for €2.31 per litre! As a proud Yorkshireman, I did shed a tear as I slid my card into the chip and pin machine to get legally robbed in broad daylight…
We got to Camping Koningshof and were given a wonderful welcome by tour hosts Yvonne and Steve. The site is immaculate and features everything from a bar/restaurant to an indoor swimming pool. We stocked up at the local supermarket and had our favourite “caravan salad” for lunch, made all the better by the fresh veg that always seems to taste that bit nicer on the continent.
We’re just putting our feet up in the caravan as I write, enjoying a cold gin and tonic, which we picked up for a song in the duty free store on the boat. Tomorrow is the main arrival day, so looking forward to meeting everyone. I’ll keep updating this thread as the week goes on. Feel free to ask any questions about the tour along the way and I’ll do my best to answer them!
Comments
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I shall be following your thread with interest😁 Looking forward to seeing some nice photos.
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I checked the tour price and found it to be £1200 for two people for 7 nights. + ferry extra - compared with a figure of only €25 = £ 21..50. per night just to go independently right now with an ACSI camping card in early April at the Koningshof site. Mmmm. Thinks !
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Take no notice @CameronBurns. Euro can travel anywhere in the world for £5 from his armchair and always purports to find far cheaper ways of doing things than camc🙄🙄
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That may be, but for the extra you get a lot more and it is simply a matter of personal choice which holiday suits you best. Probably the club holiday is actually cheaper once you add in the extras and it saves a lot of work getting the best deals and sorting out the itinerary. Depends on what you want.
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I would love to know how others are interested in your caravan and car as well as your trip. Sure to turn a few heads.
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Day Two 2️⃣
We ended last night enjoying a gin and tonic in our caravan before bed - Slingsby Rhubarb gin and ginger ale is my current favourite. I took a shower before bed and was surprised to find that the campsite had giant heater fans in the toilets set to keep them at a very comfortable temperature, which you very rarely come across on a campsite nowadays as most seem to switch to energy saving mode once the morning shower rush is over.
As it was officially arrival day today and technically a free day, we decided to make the 45-minute jaunt to Rotterdam, as it was one of the few local places not on the tour itinerary. Other than exit the ferry there many times, I must confess that I’d dismissed Rotterdam and had never been to visit the city itself - as we were about to learn, this was a big mistake!
The city is steeped in history - particularly its rich tapestry of architectural design with a real mixture of influences. We parked at the Q-Park inside the complex of De Bijenkorf, which we soon learned was the Dutch equivalent of somewhere between Harvey Nichols and John Lewis: Bear this in mind when I disclose how much it cost to park there later on! I have to say, as an architect buff and a Mid Century design fan, De Bijenkorf ticked a lot of boxes. The brutalist influenced building shares its design cues with the Hollywood glamour of the 1950s, a history that the store is very proud of. You’ll find expensive designer clothes here, but the homeware section on the top floor is worth a visit for the sheer theatre of it and the selection of beautiful designer items that are a far cry from the sort of thing that we have access to in the UK.
Elsewhere in the city, you’ll find the Nieuwe Instituut, a museum of the city’s architectural past and, at the time of our visit, it was offering a special exhibition showcasing the future of urban gardens, which was fascinating. Over the road, you’ll find ‘the Depot’, which is an unmissable mirrored bowl that dominates the cityscape. It’s the world’s first publicly accessible art storage facility, though sadly photographs were not permitted inside! Not to worry, the outside is interesting enough to share here.
But Rotterdam isn’t just surmised by its landscape, we discovered that it’s a very vibrant city with a penchant for the arts, particularly embracing younger generations and allowing the city to continue to evolve. You’ll find sculpture, art installations, creative landscaping and huge murals adorning various spaces throughout the city, which unfold as you explore, like little well-kept secrets.
We enjoyed a light lunch by the marketplace, and explored the huge selection of shops that the city has to offer. As a keen record collector, I found some gems in the various record shops dotted around Het Ouse Westen, which is a short 15-minute walk from the main city centre. This suburb is vibrant and bustling, yet also somehow free from tourists. Cute coffee shops rubbed shoulders with niche designer shops and homeware specialists. For us, it was well worth the walk.
We finished the day with a stroll down the central Nieuwe Maas canal, which included a charming surfing school complete with a wave machine! The main attraction was the Maritime Museum, which even if you didn’t fancy venturing around, you could freely explore the docks adorned with various ancient boats and dockside equipment. However, for a classic car fan like myself, there was this amazing immaculate Chevrolet Chevelle nestled away on the dockside.
As I said to start with, we’d always dismissed Rotterdam, but today we discovered a bit of a hidden gem. It was amazing how few tourists we came across. Literally everyone spoke English, and we found it to be a very welcoming and inclusive place. Pop this place on the map to explore if you’re visiting the Netherlands in your leisure vehicle in the future.
With our tour of the city complete, we returned to the car park at De Bijenkorf to discover that we had a bill of €26.10 to park the car for a few hours! Once I’d picked myself up off the floor, we got to the Rover and burbled back to the campsite, with the mighty Rover V8 attracting a lot of attention along the way. For me, the magic of caravanning becomes highlighted here - we’ve enjoyed a day in the city, but can return to the peace and tranquility of our own caravan for the evening. We managed to rustle up something for dinner and enjoy it in our “canvas courtyard” outside the caravan.
But what about the tour? Upon our return, pretty much everyone had arrived. And unbeknownst to us, the caravan had been quite the talking point, so you can imagine people’s reaction when the Rover showed up! Tour hosts Yvonne and Steve gathered everyone around their awning at 7:30pm for some complementary wine and nibbles. It was a warm welcome to everyone as a group, and we enjoyed mingling with the other tour guests. Any worries we’d had about fitting in were quickly alleviated as everyone chatted freely and soon the laughs were flowing and people were beginning to put names to faces from our WhatsApp group chats over the previous few weeks.
There’s 20 outfits overall, so it’s quite a large group. It was impossible to get around and speak to everyone this evening, but we’re looking forward to the week ahead. Tomorrow’s itinerary seems quite relaxed, and transport is provided, so we can give the Rover a rest, which my wallet will be grateful for as it only achieves about 15mpg on a good day!
We’re looking forward to our excursion tomorrow, I’ll post an update tomorrow evening! Thanks to everyone who’s following along so far. I feel like out first night in the caravan has already given me a full reset after what’s been a very long winter!
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Are the Keukenhof Gardens on the agenda? They are truly wonderful. We visited in 2008, also staying at Koningshof before heading out to Germany and the Baltic Coast.
David
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Yes, absolutely, the Keukenhof Gardens are the highlight of the week! I’m working on today’s post as we’ve been to the Hortus Botanicus in Leiden which was stunning.
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We’re used to it by now! Safe to say, everyone on the trip has remembered who we are because of the old caravan and car. Lots of questions, admiring looks and people taking pictures. Proof that you don’t need to spend a lot of money to have the best outfit on site 😜
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Day Three 3️⃣
Today was the first official day of the tour, which traditionally is a free day, but based on feedback from members last year, they organised something for day one. We met the rest of the group for coffee in the campsite cafe at 9:30am, coupled with an introduction to the tour from the campsite manager, who gave us an entertaining speech detailing the plans for the week ahead and filled us in on some local customs and unique events in the area this week.
It was a short hop on an organised coach to the historic city of Leiden. The local coach driver is quite a character, we’re looking forward to his humorous musings for the rest of the week! He dropped us off right outside the main town hall and we were given our included tickets to access the Hortus Botanicus (more of that in a moment) and told what time to return to the coach in the afternoon. We’re really pleased at how laid back the tour is so far. Some people are already making friends and sticking together, but many are just doing their own thing. The point is that you have the choice.
We decided to head straight to Hortus Botanicus, which is the oldest botanical gardens in the Netherlands. It shares grounds with the local university, and is run by a mixture of employed staff, retired volunteers and students. It was lovely to see all the generations working together to cultivate this amazing attraction, which featured large greenhouses, delicate oriental gardens and lots of rare plants. We kept bumping into other Club tour members on our way around, I’m really glad that everyone is so friendly and welcoming.
Afterwards, we explored this ancient city, which I have to admit, wasn’t on our radar to visit at all - but what a hidden gem! The whole city centre is based on a quirky wishbone-shaped canal network, with lots of interlinking foot bridges. We had lunch at a cafe called Dende, which had chairs and tables on a floating barge in the canal!
It was such a great spot to sit and people-watch and enjoy a fantastic lunch, I can wholeheartedly recommend. Though their lemoncello spritz measures were lethal - I’m glad that I wasn’t driving!
We meandered around the sprawling network of small shops. Leiden seems to focus on homemade/crafty type shops, so each one was fascinating and worthy of your full attention; We got some lovely treasures to take home.
The coach picked us up at around 3:30pm and we got a cheer from the group as we were the last ones back! We all returned to the campsite and retired to our caravans/motorhomes to do as we please for the evening.
I have to say, the tour is so far exceeding all expectations. Everyone is really lovely and friendly, we’re also free to explore at our own pace, and the organised excursions are taking us to places that we might otherwise overlook, which is exactly why we chose to partake in this tour.
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Looks my kind of place, plants, crafts and canals. How long did the ferry journey take you across? Hull is our nearest point of crossing, not that I am fond of boats of any kind😕
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It was 12 hours overall, hence why we sailed at night so that we could sleep for most of it! I’ve not got sea legs either, but I have to confess, the sea was like a millpond and you couldn’t even tell that the boat was moving for much of it.
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Day Four 4️⃣
Today was the main focus of the trip - to visit the Keukenhof Gardens. This amazing attraction welcomes 1.2million tourists in just eight weeks when the flowers are all in bloom. What an overwhelming experience! Apparently, there’s SEVEN MILLION BULBS planted at Keukenhof for each Spring flower display, which we can confirm, seems like an underestimate for the total amount of flowers on display!
We had an amazing day exploring it all, photographing the vivid colours and varied selection of flowers on display. The Tour departed at 9am, and the coach driver took us on a little detour to witness the bulb fields first hand. We saw the brightly contrasted colourful fields before we’d even landed at Keukenhof! It was quite thrilling to see it all, it was almost surreal to observe.
The Escorted Tour dropped us off at Keukenhof, then left us most of the day to explore the attraction at our own leisure. We sped around four hours exploring the landscape, enjoying lunch out and even picking up a specialist orchid as a souvenir.
Keukenhof Gardens was everything and more that we’d expected. As you explored the sprawling landscape, it revealed more flower displays and sculptures. It was impossible to take it all in on a first wander around, so we’re thankful that the tour allowed us the time to explore it a couple of times.
Afterwards, we headed to Katvijk Van Zee to climb the local lighthouse and sample the local fish, which included herring and breaded cod. We were back at the campsite for 4pm and have enjoyed an evening to ourselves.
The tour has been absolutely amazing, we’ve loved every minute. We’re only two proper days into the tour, but already, the camaraderie and kindness shown by other members has made this trip worth the while. We’ve had a good laugh and have been made to feel more than welcome, so I must thank the other members on the tour for being so wonderful.
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Day Five 5️⃣
A long day today, with a lot to see and do! The organised coach collected our group from Camping Koningshof and took us on a scenic tour of The Hague. The coach driver had a sense of humour drier than a factory-fresh caravan, which went down well with us all. He told us some quirky facts about the area and spent a while poking fun at the complexities of the Dutch language. We had a brief stop at the Peace Palace in the middle of The Hague, before the coach took us to the Royal Delft museum.
This is one of only two group activities so far on this escorted tour, which was actually good fun and the Club had organised for a private guided tour of the Delft museum and the factory itself. It was fascinating - from seeing the origins of the company in the 1700s to watching their state of the art factory at work, which still involves carefully decorating most of their products by hand.
Afterwards, we enjoyed a coffee in the courtyard at the museum, and hopped back on the bus to take us into the city of Delft itself.
If you’ve never been to Delft, pop it on your destination list! I think it has to be one of the most quintessentially Dutch places we’ve seen - complete with manic cyclists and noisy fishmongers! The beautiful narrow streets are adorned with small independent shops, which allowed us to buy a few decorative items for our house and also I was able to indulge my other hobby of record collecting. We had a fabulous lunch in the main marketplace, accompanied by a couple of rounds of drinks. Well, it would be rude not to when neither of us have to drive!
With shopping bags in abundance, we climbed back onto the bus and returned to Camping Koningshof at about 5pm. It’s been such a wonderful warm evening, that most of us have been sat out, but some members of the group have organised their own little trip to the local beach to enjoy the glorious sunset. This has been the most intense day of the tour so far today, in respect of the sheer amount of activities undertaken. But tomorrow is a free day, so we can do as we please!
PS - the last photo is a Delft pottery-style decoration that’s about to be installed on the campsite this summer - I thought you’d all like to see it, this is a Caravan And Motorhome Club Tour after all!
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Fabulous photos. I love Delft ware. That’s some record shop as well. We have quite a bit of vinyl, we both love music, and have kept all our original collection of albums from early 1970’s, 80’s and onwards. There’s even older stuff at my Mum’s, including some very old, very heavy 78’s……….and the gramophone to play them on🤣 I still have my little Dansette type record player I was bought for a teen birthday!
The big Classics/Monuments cycle races are on in Belgium, Holland, France at the moment. Cycling is a religion over there🚴♂️🚴♀️
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Enjoying reading this; as a Dutch person who grew up in The Hague! There are some really lovely towns and villages in Holland and Delft is one of them, as is Leiden.
Enjoy the rest of your trip, I hope the weather stays nice. Do have a portion of patat met pindasaus for me if you get the chance! And for a nice meal out, try an Indonesian rijsttafel if you get the chance. There are lots of Indonesian restaurants, a bit like there being a lot of Chinese and Indian restaurants over here.
Enjoy!
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Day 6️⃣ and Day 7️⃣
I’m combining day six and seven into one post as we went to Amsterdam on both days. But as Saturday was a free day, we got there under our own steam, and Sunday was the day that the tour resumed with an organised trip to Amsterdam. As we were about to discover, the two visits were like chalk and cheese!
Starting with the Saturday, we decided to make life easy for ourselves (and cheaper, by not taking a car that does about 15mpg!) by getting public transport to Amsterdam. It was a beautiful 15-minute walk to the bus stop, through the very picturesque streets surrounding Camping Koningshof. In theory, we’d catch the bus to Leiden and then get the train to Amsterdam. But as all best-laid plans go, it wasn’t long before it derailed. The bus was cancelled which left us at the bus stop for around 45 minutes until the next one. The train was on time, but still took about 45 minutes to reach Amsterdam. We eventually arrived in Amsterdam over two hours since we left the campsite!
Once there, we could relax. We enjoyed a very leisurely saunter around all the tiny streets. We found a plush looking bar for a light lunch and then headed to the Stedelijk Gallery, which is a museum of modern art. It was a phenomenal experience - really immersive and we both commented on the fact that we felt completely relaxed and reset after exploring the gallery for an hour or so.
We continued our journey around the picturesque streets of Amsterdam. I was following a map of the various record shops in the city, as Saturday 12th April was World Record Store Day, so lots of shops had special releases, reductions and unique merchandise. It’s always a fun experience back in the UK, but spending Record Store Day in another country was even more interesting than usual.
We finished the day at about 6pm and returned to the train. As the previous train had been cancelled, ours back to Leiden was unusually full, so we were stood up for the duration. And about a few kilometres out of the main Central Station in Amsterdam, it broke down! We eventually get to Laiden Centraal at about 7:20pm and decided to get a taxi back for the 15-minute journey to the campsite. Imagine our surprise when this set us back €30.45! So between us, including public transport, we’d spent €68.30 to get to and from Amsterdam. I should have taken the Rover and parked it in the fanciest car park in the city centre!! At least we had nearly all day to explore Amsterdam, and we got to do it at our own pace.
So, Day Seven…
8:30am sharp the coach is waiting for us. Our cheery bus driver for the week was smiling and making jokes to everyone as they hop on the bus. He whisks us away to a small cheese farm and clog factory called Clara Maria.
We felt like this could actually be a bit of a drag, but like all things so far on the CAMC Escorted Tour, they’d timed this right so that we arrived nice and early before the attraction got too busy, and the tour was rattled through at a good pace and with copious amounts of humour thrown in. The clog maker in particular was very entertaining, and made the process interesting to observe.
The cheesemaking tour was brief (brie-f? I’ll see myself out…) and thankfully, the cheese tasting lasted much longer! I’ll confess that Dutch cheese isn’t renowned for being strong or well flavoured, but the selection on offer at Clara Maria was excellent, and we all went skipping back to the coach with plenty of bags full!
We were then briskly taken to Amsterdam central just in time to explore the city and get some lunch at our leisure. The coach driver took us a slightly longer route in to show us some of the unusual sights of the city such as the 1924 Olympic site, the Diamond Quarter and various odds and ends of quirky Dutch architecture.
We had about 3-4 hours to explore, which allowed us time to visit a few places that we’d missed the day before. I imagine that for people who’ve never been to the city before, it probably wasn’t quite long enough. But that’s what the free day is for, and the CAMC had saved the best excursion for last…
It was time to take a canal cruise of the central canal networks of Amsterdam, which was absolutely wonderful! A few of us sat out on the back of the boat on the “viewing gallery” and took photos and films as we went. This was a fabulous way of seeing the city, and lasted about an hour.
The coach literally dropped us off at the jetty for the boat and came back to pick us up as we disembarked. It was then pedal to the metal to get us back to the campsite within the hour. What fabulous service compared to our public transport ordeal the day before!
It highlighted how well organised this trip is, and how the Escorted Tour framework completely takes the stress out of doing anything. It’s all planned for you right down to the last detail, all you have to do is show up and take part. Tomorrow is the final day, and we have just one more activity to go. I’ll share an update and then my final thoughts on the week overall and my recommendations to other members.1 -
I'm really enjoying reading about your trip. The tour maybe more expensive than self booking, but judging by your expenses yesterday and the organised tours, with transport included, it's probably very comparable overall and as you say all the plannings done for you. A great taster/introduction to places.
Looking forward to reading more.
Out of interest if the car does 15mpg solo dare I ask about towing?
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Thank you, yes I’m doing some quick maths as I prepare my final thoughts for tomorrow, and I’m guessing that the CAMC makes these tours pay because of group discounts because I’m currently running at about £200 more to do the same trip exactly as this week has been, but by ourselves. And this is without the luxury of a coach driver, using public transport, which as we’ve seen, can’t always be relied upon! I thought the tour was a bit pricey when we booked it, but having just about completed it, I absolutely cannot find any argument against calling it excellent value for money. I feel like we’ve done so much and made so many great new memories, which is what it’s all about, isn’t it?
I dread to think what the Rover does when towing, I’d rather not know! 😅 But it’s oh so pretty and such tremendous fun to drive, so we’ll let it off… 😉
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Doesn't sound as that coach trip from the campsite has changed much over the years! The last time we went to Amsterdam we went to the Rijksmuseum, although at the time it was under a massive restoration so there was not so much to see. Not so far away is the Van Gogh Museum, it was wonderful to see the paintings up close. Good Blog, thanks.
David
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Good that members enjoyed the tour and perhaps some might be tempted to go independently next time.
There’s so much more to see - Groningen in the north and Maastricht in the south - and in between there ‘s Het Loo Palace, the Kroller Muller gallery full of Van Gogh paintings , bike hire in the Hoge Veluwe national park, Utrecht, all the old ports like Enkhuisen which used to be on the Zuider Zee - and quite separate there’s Middelburg which we liked as much as any of the others.
Such an easy English speaking country to tour and decide what to see for oneself - and no shortage of campsites.0
