European Tour
We are planning to go on the Aveyron Discovery Tour next June. It is the first time we have joined a club European Tour and would appreciate any tips/advice etc. Thanks Pat Brown
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That "tour" is simply 17 days on the one campsite.
For anyone going there independently with an ACSI card those 17 days in June would cost £210 sterling, but the Club is quoting a price of £1395 . (Ferries, fuel and insurance are not included.)
Only you can decide whether the moral support of a leader, the visits such as the cheese caves, the cattle market, the cake tasting, and the group meals are worth the extra £1185.
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Hi Pat,
i think I would agree with Euro. Is this the first time on the Continent?
I can completely understand if you are looking for a security blanket or would like to go with like minded people but it really is easy once you have done it 😵.
it does seem an awful lot of money! I don’t spend that on my whole 3 week holiday ferries/ spending money and everything.
good luck with what you decide
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I think eurotraveller sums it up nicely for you.
If you are used to towing a caravan in the UK, do not be worried about towing one in France. The roads are much better and not so busy. As the cost of ferries, fuel and insurance are not covered in the cost of the trip with C&MC it does make me wonder where/how they can justify the costs.
Acsi - to be a member will cost around £14, if you don't have one it can be purchased for next year at the end of December this year. This will give you discounted stays on campsites listed in the book. At the moment the range is 11, 13, 15, 17 and 19€ a night for car/caravan/awning 2 adults and electricity per night. Pre - booking of sites in France is really not required out of the high season July and August.
It is perfectly possible to do the' tour' on you own and take your time doing stop offs at other sites along the way.
These are my thoughts, you may of course have a very good reason to want to join a trip, if that is the case as ET said only you can decide if its worth the additional costs.
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Eurotraveller has calculated the cost with an ACSI Card perfectly - with one night costing 17 euros, and 17 nights can be had for the price of 14 nights. (see ACSI Camping Card) for details. Whilst the C&MC tours are popular, they are also an expensive option as he has demonstrated. I know some people are more than happy to pay the prices charged for the security of having 'back-up', a tour host to help out when required,and being able to do 'coach tours' instead of driving themselves, and have restaurant meals booked and paid for in advance. Only you know if the additional cost is worth it for you. If so, then I'm sure you'll have a good time, and the tour hosts are usually very knowledgeable and helpful people.
We have acted as Tour Hosts on a Caravan Club tour in the past - and would be more than happy to spend 17 days with you in June for the £1185 difference in cost.
Getting down to the Aveyron on your own is the most difficult part (and even that is easy) - and thereafter the visits are all straightforward and easy to arrange - we've done 95% of them ourselves - though never the Gateau en Broche............. or the cattle market. There are lots of other lovely things which could be included too - and we have a lot of knowledge of the area, having holidayed there many times over our thirty-odd years of camping and caravanning holidays in Europe.
I would say 'You pay your money and you make your choice' - but I know which I would choose.
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Out of interest I looked at another tour that the Club was offering. The price was extraordinary and I just couldn’t work out how it could cost that much.
I have a more basic problem, the whole concept seems alien to me. The point of caravanning, motorhoming or camping is to enjoy the freedom of the road and to go where the fancy takes you, otherwise you might just as well book a hotel for a couple of weeks and fly down there. The whole of Southern France including Aveyron up to Centre was stinking hot in June last year. We had to escape to the North. Can’t do that if you’ve booked.
Just my opinion of course!
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C&CC have a 17 night 'escorted tour' (3 campsites) on a similar basis to Adalucia at an astonishing £2485
. You have to get yourself to Cordoba to join it .... and get yourself back from Granada at the end.0 -
Is that per person, or per couple? I imagine per couple, but it still a huge amount of money.
My friends, members of the C&CC have been on their rallies which seem to offer the same sort of experience, at a very reasonable rate - not much more than if you arranged things yourselves.
I imagine many of us could make a very good living in retirement doing a few such luctrative 'tours' per year!
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They do seem inordinately expensive for what is provided. ISTM that the one thing they lack for the nervous newcomer is the one thing that they are probably looking for - someone to hold their hand, figuratively speaking, on the drive down.
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So do I but in the past I have twice been on organised tours, one CMC and one independent and several holiday rallies. I don't recall the CMC tour being overly priced and in my view if you want your hand held then a well organised holiday rally is the way to go. Find out if there is a pre holiday rally meet where you can have a briefing and meet your fellow ralliers before you go and you can usually team up with one or two other more experienced travellers for the journey.
peedee
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Hi Joyb - cant agree more with what everyone else has said. Last year we used the Club to book our sites on a 4 week European tour down to Venice and back and there were no problems. (Yes, I know I could have done it all myself and not booked but OH wants the security of knowing everything is booked!)
Have you seen the organised Rallys in the Venture Abroad eg. pg 34 to Normandy -£825 including the ferry, pg 65 Dordogne £478 including ferry.
Driving and touring abroad isn't difficult. Go and enjoy.
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Our very first trip to Europe in 1987 was with a Club Tour although I don't think they were as organised as they are now. It was just a package with ferries and campsites prebooked. We had no tour leader or events, we just got a list of fellow travellers with registration numbers so we had to make our own approaches. It gave us a bit of confidence as we had never travelled abroad let alone towed. It must have worked as we have been visiting Europe ever since! For those of us who have travelled widely over many years in Europe I think it easy to forget that first time and I can understand people booking a "tour" as part of the initial learning curve. I suspect cost is of only secondary importance and many obviously feel it is money well spent in order to kick off their European adventures?
David
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Hi all,
Not wishing to point any fingers at joyb but is this another trolling post by CMC ? as its an odd question from Joyb who's listed as ' caravanning since 1981 ' - no reply as yet also ?? Sorry if it's genuine.
Profit Profit. Anyway - I thought that way back in the CC rules (a members club) the promotion of the hobby pursuit was in the DNA and not the clearly profit profit centred trip quoted - not that the club should lose money. NB it will likely be over subscribed as well !
Pity our club doesn't make some greater effort promoting the Overseas Centre Rallies - where is the listing or overview for them ??
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I agree Deleted User User - we had a rally of more than thirty caravans, with Dutch Born Again Christians on a site some years ago..................!
I wondered if we'd all been a bit off-putting to the original poster, who hasn't been back to comment on any of the replies, but then these are all honestly expressed opinions about the cost of these tours, both from those who've been on them, and those (us) who have hosted one such tour.
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Joyb
Just go for it, I retired this year and although we have towed a bit around the UK we (I) decided to just head off at the end of August into Europe with no firm plans for some 7 - 8 weeks.
Because we were taking our Springer with us I decided to go via the tunnel and was very very apprehensive about getting car and caravan on the train, in the end not trouble watched some videos on Youtube and took my time.
We had absolutely no issues with campsites all were very quite (one one there were three of us on a 107 pitch site), we spent £687 on site fees over 48 nights ie £14 a night (ACSI) , in fact the most expensive site was the club site at Folkstone and next time we will get a late crossing and stay in France.
Driving is much easier than the UK but as others have said just take your time that way you wont find yourself driving the wrong way down a one way street and having to reverse into a narrow side road, but all the other drivers just waited and the local cafe emptied as the came to oversee the mad English man.
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We started touring in France back in 1988. The most stressful aspect was that it was the first time of driving on the right. In fact it took about two minutes to get used to it. After that it was tremendous fun all the way. We took the Club site guide and found wonderful places to stop.
Personally we would never dream of spending money on an accompanied tour.
The one other aspect which remains with us is that there were no autoroutes or dual carriageways. Neither were there useful lay-bys for stopping so we often had to drive for miles before finding a possible gateway or a bit of firm ground to pull over for a loo break. The autoroutes are boring but we do like the convenience of being able to stop for a lazy lunch, coffee and the essentials.
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Can't believe the Tour Price! We had 5 weeks in France last year, all booked through the club -£1100 and that included Red Pennant Plus insurance and ferry (Brittany Ferries). First time we did France we had a fortnight in Normandy, then branched out south. Roads are less busy than here and we prefer to go off on excursions on our own. If you want company on site there are always plenty of people to talk to and everyone is always willing to help out/give advice. You could have 2 holidays for that price plus ferry and insurance.
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We did our first trip to France on a rally, not one of big club ones. The rally was OK but on one site and we had to make our own arrangements for the ferry and our way to the site, the bits that we'd have really welcomed assistance with. It was a doddle and we realised that we needn't of worried, in fact our rally was just a group on site no excursions etc just a drink if you wanted to join in. We felt we spent too long on the same site, but it was already paid, we were the only motorhomer and we realised that our touring is different to caravanners.
I'd say book your ferry/tunnel and a couple of nights on a site in France for reassurance and you'll be fine. With the savings you can stay longer if you've no commitments here or eating out or other treats 😆
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I too am astounded at the cost!
We tend to do at least 2 month trips abroad these days, so longer to spread the ferry and Red Pennant cost over, and we keep a note of everything we spend.....sites, fuel, food, sightseeing, ferries, insurance and road tolls, we aim to spend less than £60 per day overall.
This year we came in below budget at £53 per day.
Although we had been abroad with the car before, our first trip with caravan was in 1977, to Scandinavia. OH does not tow these days, but back then she was braver, and we had a smaller van. I was already in Scandinavia, so she towed the van from Glasgow to the Hull ferry and then from Gothenburg to a site somewhere in the middle of Sweden where we eventually met up. I was quite impressed!
No motorways back then, travelling is much easier these days, and mainly roads are less busy than in UK.
When we came back to caravanning in 1998, we started out booking sites abroad via the Club as it was peak season, these days we travel off peak and use ACSI, almost never book anything other than the ferry.
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I don't actually mind if these are revenue streams as the "profit" goes back into the club and can be used to subsidise other activities.
As said, it's entirely up to the individual whether they choose to use the service, but as someone who has always been cost-conscious there's no way we would do so.
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Agree with you 100% AD. My costs for a 6 week holiday in Spain/Portugal recently, including Santander ferry, came in at approx £60 a day.
I too would not want a loss making part of the Club to be subsidised by a profit making part. I do not know if this is going on but if a loss making element could not be made to break even/make a profit it should not be continued.
In Salamanca in Oct a rally from 'the other Club' arrived on site on their wine rally, 16 outfits mainly motorhomes. Oddly quite a lot of them had problems mainly electrical including one poor guy whose passenger window was stuck in the open position! They appeared very rushed and over organised and envied our no booking ahead method with the freedom to change our minds as we went along.
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Is not this discussion about the relative costs of using an escorted tour compared with going it alone a bit pointless? Clearly there is a demand for an organised tour which the Club provides as an option for those not wanting to tour independently. I have yet to see anyone come on here who has been on one of these tours and complain about the value or otherwise. Of course as an individual we are free to get the cheapest crossing if we are willing to travel at unpopular times. Of course we can use the various discount schemes to get the cheapest sites. However when designing a tour the Club will no doubt select crossings that suit more people which may add to the cost. They will book sites in advance which generally cost more per night than people turning up on the off chance. The will provide a tour leader and whilst they might not get paid ( I don't know whether they do) I am pretty sure their costs will be shared with the people taking the tour. Often there are events organised whilst on the tour which are included in the price. There may also be some financial risks in running such a tour if things change at the last minute. The Club will also want to make a profit on these tours, I don't see anything wrong with that as no one is being forced to go on one of these tours and as has been said upthread any profit is put back into the Club for us all the benefit from.
David
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