Ready-Erected Operators

Specialist Reports Holiday by Accommodation Camping - Ready Erected Ready-Erected Operators Keycamp Holidays 

	Keycamp Holidays
Hartford Manor, Greenbank Lane, Northwich, Cheshire CW8 1HW			MAP
tel: (0870) 7000 750

Founded in 1976, targeting the family market with flexible tailormades and budget fixed duration holidays and short breaks.

Where

France (Paris, Picardy, Normandy, Brittany, Loire, Vendee, Dordogne, Gascony, South of France, Lakes and Mountains and the centre), Spain, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Holland.

No of Sites

100-plus of which 85 in France.

Type of Sites

All sites have a swimming pool many with water slides and chutes, some with covered pools, most offering children's playground and most have Children Club. Most offer a choice of bars and restaurants plus takeaway, good hot showers with hair dryers, laundry facilities with irons, and baby changing areas. A few include saunas and fitness rooms and occasionally a fully equipped gym.

Accommodation

290sq ft tents with four bedrooms, renewed on a two-season cycle, groundsheets replaced annually, now with new fabric for inner tents to reduce condensation, ventilation panels and hanging wardrobe, with four bedrooms (one can be converted into a single large one), foam mattresses, and a four-burner fitted kitchen with fully enclosed storage space for safety and a full-size fridge.
Mobile home options include a Classic (25'6”x10'), a Supernova (28' x 10')or a Grand (29' x 12' or 34' x 12'), the last with a choice of two or three bedrooms, some with two bathrooms, and a new range of ‘villa-style' mobile homes. All offer three-pin plugs and electric fans, the largest a microwave, hairdryer and CD player. Blankets and pillows are provided. All are provided with a barbecue, site regulations permitting. Air conditioning is now available as well.

Kids Clubs

21 sites are considered particularly suitable for toddlers and at five in the Vendee there are free twice weekly Tumble Tots sessions for walking to 2 years and 2-3 years.
Mini Fun Station for 12 months to 3 years operates for five hous a days six days a week with story-telling, games, songs and arts and crafts plus the chance to read or draw at leisure. There is also sturdy play equipment. The service is free but parental supervision is required.
Fun Station is for children 4+ with for example nature trails, 7-12 with for example scavenger hunts, and 10+ with for example orienteering. It operates Easter and then mid-May to early September, five hours daily, six days a week at a majority of sites.
Base is designed to provide a social network for teenagers at 30 sites with activities like volleyball, biking and watersports and evening beach parties and other entertainment two or three nights a week.
All sites with Fun Station have two full-time children's couriers catering to different age groups, and the club meets twice a day six days a week. At other sites the courier is part-time and the club meets three or four times a week only.
Soccer Station football coaching is available daily on two French sites run in conjunction with a professional football training organisation (AMBO UK) for all children 5-18

Child/Courier Ratio

1:20.

Type of Courier

Children's couriers are trained by Keycamp and most have previous experience working with children. They are trained in structuring club activities for different ages in a group.

Extra for Kids

Free cots in tents or side rail on single bed in mobile home and free high chairs. Most sites provide stair gates, night lights, baby baths and washing and drying machines. There is all-terrain buggy hire on 14 sites at £2 a day - recommended for sandy paths and beach.
There are also free toddler tents for families with under 3s staying at one of these camps before 1 July.
Couriers may offer babysitting if other duties permit.
Adventure tents for sleeping next door to parents are ?3.50 per night. There are free toddler tents for all families travelling with one or more child under 4 to a site with Harry's Garden. The tents are designed as an additional play space to be used outside the customer's tent or mobile home, and as extra protection on the beach. Adventure tents for older children can be purchased at £19.95 each.
There is a games chest at each site providing free loan of popular games and some sports equipment. There is a range of board games, table tennis bats, badminton, cricket and boules sets.

Other Activities

Family activities are organised on 15 sites in June, July and August under the Action Station name, including for example quizzes, children's talent shows, wine-tastings and restaurant outings. Cycling notes are available at 43 sites for family cycling outings with a choice of around six routes of varying difficulty, and there are trailer bikes at 20 sites for hire for children 4-7 years (pre-booking required). There is free windsurf or canoe hire at 18 resorts, and sailing or windsurfing courses at roughly as many others. Horse riding and scuba diving may also be available. There is a children's pack for all under 13s for under 4 years, 4-6 years, 7-9 years, and 10-12 years, contents tailored to the age groups.

Sample Price

12 nights in mid-August in the Languedoc at a four-star site including up to four children around £1,040 in a tent and £1,300 in a basic mobile home, including return Dover-Calais ferry crossing. Fly-drives are also available.