A few days ago I wrote a blog about our recent holiday in France.
This is blog 3 in the series.
I'm fortunate to have a holiday when a lot of people have no way of going on holiday at all but you really wouldn't want to be here even for free. This was not an Instagram moment.
The Joy of Boredom
Boredom is a glorious thing. My 9 year old granddaughter made this piece of art completely on her own with no prompting. She is very creative.
Tower of Stuff
The above artwork was one of the few good things about this holiday.
Boredom often leads to creativity so when someone tells me that they are bored my response is often. "Lucky you"
Boredom means that all of your primary needs are met. That is a big deal in itself.
My grandkids never tell me they are bored. 😂👍😎
There was absolutely nothing to do on this campsite as the activities board below shows.
No Activities & No Pool
Now the really bad stuff. Mid July to mid August 2026 we had a series of excessive record breaking heatwaves.
39 degrees Celsius 102.2 Fahrenheit not a drop of wind and humid AF.
We had specifically booked a holiday home with air conditioning and when we moved to this second campsite the chalet was like an oven on full blast.
No sheets, towels or a kettle either.
I went to the reception office of Camping Homair ille de Rhin and asked them. "Where is the air conditioning?" As that was my top priority.
They didn't seem to speak much English so I resorted to a translation app.
French
German
The receptionist said yes we have 4 units with air conditioning but yours isn't one of them!
We exchanged a few more comments via the translation app.
It was obvious that she had no authority to do anything and she basically gave up even trying to sort anything out.
My wife is disabled and we didn't think she could cope with the heat. We were right but that's another blog coming soon.
We still had AC at our previous accommodation and had a day still left on our booking so we went back there while we tried to buy an AC unit.
Hunting for AC
We drove over a hundred miles there and back to a Carrefour hyper market because we were assured that they had some in stock. They didn't and the desk clerk told us it was a stock error on the system.
Apparently there were no AC units in the whole region. (Capitalism failure)
No apologies for our wasted fuel and time.
Do you ever get the feeling that things just don't seem to work these day's?
The more AI moves into retail the worse it's going to get.
Eventually we had to bite the bullet and move into the new accommodation and it was horrendously hot.
My wife had bought these headscarf things way before our holiday and I wondered what they were for?
Staying cool but not looking it 🤣
My wife is a genius and if we hadn't had these headscarves I doubt we would have had any sleep.
Basically you soak them in water and squeeze them out. Instant cooling for about 10 minutes. They actually worked. I slept with mine on.
The grounds were parched and everything was dead or dying in the heat.
The only cooler place was the shower block but only by a few degrees.
The Cooler (shower block)
Looking like an relic of the 1950s at least it gave a little respite from the heat but you can't sit in there all day...that would be weird.
The Bedrooms
Below is the space beside the bed to get in and out of the bed. It's about a 6 inch (150mm) gap. Getting in and out you need to be a limbo dancer or a stick insect.
The 'Shower'
The shower below was so narrow that you couldn't turn around in it without your arse hitting the tap.
Don't drop the soap otherwise you will have to open the door to bend over and pick it up.
This chalet was just the right size for this guy below.
You may be thinking, well you get what you pay for but it might surprise you to know that we could have booked into a 4 star hotel for the same money.
Hindsight is no substitute for research.
I know I checked with local hotels and even made a booking at the Novotel in Colmar but we had to do a medivac with my wife immediately which I'll explain in the next blog.
Key takeaway. Do not buy a holiday from Eurocamp or Homair. They are the same company.
All of these 'holiday home' units are the same. Tiny and very poorly designed.
We've stayed in 4 of them on different campsites in the last two trips and will not be doing it again.
We booked these holidays for the activities that used to be available for the grandkids etc but these campsites are not what they used to be when they were run by independent companies.
What a bummer! Make sure you give them the online review they deserve so other families don't make the same mistake as you and have their holidays ruined
I definitely will give them an honest review warts and all.
I'm a Google maps reviewer and get a ton of views. It will be interesting to see if Google gives this review the same treatment it usually gives my other reviews. 👍
I think aircon units have been selling out here. They all come from China, so they have to wait for the next shipment.
Sorry to hear you had that bad experience. Definitely not what you want on holiday. Some dumb politicians say we should enjoy our new climate that is like the south of France. Meanwhile France is on fire!
Judging by the last few years rise in temperature europe wide including the UK.
I think setting up an aircon business would be a smart move for any budding entrepreneurs out there.😊
China missed a big opportunity this year.
It was unbelievable how fast it spread. 360,000 people evacuated in France and Spain. Mostly in France.
Some people still think climate change is a hoax! What more evidence do they need?
Edit typo
Everywhere is burning this summer. We tried to buy some aircon units for our house earlier in the season. Order seemed to go through and an hour later we were refunded with no explanation as such. B&Q had exhausted the supply chain. Demand has been exceedingly high. Later we tried to order a better fan, no joy.
@steevc I think you’re right, there aren’t enough shipments coming through from China.
That shower looks like the one I had in another French city last year. The worst hotel I’ve ever stayed in.
Sorry you and your family had a rough time
I was lucky and managed to buy a proper fan from Shark as I subscribed to their "let me know when stock is available" notification. Bought the fan the minute I saw the email. Luckily I did as it had sold out again the next day. Previously I just had the crappy £20 ones from B&M
Being from Asia, I'm used to the heat, but if things persist maybe in a few years time I may install a proper AC unit. I see my neighbour has installed one recently, smart guy with foresight
Well done on scoring the fan. I must say I've learned a lot about the whole cooling lark.
Apparently a fan is just as useful as aircon if we keep ourselves damp 😂
The air blowing over our damp bodies has a cooling effect.
Someone needs to invent an ac unit for UK flats/apartments because most people live in them.
Heat pumps are great if you have a house where you can drill holes etc not so doable in a flat.
There is definitely something wrong with the supply chain and this reliance on China for everything is a mistake.
Today it's aircon tomorrow who knows what?
Yep it's something I've seen in several places...cheap and nasty. They treat customers with contempt.
I won't be staying anywhere associated with this company.
They own so many places all under different brands to give customers the illusion of choice but they are all equipped with the same crap fittings.
They can't hide behind brands when the fittings are the same.
They obviously buy in bulk.
They think the public are stupid.
Vote with our wallet and support companies with some ethics...if you can find one?
Vote with our wallets indeed. The French Hotel was in Nancy, a nice town but like many places, has an ugly industrial bit an we were travelling back from a kayak holiday in Slovenia. To be fair the booking was ad-hoc but what we ended up with was a bit rough, my friend and I had single rooms and were both glad to see the morning and to hit the road again.
Standards have definitely fallen as the centralisation of control of these places has accelerated.
Kayak and all of this arbitrage services have actually increased prices.
They buy up all the accommodation and then raise the price.
Buying directly is often cheaper but it's difficult to find direct contact numbers sometimes which cause frictional aspects.
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