De Paal
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We stayed for 2 weeks in August 2018 with our three secondary school age children.
De Paal is in a lovely area of The Netherlands. Beautiful countryside, lovely rivers and forests to explore. Great little towns and villages an easy cycling distance away on very safe, dedicated cycle paths.
The site itself is amazing. Excellent for younger children, but ours (3, all at secondary school) loved it here too. They played football, basketball and various games on the courts, table tennis on the tables (bring your own bats and balls) and swam endlessly. There are several different pools, and they're patrolled by lifeguards. We stayed here for 2 weeks, the children all made Dutch friends and we saw them when they were hungry!!
We had the largest size of pitch (premium I think it's called?!) which gave us our own ensuite shower room behind the pitch, which was fantastic. It had underfloor heating and was worth the extra money. Also the pitch was absolutely enormous! And the neighbours very friendly, and all with amazing English.
There's a cafe, restaurant, bar, snack bar, ice cream shop, shop and laundry all on site.
We would definately stay here again.
We arrived at the site at 10.30 am, they had a side road prepared for early arrivals. We stopped, parked up and left our car and caravan supervised by two campsite staff (who gave us our welcome letter and barrier key card) while we went onto the site for a drink and an explore. We were allowed to enter the site at 1.30 once the departing vans had all left. Brilliant system.
Very well done De Paal. We were embarrassed to hear stories of campsites in the UK from our Dutch neighbours - we've travelled all over the UK with our caravan and can't compare any of our UK sites with this site!!
Touring Sep 16
On arrival at Earsal we followed the directions as given past the Shell garage turn right and then over those speed bumps looking for the road to take us to De Paal. We wish to advise that we were lucky in finding it but wish a simple direction (turn left just before the big church in the direction of Burgejk).
Check in was easy but thankfully we have a motor mover as you have to place your caravan/camper sideways. Everything was clean and tidy and the toilet block and shower facilities were in our opinion better than those of many camp sites in UK. The 5Euro cost for wifi for the week was very good value.
The resteraunt was excellent as were the staff at De Paal. What we found was that the bar closed early 8- 10 o'clock and that facilities for a couple over 50 was limited. Saying that it was fairly central in Holland to do the tourist thing and the weather was glorious. We recommend that a visit to Volksburg is recommended.
Nostaw
Reviewed on 02/10/2016 17:03
Summer trip
This site is amazing for all ages, having just returned from a two week break, we would recommend this site to everyone. The Dutch are the greatest campers in the world, extremely friendly and helpful. The facilities are second to none, and the staff first rate. Our daughter loved the swimming pool, playground and petting farm. The on-site restaurant is reasonably priced and delicious. The entertainment provided is great, live shows of Grease, Nanny McPhee. Local area is extremely nice, good nearby towns to cycle to, which have excellent eating establishments. The site access did get tricky during two wet days, but was immediately rectified after the rain stopped. During our stay, I broke my arm and the site staff were incredibly helpful arranging medical care, and our Dutch caravan neighbours couldn't be more helpful, and a special thanks to a fellow English family who were incredibly helpful. I would recommend a motor mover to pitch up or as we did find four helpful Dutchmen, as the pitches are along the edge of the camping areas. We would definitely choose this site again.
Great family location
We attended Camping De Paal at the end of June 2016. From the start we found this site to be fantastic! Staff were friendly could speak great English.
We opted for a special pitch which came with out very own ensuite toilet and shower which was situated directly behind our caravan. It was like a cave in the side of the wall. It was modern and spacious and we used it for everything from drying washing to storing bits and bobs.
Directly across from our pitch was a small play park for the kids with a sandpit. This was great as we could easily supervise our 3 children (9,7 and 9 months) from the comfort of our deck chairs.
Swimming pools were fantastic. The baby and small child zone inside a complex were unlike anything we have previously seen. Various small sprays and shallow pools were fabulous and our 9month baby loved it.
Outside were two bigger pools and three slides which were brilliant fun for the whole family.
The cafe and restaurant were nice and reasonably priced. In the grounds of the cafe was a large park with every kind of swing and climbing frame you could think of and once more nicely placed to allow the kids to play without constant supervision from parents (who could enjoy a nice cold glass of beer)
At the other side of the park was a large sand dune area containing more entertainment for the kids with bouncing cushions and other various child orientated play facilities
We also ventured out to a number of local towns and restaurants which we all found to be great and friendly.
The horrendous thunder lightening and golf ball sized hail stones did not put us off!!The only negative we could raise regarding this site was the water drainage our our particular camping section was not great and the grass was very mushy and not great for our 9 month baby as crawling on this surface just lead to a muddy child and lots of changes of outfits... ( even though she found this to be the best thing ever!)
We would most absolutely return to brilliant Camping De Paal and would strongly recommend others to give it a try!
5KPH I don't think so!
We used this site as a stop over, for a few nights en route to France. As we were in low season we expected a quite stay. Not so. This is a site totally focused on the enjoyment of children and families. There are numerous children’s activities and play areas. Even the site pitches, which are segregated by hedging, have a children’s play area, and the Dutch families also know how to party! That said the facilities on site are very good. The toilet blocks are the cleanest we have experienced and the showers are high quality with plenty of hot water and even have a bath installed. The only negative is the access road, which is sand based and full of pot holes. Fine if you tow with a 4x4 but I tow with a car so it was challenging. The site does warn you of the pot holes by stating “ The pot holes serve as reverse speed ramps, speed limit 5kph”. I would not even attempt driving at 5kph over this road. However, if you have children and tow with a 4x4 this would be a terrific site. The town of Eersil is very beautiful well worth taking the time to walk around, have a coffee and people watch. Note you can only use visa cards at the Jumbo supermarket.
I suggest you access this site using this alternative route, exit A67 onto the N824, stay in the left hand lane and at the first roundabout go straight on, staying on the N824, at the second roundabout stay in the right hand lane and turn right towards Eersel passing a Shell garage as you enter the town speed limit. Stay on this road until you approach a large church at a right hand corner, (Y junction) turn left towards Bergejk, After 5 miles (approx) turn left into site road. This route avoids driving through the town of Eersil with their narrow Dutch roads and cycle lanes.
Review
On the positive a very clean well run site as far as the facilities are concerned.
As for the pitches and going to and from them it is poor, tight corners and rough (I mean rough) roads. The access back on to the main road being equally difficult so narrow and busy with a pull out restricted by a traffic island. All this cost me a new caravan wheel as it was damaged leaving the site.
I was advised the maximum length of caravan is 8 metres mine is 10 centimetres short (Twin Axle). May I advise anyone visiting this site to take a caravan that is no longer than 7 to 7.3 metres and drive very slowly around site.
Well worth a visit
Stay at de paal for 4 nights last week, very nice.. we arrived on tuesday but due to heavy traffic we got there after reception had closed but this turned out not to be a problem after finding a very helpful member of staff in the bar who went to lengths getting us checked in. Once we had our pitch and settled in it was late however in the morning we explored the site and noticed it were near empty as it was after the dutch bank holiday, therefore everyone had gone back to work leaving the site very quiet for us to enjoy. We had booked a super pitch and this gave us our own bathroom which was very clean also a key to lock it allowing us to keep our bathroom things in there. Will use this again when our travels take us that way again.