Chatel - a63896

The wellness area with its sauna, salt cave, and beauty salon is a real treat. The sanitary facilities are fantastic, thoughtfully laid out, and always spotless. The campsite is extremely well equipped, and the team are friendly and helpful. The owner seems able to turn a hand to anything and always comes up with a solution. A truly exceptional site, second to none. Lupus56

We booked the Chatel Xanten from May 31st to June 4th, 2022, and honestly, we have never stayed somewhere this disastrous. One star feels too generous. The website described a “rustic holiday log cabin with very tasteful furnishings,” and listed both a dishwasher and a steam shower. The bungalow was tastefully furnished, that part was true, but neither appliance was there. It also advertised a “Relax” sauna as included, which was deliberately left out for reasons we still can’t understand. Free Wi-Fi was advertised too. In my view, this was misrepresentation and therefore fraud against the customer. After we complained, the website was quickly changed to remove the dishwasher and steam shower claims. We still had screenshots of the original description of services, though. The cleanliness was unacceptable. We have never seen anything like it, and someone with a dust mite allergy could have suffered a massive collapse here. See photos. It took us two days to clean. We had no idea when a cleaner had last been there, so the €49 final cleaning fee made no sense. Judging by the state of the place, it seemed cleaning had never been done. There was dirt everywhere, with dead flies, spiders, tissues under the bed, dust bunnies and cobwebs in the corners. We also found blood pressure tablets and tiny button cell batteries. Just imagine if small children or pets had found and swallowed them. The owner and groundskeeper ignored our complaint. They were arrogant, ignorant, rude, and completely incompetent. The groundskeeper kept trying to play the whole thing down in an embarrassingly arrogant way, as though we were supplicants rather than paying vacationers. The house was already appallingly dirty, but the way our justified complaint was handled was even worse. We ended up handing the matter to a lawyer for clarification and did receive a partial refund. For all these reasons, we certainly won’t book the Chatel Xanten again, and we definitely won’t recommend it.

We love staying at the campsite and come back whenever we can. It’s directly or indirectly in the town. We like the town itself too, with all its lovely little shops. We’d happily return anytime!

The campsite is fantastic, and the sanitary facilities are really clean. The owner is incredibly friendly. We’d love to come back.