Camping le Chateau de Rochetaillée

The campsite has gone downhill a lot over the years, especially since it changed from private ownership. Things don’t work, there’s no staff on site after 8pm, and the electricity cuts out every day. I’ve been coming here for 13 years, so it breaks my heart to say this, but this has to be our last try. It just doesn’t seem like anyone is trying to improve things.

The mountain scenery is wonderful, and the pitches looked generous, but the campsite itself felt neglected. The sanitary block was awful, and I was relieved we didn’t need to use it. The pool also seemed old and in poor shape, and some of the pools weren’t working. Our new mobile home was spotless and in great condition, though the double bed had no fitted sheet. They gave us two single fitted sheets that didn’t fit, so we had to manage with those. The washing machine was broken; reception told me to contact the company myself, so I did laundry elsewhere. Whenever I asked for help, I was sent to somebody else because it supposedly wasn’t that person’s job. Most of the reception staff seemed uninterested in helping and irritated by requests. With better care, this could be a great campsite, but we wouldn’t come back or recommend it because of the service and staff attitude.

We came back for a week in a mobile home at the end of July 2023, after seeing more positive reviews over the summer and getting a 50% discount offer. We weren’t ready to leave France, and the campsite had a good reputation in the past. Arriving from another campsite at the foot of Alpe D'Huez, we found things much improved this year. The caretaker now has her husband helping her, and their efforts to make guests happy and restore the site are admirable. They would get 5/5 from me for their work alone. There are still plenty of problems with worn equipment, buildings and the pool area, and bringing the campsite back will take hard work and a significant investment from the owners, Koawa Corporation, which owns several campsites. I hope they manage it. If they do, I’ll be the first to book again. We had also stayed here in July 2022. We’d last been in 2019, when we had a pitch and the place was great. On that 2022 visit, the campsite was in a sad state, with weeds everywhere and little sign of upkeep. Staff seemed uninterested in helping guests. We booked the brand new mobile home with a spa, but the dishwasher and some lights didn’t work. We asked for a lightbulb to be changed, and by day 6/7 it still hadn’t been done. I rarely write reviews, but felt I had to. We’ll still return to the area, but will stay at the RCN campsite across the road.

The place itself is lovely, with a good atmosphere, nice pitches and great staff on site. We’d happily stay again, as long as we avoid pitch 5. They put us on pitch 5 at first, but it was really a dumping ground. The company later admitted as much after I complained, and even the site staff said it wasn’t suitable. They said the booking company had assigned it and had used it. We asked to move, and they switched us the next day, agreeing it shouldn’t have happened. The complaint is still ongoing, though I doubt I’ll hear back. I wanted a full refund because they’d admitted the pitch should have been cleared, but the email response only offered €20, which was poor given it wasn’t what we’d paid for. The staff at the campsite were great and it’s a nice base, but the customer service staff handling complaints weren’t so good.