Raet Camping

The setting in the forest by the sea was beautiful, and it was tempting to stay, but I moved on to another campsite. After a long drive, I found the campsite closed in late August. Everything looked old and was locked up, with nobody around. I couldn’t tell if it was still a campsite or just cabins and yurts for rent, closed for the season or maybe permanently. I wish the website had made that clear.

The staff were very kind and the location is lovely, but we had to go somewhere else for food. The Google Maps restaurant menu is out of date, and we couldn’t find one on the website. There were no vegan dishes and the only vegetarian choice was a very boring salad. Prices were much higher too, with a burger costing 275 NOK.

Beautiful location and nice people, though the bathrooms are worn out. It seems like the new management is still finding its feet.

The way Raet Camping handled our booking showed a shocking lack of care. I’ve travelled to more than 70 countries over 44 years and spent 20 years managing tours, cruises, and conventions, and I’ve never had a customer service experience like this. My husband and I hadn’t taken a vacation in two years because we didn’t want to leave our aging golden retriever. For my 60th birthday, we planned one night in a yurt at Raet and dinner at the restaurant, leaving him with our wonderful dogsitter. We used to walk in the park with our golden when he was a pup. On August 5, I booked a yurt for the night of August 10, only five days ahead, without thinking about the cancellation rules. Our dog got sick the next day and didn’t improve, so we sadly had to consider cancelling. I found out the policy required seven days’ notice rather than the usual two, and emailed to explain and ask for a raincheck in September or the following year. Raet quickly said they’d be closed in September and couldn’t promise anything the next year because they didn’t know how things would be, with politics about the area and the regulation plan. The night cost kr 2300, or 230 euros, a lot to lose. I said we could come before the end of August. They sent dates when the restaurant would be open, but the next day said a yurt was only available on the weekend of the 18th. I said a weekday could work too. They replied that they never open on weekdays in low season, and I pointed out that low season hadn’t started. Then they said it was “Arendalsuka,” when companies book a year ahead. I agreed to August 18. I sent that email on August 10 and never heard back. It felt like they were making it as hard as possible to arrange another night because they simply didn’t want us there. Meanwhile our dog still wasn’t better, and we had to make the painful decision to put him to sleep in the coming weeks. Anyone who’s loved a dog knows how much that takes over your thoughts. After five or six days with no reply from Raet, I’d mostly forgotten my frustration about the cancelled stay. August 18 came and went without me thinking about the yurt. Then on August 19, I was shocked to get a text with the yurt number and door code. It arrived at 20:07, five hours after that day’s check-in time, and said the showers were under the restaurant and “Welcome to us!” But I was at home on my sofa, nowhere near Raet Camping. They’d never answered my last email requesting August 18, not August 19. After 20 years in international hospitality, I can’t remember seeing such an openly disgraceful move. Keeping our 230 euros under a written seven-day cancellation policy is one thing. Sending a code and welcome message at 8 p.m. the night after the date we’d asked for, to make it look as if they’d offered an alternative when they hadn’t, is another. It showed complete disregard for customer care and for our intelligence. It was just thoughtless.