Caravan & Motorhome Club.....or not? (1 Viewer)

[Helgamobil]

We are returning into the Motorhoming fold (having seen the error of our ways...) and wondered if we could ask your views about membership of the Caravan & Motorhome Club UK? Don't shoot me down, this is a genuine "should we/shouldn't we" question, with no experience at all of the Club, and wondering if it really brings all manner of worthwhile advantages - or not.
We did belong to ACSI (with previous Motorhome, a while back) which is something else we need to revisit I guess.
We are likely to be touring in the UK and throughout Europe.
Sally

 

[Camdoon]

It will cost half a tank of fuel which you will probably make back with a similar amount of discounts if camping on sites in the UK. Try it for a year and cancel if it doesn't suit.

 

[starquake]

We are returning into the Motorhoming fold (having seen the error of our ways...) and wondered if we could ask your views about membership of the Caravan & Motorhome Club UK? Don't shoot me down, this is a genuine "should we/shouldn't we" question, with no experience at all of the Club, and wondering if it really brings all manner of worthwhile advantages - or not.
We did belong to ACSI (with previous Motorhome, a while back) which is something else we need to revisit I guess.
We are likely to be touring in the UK and throughout Europe.
Sally

You'll find the other club may be more "friendly". We're a member of both at moment, prefer CAMC for the CL's, but site prices in summer are approx double that of the other club so we a member of both at moment.

It really dpeends where you visiting though, as if it was for example North Norfolk, both clubs have sites at say Cromer, and Sandringham. Ditto places like Kessingland, both clubs have a campsite in that beach town, but the CAMC site in taht case is better located (but also far more pricy). However, only CAMC havea site in Gt Yarmouth so if you wanted to visit there, you better with CAMC.

Our experience is:
CACC is better for campsites that are ran by the club, they generally get double the bang per £ (ie, it's twice or more the price for a CAMC site).
CAMC is better for CL sites, and there are some VERY nice CL sites, usually £20-£25 a night all in (inc electric)
CACC CS sites are less "useful" for a motorhome we have found, and we havn't found them as good as teh CL's (which are a very good standard from those we have visited).
CACC is better for "temporary holiday sites" and Rally type sites, usually £10-15/ni per unit.

Peak times like bank holidays, CAMC is often (for 2) £70 a night, where once grass pithces and promos available, CACC will be £30 ish.

Personall without the CL's we'd drop CAMC before we dropped CACC which says how much we value the 2 main member club campsites in UK. We almost done this until we discovered 2 CL's we liked enough to stay members for next eyar. CL booking often requires a phone if the CL is not on the clbooking website.

If you stay 4 nights at each club you'll probably get back your membership in the discounts.
Worth noting if you are over 60, CACC will be even cheaper, as their over 60's rate is even better ... where CAMC has no over 60's rate.

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[Helgamobil]

Thank you Starquake - a terrific response and so useful. Much appreciated.

 

[starquake]

Thank you Starquake - a terrific response and so useful. Much appreciated.

One point I missed, CACC offer pitches without electric for a "lot less" so if you can be offgrid, that is advisable in summer with them. Electric is £7/ni more with CACC when I worked it out, ie it can be optional on some pitch types like Grass.

CAMC always (well in 99% of sites) includes electric, so their higher prices may be "cheaper" if you dont have a off grid capable van.

We find in summer, solar is plenty for our needs.

 

[VXman]

Personally I find the main club sites expensive and not the type of site i like to visit anyway (unless in a very specific location I want to be)

I joined this year as they were doing an offer at the NEC show for 2 free nights. Generally I would used CL's with them, which can be found as cheap as £15 per night with limited facilities.

ACSI is worth it in Europe if you are there off peak. It doesn't cost much and you will make your money back after a couple of nights somewhere.

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[Helgamobil]

Thank you again Starquake - a true mine of information! Much appreciated.
Sally

 

[Helgamobil]

Personally I find the main club sites expensive and not the type of site i like to visit anyway (unless in a very specific location I want to be)

I joined this year as they were doing an offer at the NEC show for 2 free nights. Generally I would used CL's with them, which can be found as cheap as £15 per night with limited facilities.

ACSI is worth it in Europe if you are there off peak. It doesn't cost much and you will make your money back after a couple of nights somewhere.

Thank you VXman, useful and helpful information.

 

[Bernie P]

I've been a member of both for more years than I care to remember. Use both on a regular basis along with independant sites depends where we are going or what we are doing. Being "retired" we tend to avoid school hoidays and bank holidays and on that basis prices are fairly similar.

The one thing with CAMC and CACC sites is you know what your getting as their facilities are fairly standard. A small number of independant sites are not quite the same as their promo pictures would have you believe.

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[Helgamobil]

I've been a member of both for more years than I care to remember. Use both on a regular basis along with independant sites depends where we are going or what we are doing. Being "retired" we tend to avoid school hoidays and bank holidays and on that basis prices are fairly similar.

The one thing with CAMC and CACC sites is you know what your getting as their facilities are fairly standard. A small number of independant sites are not quite the same as their promo pictures would have you believe.

Good point Bernie P! Thank you.

 

[meanders]

You'll find the other club may be more "friendly".

Or in our case most unfriendly, so we gave C&CC up. No idea how they ever came up with that tag line. However, I know from talking to other Funsters, they have had the opposite experience, so I guess it depends who you are fortunate or unfortunate enough to come up against.

We are in CAMC mainly for the CL's. However in the early days our local Suffolk Centre organised some really good rallies. We had a child at home at the time, and they were great as often targeted at families. Less so once he had left home, but a good place to start with local rallies. However, I genuinely say the Fun rallies are way better.

There are a good few Funsters in Devon and Cornwall including my brother Ejaydee who may be able to provide more local help and Darek and Marry Emmit who organise some of the Fun rallies. .

 

[westhamman]

I like many are members of both, mainly for certificated-locations. They do discounts on numerous things, only last week got a extra £20 discount from mountain warehouse, many complain about wardens but I have never found them a issue, I lie, in 1996 we came across one very officious person.

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[bladerunner]

The one thing with CAMC and CACC sites is you know what your getting as their facilities are fairly standard.

Boy do you know what you're getting with CAMC!
NO arrival before 1pm (even if no parking on adjacent busy road)
The facilities are identikit (and always v clean) +/- radio 2.
The fences are the same shade of brown
The quad truck with the hi viz orange man.
Parking between the posts ( never be tempted to stray )

The only thing that varies is how friendly some CAMC staff are - some are lovely, far too many take the title "warden" too far.

Having said that, we have been members of both for 14 years. Membership costs are maybe 0.5% of annual costs of MH.

 

[poppycamper]

One point I missed, CACC offer pitches without electric for a "lot less" so if you can be offgrid, that is advisable in summer with them.

In my experience the non leccy pitchs on CCC sites tend to be on grass pitchs... not hardstanding, and we all know how wet it can get, even in Summer..

 

[starquake]

Or in our case most unfriendly, so we gave C&CC up. No idea how they ever came up with that tag line. However, I know from talking to other Funsters, they have had the opposite experience, so I guess it depends who you are fortunate or unfortunate enough to come up against.

Definitely depends on the individual site mangers/wardens. Over last year we have seen far more issues with people being told to move their van in a very unprofessional manner at CAMC sites - wasn't even us impacted (one particular example where someone was told off for moving a post/peg which they clearly had not as we watched them pitch next to us), and another where someone was (in our opinion) parked correctly, beaing told to immediately move, when they had an air awning up, so wsan't exactly fast to move.. Personally we've had no bad experiences directly with CAMC wardens, but we have seen neighbours admonised (in our opinion incorrectly) ... which does leave you with a sour taste.

As said you get most types, but as we've stayed at "more" CACC sites in last year and only had one "bad" experience (where they were cleaning all the toilets on site same time, leaving someone with no toilet, which they (I thought correclty) were complaining about vocally (something along lines, of "how can you leave us with no loos for 30 mins").

Personally, we like the CAMC sites, we just think they are considerably too pricy.

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[Spriddler]

Depends upon your style of motorhoming. I remain a member just for access to the CLs a couple of times a year. The only sure way to decide is to try it by treating yourself. You know you're worth it.

 

[hja]

We belong to CAMC and ccc, the former for CLs and the latter for CSs and the age discount on their club sites. We also like the ability to have non electric pitches on ccc sites, bearing in mind grass and weather! As others have said, join for a year, fully explore their offerings, don’t just stick to club sites and see what you like. Others rate the THS of the CCC

 

[Dolmen]

I might have a go at the euro lottery this week as I appear to be very lucky. I have never come across a site warden that has been anything but friendly, I have come across one in tears after a very angry man wouldn't stop shouting at her (until I intervened) and I have come across some who have been slightly flustered when we all arrived at 1 minute past 1. I have never had cause to have cross words with any of them and they have never treated me in anything but a friendly manner, are there really officious, unfriendly ones out there or is it just a legacy joke from the old camp days

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[Ejaydee]

Welcome Sally. We have been a CAMC member for several years now, mainly because of their CLs, most of which we have found are good value. We have stayed on a few club sites on the odd occasion, usually only for one or two nights. All have been fine in my experience (if a bit expensive on occasions). The one site I have stayed on for a bit longer, is the Crystal Palace site, which gives easy access to central London (20-25 mins by train) and is very good value when one considers the average (inflated) cost of hotel rooms in the Capital.

 

[Spriddler]

I might have a go at the euro lottery this week as I appear to be very lucky. I have never come across a site warden that has been anything but friendly, I have come across one in tears after a very angry man wouldn't stop shouting at her (until I intervened) and I have come across some who have been slightly flustered when we all arrived at 1 minute past 1. I have never had cause to have cross words with any of them and they have never treated me in anything but a friendly manner, are there really officious, unfriendly ones out there or is it just a legacy joke from the old camp days

I've never had any grief from them or at CCC or any other camp sites here or abroad. Reading the occasional arrogant post huffing and puffing about 'jobsworth' wardens I'm tempted to feel that there may be another side to the story.

 

[bigtwin]

Out of principle I’d avoid the CMC as they, much to their shame, do not allow members to pay for a service visit. If the C&CC can do it why cant they? Changing their name to include the term Motorhome doesn’t cut it when they clearly don’t understand that motorhomers use their vehicles in a manner that is different from caravanners.

The C&CC also provide really great value Temporary Holiday Sites (at a cost of roughly one third of the price of the CMC equivalent).

Ian

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[starquake]

I've never had any grief from them or at CCC or any other camp sites here or abroad. Reading the occasional arrogant post huffing and puffing about 'jobsworth' wardens I'm tempted to feel that there may be another side to the story.

Given it's been other people I've seen offended by them and not even ourselves -> it's just some wardens have no "tact" I would say. There are ways of getting people to do what you ask without being offensive.... The guy we saw being given a talking to about having moved a post (which he hadn't) was the type of person who didn't even listen to the poor camper telling him "I didn't touch your white posts", and it woudl have easily been dealt with by being polite rather than being a order of "move it right now or we are removing you from site", which was the ulitmatum issued within 5 minutes of arrival for the poor gent in question.

In their defence however we have had the friendliest nicest warden of entire year at a CAMC site in suffolk -> so they are not all bad. We were allowed to stay well beyond normal departure time (about 2 hours in total), given usual departure time was right in middle of a (international) football match and it saved us having to leave early to tune the TV in at a park up. They accomodated this request from ourselves and a neighbour, and let us (both) leave as soon as the match finished, with the nice CAMC lady even coming to retrieve our site toilet keys afterwards without us needing to pop in to drop them off.

 

[VXman]

Out of principle I’d avoid the CMC as they, much to their shame, do not allow members to pay for a service visit. If the C&CC can do it why cant they? Changing their name to include the term Motorhome doesn’t cut it when they clearly don’t understand that motorhomers use their vehicles in a manner that is different from caravanners.

The C&CC also provide really great value Temporary Holiday Sites (at a cost of roughly one third of the price of the CMC equivalent).

Ian

While I would appriciate more opportunities to dump waste I totally understand their policy. Essentially they are hammering a nail in their own coffin by allowing you to dump in their site. By allowing that they are encouraging you NOT to come and stay.

 

[DT]

CMC Definitely a yes. You know what you get,

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[Andy Norfolk]

We left both after a year. They're not clubs but businesses. I have nothing against business but they should be open about what they are. But you pay your money and take your choice. As many have said it depends what your after.

 

[Brize]

Sally, as you have seen, everyone has a different opinion based on their personal experiences.

For a long time we were members of both clubs, but dropped the CACC after a couple of bad experiences. We have stayed with the CMC because they are reliable and - as others have said - you know what you are getting. The CMC CLs are usually good too. You have already had the best advice, to try both for a year and make decisions then on whether to stay with one or both.

Turning to ACSI, we have used this for years and wouldn't be without it now. Everything is digital on their app (don't bother with the books they are just extra weight), and we have found it really efficient.

I'm writing this sitting on my pitch on the Somme, at a lovely ACSI site. The fee is about 25% less than normal. We are at the end of a trip that has taken us to Italy, Switzerland, and now France, and (apart from one place) we have used ACSI sites throughout with fantastic savings. Yes, the savings are only applicable outside of school holidays, but that suits us because with granny and Grandpa duties, we make our long overseas trips outside of school holibobs.

Hope this is all helpful,

(PS - welcome to the site)!

 

[bigtwin]

By allowing that they are encouraging you NOT to come and stay.

By not allowing it they are encouraging members to become non-members!

It is a revenue generating opportunity, not the reverse.

Ian

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[meanders]

are there really officious, unfriendly ones out there

Oh yes. We came across one at Brighton. 18 inches off the peg according to he yet I was central in the pitch. The peg was in the wrong place so moved i much to his chagrin. Also at a very soggy site in the west country where he was telling people to drive over the grass and then complaining that they were getting stuck.

 

[Helgamobil]

Sally, as you have seen, everyone has a different opinion based on their personal experiences.

For a long time we were members of both clubs, but dropped the CACC after a couple of bad experiences. We have stayed with the CMC because they are reliable and - as others have said - you know what you are getting. The CMC CLs are usually good too. You have already had the best advice, to try both for a year and make decisions then on whether to stay with one or both.

Turning to ACSI, we have used this for years and wouldn't be without it now. Everything is digital on their app (don't bother with the books they are just extra weight), and we have found it really efficient.

I'm writing this sitting on my pitch on the Somme, at a lovely ACSI site. The fee is about 25% less than normal. We are at the end of a trip that has taken us to Italy, Switzerland, and now France, and (apart from one place) we have used ACSI sites throughout with fantastic savings. Yes, the savings are only applicable outside of school holidays, but that suits us because with granny and Grandpa duties, we make our long overseas trips outside of school holibobs.

Hope this is all helpful,

(PS - welcome to the site)!

Thank you! ACSI it is then! We did find them very useful in days gone by (as were the Aires/Sostas, but they can be a bit hit and miss!)

 

[Spriddler]

Early one morning, solo in my m/h at Thirsk in the Yorkshire Dales I had a call from my niece telling me that my 80 yr old sister was very ill in hospital in Redruth, Cornwall. Stopping halfway in the 400 mile drive for fuel I phoned the local CAMC site explaining the situation. The lady gave me a pitch number and said they'd leave the barrier operational. I arrived at the hospital at 9.15 pm, chatted to my sister about camping hols of the past until she fell asleep and died at 9.45. I arrived at the designated pitch at 10.30 and had to move a box under which was a carton of milk and two sausage rolls.