Hello, and if this is your first time visiting Around The World In 18 Years travel blog, you’re very welcome. Our little travel blog is where we write all about our days out and holiday adventures. Quite often we are asked how we manage to go on so many holidays and yet spend as little as possible. So, we thought we’d let you into a little secret, but shhhhhh…don’t tell everyone…..The Sun £9.50 Holidays! It’s our secret weapon!
As well as having day jobs and juggling school runs and after-school clubs, we love assisting others in finding a bargain or dream holiday. As travel writers we spend hours scouring the tabloids and internet trying to find a bargain holiday. THE SUN newspaper often has promotions offering £9.50 holidays….that’s right, a holiday from just £9.50 per person. That’s less than the price of 3 cups of caramel latte from a well known coffee shop! Ok, so in all honesty we have never availed of The Sun £9.50 Holidays as the holiday destinations are UK only. As a family we tend to spend that little bit more and travel to a European destination where the hot weather is pretty much guaranteed.
ARE YOU CONSIDERING A SUN £9.50 HOLIDAY?
There are lots of wonderful and friendly groups on Facebook you should join if you’re considering booking a SUN £9.50 HOLIDAY, one of our favourites is the £9.50/£15 SUN HOLIDAYS. A friendly and very informative group who’s members are a wealth of knowledge. This group should be your first port of call to find out how to collect the codes to get you to the point of booking your UK or European break with The Sun £9.50 Holidays.
EUROCAMP BROCHURE
One you’ve joined the £9.50/£15 Sun Holidays group, as well as our very on DIY FAMILY HOLIDAYS group, next on your list is to order the official EUROCAMP BROCHURE. You can order a brochure for home delivery or as a digital download. In our view, nothing quite beats browsing through a brochure where you can check out every single park and everything that’s available at the park. The Eurocamp brochure is glossy and colourful and helps us to decide which park is right for us. And as I type this blog, our two girls are sat here ticking off the camps they’d like to visit. The brochure also holds valuable information such as which airport is closest, where you can fly from and the distance from sea ports and airports to the park. It is also great for learning a little bit about each area. And just to say, not every Eurocamp Park is available on the Sun £9.50 Holidays Promotion.
FACEBOOK GROUPS, A WEALTH OF INFORMATION
I can’t tell you how invaluable we find Facebook Groups, within the groups you can find a wealth of useful information. The £9.50/£15 Sun Holidays Facebook Group, as mentioned earlier; is excellent and a must to join. In the Group you will find all the nitty-gritty information that you need for the Sun £9.50 Holidays booking process. You will also find reviews and advice on many Eurocamp Parks, and most importantly, that final code at silly o’clock in the morning that will finally allow you to book your Eurocamp holiday. There is also a specific Facebook Group for SUN £9.50 & BREAKFREE EUROPEAN HOLIDAYS that we recommend you to join.
As well as our main page on Facebook, Around The World In 18 Years, we also have a great DIY Family Holidays Group which will also be invaluable to you for help with booking your flights, things to do in the surrounding areas of the Eurocamp park and advice in general when it comes to all things holidays.
The EUROCAMP UNOFFICIAL GROUP is another great resource for advice, especially about specific parks. Within the Group you will find seasoned Eurocamper’s who will know everything there is to know about parks, transfers and everything in between. Finally, have a search on Facebook to see if there is a specific group for the park that you are planning to book, you may be surprised!
CHOOSE YOUR PARK
This will be personal preference. A park that someone loves, the next person might loathe, so do your
research and pick the park that is BEST for you and your family. Use the Eurocamp brochure, Eurocamp website for reviews and the Facebook Groups. It is vitally important to have more than one park chosen, we normally have at least 6, and you need to have a minimum of 4 because of the booking process, which we will explain further down the page. You also need to decide on the order of the sites that you want to book. We have a little spreadsheet that we complete as a family which includes the very important air conditioning, beach, pool, food, facilities, reviews and things to do in the local area. Plan ahead and you shouldn’t go wrong!
EUROCAMP ACCOMMODATION
This gets asked a lot! What is the accommodation like? Will I get put in a tent? Cheap price means cheap accommodation…right? When you book via The Sun £9.50 Holiday Promotion, you will get the ‘lowest grade’ mobile home in your chosen park, but never a tent! And ‘lowest grade’ does not mean ‘lowest quality’! You will be in a clean mobile home with bedrooms (2 or 3), bathroom, separate toilet (not always), kitchenette, lounge/dining area and outdoor decking (not all parks have the decking). If you’re lucky, you may receive an accommodation upgrade but these ‘upgrades’ are few and far between and sadly, there is no paying extra for an upgrade. The accommodation will be a standard Eurocamp mobile home that can be booked directly with Eurocamp themselves but at a premium price…why would you? In 2018, for our stay at Park Albatros; we saved a staggering £1400 against the Eurocamp brochure price.
SELECT A DATE
The image below shows the dates that are available to book in January with The Sun £9.50 Holidays Promotion. You need to decide what dates are suitable for you to travel. If you require flights, check the days that the airline fly to and from your destination. We tend to have a minimum of 4 to 5 dates that we are happy to book. The European Eurocamp breaks are available to book for 3, 4 or 7 nights. All 3 night breaks commence on a Friday, and all 4 night breaks commence on a Monday. The 7 night breaks commence on either a Monday or a Friday date. Tricky bit….you are able to book a 14 night stay, but this entails booking 2 x 7 nights separately but at the same time to ensure you get accommodation for the full 14 nights at the same Eurocamp Park.
Note, you may have to move mobile homes after the 7th night. If you want a 14 night holiday, consider doing a 2 park stay.
FLIGHTS
This part is so important and should be thought about and looked into well in advance of the actual booking process. As mentioned earlier, the Eurocamp brochure will help provide you with useful information regarding how far a park is from the airport and more importantly, from which airports you can fly from for the destination that you are travelling to. Visit our Instagram stories and we have a video where we give hints and tips on how to utilise Skyscanner to find the best value flights. One piece of advise we share is to have a final check on flight times and prices the evening before The Sun £9.50 Holidays booking opens, as prices can change dramatically. Once you have your Eurocamp accommodation booked, which we have detailed below how to do; you can go ahead and book your flights. It’s personal preference whether to book flights immediately but we normally wait until we receive the email confirmation from Eurocamp (takes up to 7 days).
FLIGHT OR FERRY
Flights are much quicker than a ferry, but you don’t have to fly to your chosen park. You can book a ferry directly via the Sun promotion which is a very popular choice for people travelling to France and Holland. We have driven to Italy twice from Northern Ireland so Europe isn’t out of bounds even if you don’t like to fly. You will find the ferry offers here: The Sun £9.50 Holidays Ferry Offers
CAR HIRE
There are many parks that you will be able to book airport transfers to but you should also consider hiring a car. Hiring a car allows you that little bit more freedom and you can come and go, see the local areas; as you please. We have driven, when I say ‘we’ I mean hubby; throughout Europe and he much prefers European driving to driving within the UK…it’s definitely faster ad more manic, yet polite and courteous at the same time! If we decide not to drive and opt to hire a car in Europe, we always book our car hire through Rentalcars.com.
And here are our Car Hire Top Tips:
- Book Early – try to book your car hire as early as physically possible. Many car hire companies have free cancellation and also pay upon arrival so there is no need to hold out on booking your car hire,
- Use A laptop – book via the Rentalcars,com site on a laptop and not a mobile phone as there are more filter options choose from. For example; if you are only able to book using a debit card or want to see companies that accept lower deposits, you can filter these options from the side menu.
HOW MUCH WILL A SUN £9.50 HOLIDAY ACTUALLY COST?
A 7 night European Eurocamp break you will cost exactly £30 per person…but…there are often a few dates available for a lower amount. When booking your accommodation on The Sun website you will pay a £120 for a family of 4 for 7 nights, and on top of this there is a small booking fee of just £2.80. This is the absolute minimum amount you can pay! If there are only 2 people in your group, you will still need to pay £120 plus the £2.80 booking fee. Approximately 7 days after booking via The Sun website, you will receive an invoice directly from Eurocamp requesting a Service Charge payment. The Service Charge covers cleaning, gas and electric and is £7.50 per night.
To clarify, for a family of four a 7 night break costs:
7 nights accommodation at £30 per person + 7 nights service charge at £7.50 per night =£172.50
Pretty good value for a 7 night European holiday don’t you think!
(for a 3 and 4 night break the accommodation booking cost is £15 per person and the Service Charge is the same at £7.50 per night).
WILL THERE BE ANY EXTRA COSTS?
On arrival at your Eurocamp park you may be requested to pay a refundable security deposit, but, in all fairness; we have only ever been asked for this on one occasion. Linen is the main additional cost! Linen packs for a double bed costs £23.50 and for a single bed costs £17.00, these both include a bath towel. A pack of 2 beach towels costs £12.50 and bath towels cost £4 each. If you are driving we recommend taking your own linen with you, or, as we sometimes do when we arrive; buy cheap linen from a local supermarket and drop into a charity shop or clothing collection point before returning home. If you are flying we have learnt a little trick…but only if you are taking car seats. Purchase a cheap car seat bag and pack your linen around the car seat so that it goes through oversized luggage. We have never had any issues with doing this and have the phrase “it’s just packing material to stop the car seat being broken in transit as this has happened to us before” at the ready.
A few of the European Parks require payment to use their leisure facilities, such as Duinrell in Holland. If you’re unsure, always best to check out the Eurocamp website to find out all the details about your park before you travel.
The following information is detailed during the online checkout process for the Sun £9.50 Holidays:
“For European holidays a £15 equipment damage waiver is added to all holidays, this can be removed and a £100 deposit paid on arrival, refundable if no equipment is damaged”.
Now, not for love nor money can we see where this £15 is taken or charged. But just be warned, you may get this charge upon arrival!
AM I ABLE TO AMEND OR CANCEL MY BOOKING?
No, sadly you are not able to amend your The Sun £9.50 Holidays booking, so make sure that you are 100% happy with your choice of Eurocamp park before proceeding to book and handing over your money. Yes, you can cancel your booking but you will lose all monies paid!
HOW MANY HOLIDAYS CAN I BOOK?
As many as you like! Go ahead, make hay while the sun shines but don’t go overboard, remember…you still
have to pay for your travel and take spending money!
WHAT CAN I EXPECT FROM A EUROPEAN PARK?
The best thing we could say here is to read our Marina Julia and Spiaggia e Mare blog posts to get an idea of what our holidays are like with Eurocamp. Honestly, we’ve only ever had one bad experience with Eurocamp, and that was at a park in France. We’ll not ‘name and shame; but we’d never go back…ever! Here’s a short video of a walk-through which we took whilst staying at Marina Julia Camping Village on the beautiful Adriatic coast…remember to give it a thumbs up.
THE SUN £9.50 HOLIDAYS BOOKING PROCESS
So, now that you’re all clued up as to who, what, where, when and why…let’s take you through The Sun £9.50 Holidays Booking Process:
- Step 1 – This part is pretty simple. Enter all of the codes that you will have collected from The Sun Group and enter your contact details.
- Step 2 – Select your party size, include all adults, children and infants (max 8).
- Step 3 – Enter your preferred Eurocamp Park. You have to enter 4 parks from the drop-down menu in this section, this is why it is so important to have at least 4 that you have researched. We have been to a few Eurocamp parks and these are our favourites: Spiaggie e Mare, Park Albatros, Marina Julia and Bella Italia.
- Step 4 – Enter your preferred dates. Again, just like the Eurocamp parks’ try to have as many dates to work with as possible.
- Step 5 – The booking system is really quite random with what dates and which parks will come up for each individual search. In the past we have searched with the exact same preferences and have had 3 or 4 different scenarios appear, so our advice is simple, if you don’t get what you’re looking for the first time you search, try, try and try again! But very important, if your preferred dates and preferred park appear…book immediately or you run the risk of them not being there the next time you search! Don’t say we didn’t warn you!
- Step 6 – Once you have chosen your Eurocamp park, the following screen is where you will be able to book your ferry if this is how you intend to travel.
- Step 7 – Proceed to the payment screen and get that holiday booked! IMPORTANT – you have just 10 minutes to complete the booking process before you are thrown out, so be prepared and don’t dilly dally!
- Step 8 – Keep an eye on your emails, including the junk folder; for the Eurocamp Booking Confirmation (approximate 7 days after booking via The Sun website) and then you can book your travel arrangements (flights, ferry etc).
- Step 9 – DO NOT LEAVE IT TO CHANCE…Book your Travel Insurance now! There are many Single Trip Insurance Companies online if you only plan on travelling once in the year. It is sometimes cheaper to buy Annual Cover if you plan on taking more than one trip abroad within the year. We hear so many horror stories of people trying to save a few quid and not buying Travel Insurance, then moaning when they are stranded in a foreign country, as well as possibly facing huge medical bills…..DON’T DO IT, BOOK YOUR TRAVEL INSURANCE NOW!
- Step 10 – There is no Step 10, but what we will say is this…before you even consider sitting down and starting the process of 1 – 9, ensure you have enough funds on the credit/debit card you will be using, and have the card to hand beside you at the laptop.
Now all you have to do is wait for your holiday date to arrive and then enjoy your great value The Sun £9.50 Holiday!
Forgot to mention, there’s just one FINAL STEP – if this THE SUN £9.50 HOLIDAYS GUIDE – WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW post has been useful to you, we would really appreciate it if you would leave a comment below, give our Facebook page a LIKE and maybe leave us a Facebook REVIEW…and remember, sharing is caring!
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