Family holiday parks: A weeks break at Siblu's La Reserve

We had never stayed at a holiday park before and had probably given the kids rather the wrong idea as they envisaged ‘Rusty’ (Big Chris’s caravan from the kid’s show 'Rorry the Racing Car').  It was far from rusty, we stayed in a 3 bedroom lodge (not available on all sites) which was incredibly spacious and almost home from home.  It really did have everything including the kitchen sink, which made life very easy. The site facilities were also good swimming pools (indoor and out), various playgrounds for varying ages, supermarket and lots of different watersports.

We flew to Bordeaux and hired a car to take us to La Reserve in the Aquitaine region (the sat nav made the journey much easier especially as it was dark when we arrived).  For the braver family, it is totally feasible to drive and the great advantage is that you can take your own bikes.  We stayed on La Reserve, a Siblu holiday park situated on the edge of Lake Biscarosse. (Remember to bear road tolls in mind.)

Siblu are very much family holiday providers and our kids loved our week long experience.  It wouldn’t have been our choice of pre-children holiday, but now we’re a few weeks on the kids are STILL singing the club jingles and doing the routines – even our youngest is singing, “Max the Mouse is in the house and looking for some fun ….”. The highlight for our children (4.5 and 2.5) was definitely the kids clubs and evening entertainment.  The entertainment team and the Siblu mascots ‘Patch the Parrot’, ‘Max the Mouse’ and ‘Lilli the Tiger Fairy ’, put on a great show.  We had taken the kids on the first night and there really was no going back, or rather there was  quite a lot of going back, and back, and back….

The clubs (‘Bubbles’ from 0-4, ‘Pirate Club’ 5-9, and ‘Barracuda Club’ 10-14 *) were run by both English and French children’s entertainers, (many of whom seemed to be on a gap year or waiting to go to uni), all of whom were really fantastic, working very long hours, but clearly enjoying their jobs.  The clubs run for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon and with ‘Bubbles’ a parent also needs to be present.  The times are staggered, which I imagine is slightly annoying if your children slot into different clubs.

The beauty of La Reserve is definitely the lake beach which was great for young kids with lots of sand and gentle lapping waves.   We spent hours building elaborate sand castles with moats then joining them all together.  The local coastal beaches are great too; long expanses of golden sand some with great sand dunes for running up and down. The waves were huge and the tides were strong, encouraging surfers and kite surfers, which all rather put us off taking the children into the water, although there were life guards on patrol.  We traveled at the beginning of June and it was particularly quiet, the coastal beaches were practically deserted which was fantastic for us, but it also meant that many of the restaurants and shops were closed.

Siblu holidays are definitely not the cheapest holidays around, but if you are looking for self catering holidays with fantastic kids clubs in great locations, they are a great choice.  Would I go back? Well, if I wanted a holiday with a couple of hours break from the kids to relax then yes I probably would, and if the kids were given the option they would be back there tomorrow!

* the children’s clubs are slightly different at Siblu Selection clubs, see here for more details on the children’s clubs.

See Take the Family's Siblu holidays page

Find out more about Siblu's La Reserve parc.

Take the Family users can save an Extra 5% on ALL Siblu holidays by quoting ‘Take5%’ when you book. Call Siblu on 0871 911 7777 or visit Siblu's website.