I am very sorry that I cannot help you with actual campsites in the Vendée, but I do know that there is a lot for children to do in Royan - a wonderful zoo, le Palmyre - and La Rochelle - the aquarium, the weathership, the mechanical machines museum, good beaches (especially for kiteflying), the towers etc.

Sometimes the weather is warmer in the Vendée at the beginning of Spring, and it does have the reputation of being the region of France with the highest number of sunny days, but as it happens this year, things are not proceeding according to the statistics, in that we have record snowfall for Spring (and avalanches!) in the French Alps and the Pyrenees, and the hottest spot last week was Alsace. No guarantees, but the Vendée often has lovely weather, but as the sea is the Atlantic Ocean it can stay colder for longer than the Mediterranean.

there are plenty of sites here check out Holiday Cheques for budget accomodation on 4-5 star sites (it's similar to the Camping Cheques system we use for our Tourer)

there is a general site search website for the Whole of France which may help you
http://www.campingfrance.com/index.jsp?lg=uk

it is one I use when I'm looking for a non camping cheque site or municipal but you can get Mobile homes and pre erected tents here as well as the usual UK Eurocamp /Matthews /and other "camping " holiday websites

It's been a few years but we stayed a couple of times at La Prairie just North of St Hilaire-St Gilles Croix de Vie. A colleague also had a good time at Les equirrels at the same resort.

We went to Le Clarys Plage in St Jean de Monts in last week July / first week August last year and we had a mix of sun / cloud / rain. Don't think you can guarantee the weather anywhere on the Atlantic. We are going to Bonne Anse Plage near Royan this year - a few hours further south so hopefully weather will be better. The site is a big one with water slides etc - Keycamp / Canvas etc all go there and it's now owned by Siblu. Depending where you live you could try fly / drive via La Rochelle or Bordeaux.

When it comes to weather South of Royan ( one place we go to is Montendré ) it doesn't stabilise now until late May and even then you get HUGE rainstorms (last year it filled our awning roof so much I lowered until the rain stopped so it didn't rip

This year we are going late June early July so we hope we will get better weather as up until 2 years ago we used to go in August but the weather then got so erratic we changed but now we have got to change again

madcaravanner wrote:

When it comes to weather South of Royan ( one place we go to is Montendré ) it doesn't stabilise now until late May and even then you get HUGE rainstorms (last year it filled our awning roof so much I lowered until the rain stopped so it didn't rip

This year we are going late June early July so we hope we will get better weather as up until 2 years ago we used to go in August but the weather then got so erratic we changed but now we have got to change again

We visited Le Sable D' Lonne one year and were all sat on the beach when this huge hooter sounded. Everyone suddenly got up and ran. We were taken by surprise but just followed everyone else. We looked out to sea and watched as this huge rain storm approached the beach. We dived into a local's car garage that had been left open and waited as the heavens opened. It was absolute stair rods for about 20 minutes. Then the Sun came out and everyone went back to the beach!

We went to Residence du Campeur at St Aygulf on the Cote D'Azur last summer with Canvas Holidays. Our kids were 7 and 4. It's easily accessible from Nice or Marseilles airports and there are plenty of things to see in the area. The site itself has pools with slides, crazy golf, carry-out, restaurant/bar, etc and there is a supermarket next door. We took a train to Monaco one day and another day got a boat to St Tropez. The beach at St Aygulf is reputed to one of the best in France and we loved it. There is also a big waterpark close by and Marineland at Antibes was a great day out.

Many thanks for all your replies, I really appreciate your help. Have looked at all of your recommendations and to be honest they all look really good. We are holding on just a few days longer to see if we can get any ryanair deals from our local airport (stansted), for around this time, unfortunately missed the £5.00 offers a few weeks ago but am hoping that they may reappear shortly!Thanks again, and I will let you know how we get on!