Ayup Zoners - Happy New Year to you all!
Just thought I'd try and help out with a bit of info.
If you are going to do you own thing.....bear this in mind......
Beausejour is now zoned. You'll have noticed all the low level fencing and gates as you drove through the camp to get to our spot last year.
What the Frenchies do now is to open the first section of the camp on Wednesday, pack it to bursting point then open the next and so on and so forth. When we arrived on the Wednesday morning I had to get out my contracts and shout at the marshalls until they let us through all the gates to the back of the site.
So, those of you that arrive early will be shepherded into whatever section is open at the time and will get no choice whatsoever in terms of where you want to set up your tent. You will face additional problems if you are trying to reserve space for mates who might arrive on the following couple of days. It will be nigh on impossible to do so. If you are 1 car for example, the security will ensure that you stick to your 35sqm allotted space and they will move people in around you. Last year people arriving on thursday/friday were unable to camp with their friends who had arrived earlier due to the above new method of filling the sites up and it pissed a lot of people off.
Hence why I organise what I do. Guaranteed pitches for individuals or groups that want to be together no matter when you arrive. Lots more space than standard and the guarantee that no late-arriving Belgian will squeeze in on top of you! More security (fencing, marhsalls) so you're less likely to get stuff nicked by gypsies. This year we are adding toilets and showers to the site and also a beer tent. I appreciate that the cost of £245 might sound like quite a lot but to put it in context, it costs a fortune to set this stuff up (over £40,000 this year!). The cost per car for a std camping ticket when you reserve an area more than triples (don't quite know why but it does) then there's the cost of toilets/marquee/fence rental etc etc. £245 is about the lowest I can do it for! Our nearest competitor, Airtrack, charge more than £600 for the same service!
Of course Le Mans can be done cheaper as Kevin as pointed out but it gets busier every year, and also 2008 sees the ACO losing over 150,000 sqm of campsite due to building work for the new football stadium that's going up nearby. So taking that into account, I would imagine Beausejour will be far busier than usual as all those people from Houx Annexe will have to be put in there.
Anyway - that's the info from the inside line. Do as you will and I'm sure we'll see you down there one way or the other!
