Just outside the small town of Contis on the French Atlantic coast, is a family-friendly resort known as Camping Lous Seurrots. We stayed here in the first week of July 2025. In this particular year the French school holidays, and high season, began on the 7th July. It’s officially known as “Camping Yelloh village Lous Seurrots 5 étoiles” which is a bit of a mouthful! So for this review I’m going to refer to it as Lous Seurrots. It is part of the Yelloh Village resort group, which runs accommodations in France, Spain and Portugal.
Part of the charm of Lous Seurrots is the town of Contis, and so I’ll include a short review of the town at the end. Travelling from the resort and the town and beach is quite easy as its flat and only 500m. The town sits just behind the sand dunes of Contis Beach. The resort is positioned back along the river, which is known as Courant de Contis. It would be lovely if a river path could be built allowing resort guests to walk to the beach along the river. For the moment though, you’re stuck with traveling along the main road into town, and it is actually fine. It has a wide sidewalk for pedestrians and cyclists separated from the road by a wooden barrier.
Both the accommodation and the town itself seemed really dog friendly. Every restaurant seemed to have well-behaved dogs underneath the tables!
Lous Seurrots (the resort)
The camping village sits along the river, with a very lush-looking forest on the other side. The resort schedule has a slew of activities as well as a kids club, and it was all was very relaxed. We never felt pushed to get involved. Most accommodation options here are camping pitches but you can also hire cabins, as we did. The grocery shop out front contains food and beach toys. In the mornings a boulangerie opens up next to it selling fresh baguettes at a very reasonable price. The shop continues to sell the left over baguettes after the boulangerie itself closes. There are also several eateries on the resort grounds.
Lous Seurrots is not an all-inclusive resort.
Rooms
Cosy but spacious enough, with a great deck, our cabin could sleep 6 people. In the central living space we had a kitchenette, with a central breakfast bar seating 6 on high stools. There was also a small lounge. We had another table for 6 people on the deck, as well as 4 lounge chairs and a bar. The deck overlooked the resort’s beach volleyball pitch and the river behind it. The kids had a great time every evening playing in the clean white sand of the volleyball area.
Our cabin was the first one in the Riviera section, along which all cabins had river views. This section, and our cabin in particular, was a perfect location for small kids. It had proximity to the pool and the resort entrance, and the beach volleyball area out front made for a great sand pit.
The cabin had insect screens on all windows except for in the bathroom and toilet. I’m still not sure why you’d forget to put them on these particular windows? However, we didn’t seem to have too much trouble with mosquitoes despite the proximity to the river. The cabin contained a well laid-out kitchenette with a mounted TV, 3 bedrooms, and single car space out front. The front sliding door locked with a scan from your wrist band. We stayed in cabin 306, a 2 minute walk to the pool and a 3 min walk to the reception and resort entrance. There was also a small safe for any valuables.
Food at the resort
There were several options for eating within the resort itself. This included seated dining, takeaway pizza, and a grocery store for making your own food. The cabins are self contained and include a fridge, microwave, gas stovetop, toaster, kettle and Nespresso coffee machine. A small number of coffee pods were provided but we ran out of them relatively quickly. Consider bringing your own!
Lou Restaurant
Next to the pool, in a gloriously elevated spot over the river, Lou Restaurant was a very nice place to eat. We gave it a second chance after our first failed attempt to dine here and it did redeem itself. Our first attempt was on the first evening when it was the only resort dining option after the pool closed at 7.45pm. The restaurant seemed understaffed that evening and so we, along with a few other tables, sat for a while without being served. Eventually we left. That evening we walked to one of the many great options in town.
On our second attempt at Lous Restaurant we did have a successful dinner. We sat outside on the terrace in the beautiful sunset and received quick and courteous service. I had the tuna poke bowl, the kids shared a spaghetti bolognaise, and Alex had a salad. The kids got ice cream as part of their children’s menu and were very happy. All of it was delicious.
Lous Pizza
Closed on Mondays but serving a great menu the rest of the week, we had the bacon and mushroom pizza, and the margarita. They were very tasty.
Pool Bar
The Pool Bar serves a very limited menu so I’m not sure it deserves to be under the Food heading. But according to the menu printed in large font on the side of the bar, it offers cold platters, French fries, as well as a range of croque monsieurs. Unfortunately it couldn’t do croque monsieurs for us the day we tried to order them so I can’t comment on this service.
The Kids Club
We picked a Yelloh Village resort because of its inclusion of a kids club. We are now converts to the idea of kids clubs after our experience at Club Med Phuket earlier this year! Though of course Yelloh Village’s version was always going to be a little different to Club Med! Lous Seurrots certainly takes a different tack, and its hours cover about half the day. These are usually 2 hours in the morning, and another 2 hours in the afternoon. While we were there, the hours were 10.00-12.00 and 14.00-16.00 (2pm-4pm). These hours depend on the day of the week, and what part of the season you are in. The Kids Club at Lous Seurrots is closed once a week on a Tuesday, at least outside of high season, so it was not operating on our first full day at the resort.
All of the Yelloh Village resorts have various clubs for children aimed at different age groups. These include Kids Club (5-7 year olds), Juniors Clubs (8-12) and teen clubs (13-17). Our children went into the Kids Club together and had a great time. Being low season, there weren’t so many other children, but they both made friends.
Pools
Lous Seurrots has 2 separate pools: the main one and the indoor one. The main one has bridges and islands, as well as a little splash area to the side, and the indoor one which has a little splash area with a jungle fountain. The indoor one was warmer, and probably stays open most of the year while the main one likely closes over winter. Both pools had lots of sun loungers, and we never had issues finding an available one.
There are also 4 waterslides behind the indoor pool. The dark green slide is fun with a surprise bit of steep slope and is a bit dark inside. The light green slide was very curvy, and it made my tummy flip slightly. The white ones were my favourites: they had a consistent speed and were light inside.
It is forbidden to go down the slides in tandem: do not take a child down with you. And they must be a certain height so do check the sign at the entrance.
There are several life guards on duty while the pool is open. They do regular circuits of the pool area to check everything is ok so you will see them fairly frequently. They are very alert and will come and check if they hear a child crying. Our son fell over and one of the guards immediately came to see if they could provide any assistance.
Other Facilities
Laundry
Maybe you are an expert packer, or maybe, like me, you don’t pack quite enough for yourself or the children. In which case you’ll want to know about the laundry facilities! Lous Seurrots had a great laundry room with several giant washing machines and dryers. A washing load, as of July 2025, will cost 6 euros. You can pay this with a contactless card or Apple Pay. The laundry was underneath Lous Restaurant, just to the side of the outdoor amphitheatre. Choose your washer, take note of its number, then pay at the automatic kiosk at the back of the room. I didn’t use the dryers but assume they operate in the same way as the washing machines.
Wifi
We had wifi at the resort and it was fine. I didn’t notice any patchiness to its coverage. And truth be told I didn’t spend that much time on my phone while we were here!
Bike hire
There is a bike hire kiosk, called Brooks Bikes, just behind Lous Pizza inside the entrance of the resort. It had a decent selection of bikes for all ages and sizes. There are electric bikes for longer rides, or if you are going to be hauling kids in a carriage behind you. Baby seats are plentiful. They also have tandem bikes. Our daughter also enjoyed using an additional seat with wheels that we connected to the back of her dad’s bike so that she could cycle too.
Parking
Every campsite and cabin at Lous Seurrots has a space for a car to park. You will go through 2 barriers to get into the resort. You need to enter the first carpark through the barrier, and then turn right go to through the second barrier to park at reception. Once checked in you drive to your camping spot or to your cabin. The barriers recognise the number plates of their guests so you should be free to come and go. We opted to leave the car at the cabin and walk or rent bikes .
Contis (the village)
What a sweet little coastal village! Contis is certainly a lovely little spot just north of Biarritz, and deserves some time in this review! Situated right on the Bay of Biscay, it’s got a range of bars and restaurants, and plenty of little boutiques. There are several entrances to the beach. The first is closest to the river mouth between Oyat Restaurant and Chez Rene. The other one near Contistador. This latter entrance puts you on the beach near the surf life saving club house. I recommend coming to this section as it is a patrolled area and thus the safest for swimmers.
Beach
The beach of Contis, or Contis Plage, is a known surf location and it’s very popular! You can surf up the length of the beach, and the waves, driven by the Atlantic swell, offer lots of enjoyment for those with a board. For swimmers though, you are restricted to a pretty tight stretch of beach between the flags. The surf life saving team is pretty focused on keeping swimmers to this area. And it’s with good reason as the water along this stretch is choppy and rough – lots of fun – but with the number of surfers about, I can see it quickly becoming dangerous. The area that is patrolled is about 400m up the beach from the river mouth.
The patrolled area is a good section for you to spend a few hours with your family. At the beginning of the pathway back to town is another restaurant with good food, called La Cabane. There are also public toilets at the base of the surf club house.
Restaurants
Contis has the amount of restaurants and cafes one would expect of a tourist town, and all the ones we ate at were very good! They all do wonderful seafood and serve great wine. Every one of them seemed very family friendly and mostly dog friendly. I recommend them all.
Shopping
There were plenty of small boutiques. And many surf shops! A small grocer called Barantin sells convenience store products, as well as a delightful looking range of cheese, and of course various beach paraphernalia.
How to get to Lous Seurrots and Contis
The resort is an hour and a half north of Biarritz and just under 2 hours south of Bordeaux. Both of these cities have international airports, and naturally neither of them have particularly good Google reviews! However, I would suggest you you fly in to Bordeaux Airport which seems to be larger. We were being adventurous and chose to take the ferry from Portsmouth, UK. We landed at Caen and then drove down in a hire car. It was quite a long journey, but fun! Some other resort guests we met took a ferry from Ireland to Bilbao, Spain, driving up from there.
The road to the resort takes you through some dense forest once you turn off the main inland road. Its very cool and feels quite secluded from the rest of the world.
What do I know about European camping resorts?
Literally nothing, except for what I learned on this trip. But if you’re wondering whether to book a Yelloh Villages camping holiday, then, hopefully based on this review, you’ll see that I recommend them. Especially if your kids are the right ages for the kids club!
Check out my other posts
- A Great Spa and Fabulous Service: My Club Med Bali Review
- A great fishing trip and fresh bread: A review of Clover Cottage Manjimup
- An Exciting Trip: My Portsmouth To Caen Ferry Review
- Fabulous food and a great kids club: Why we loved Club Med Phuket
- The best things to do in Almaty with little kids
- The best hotel for families at Shymbulak: Shymbulak Hotel Review
I plan to have even more reviews of family-friendly resorts in the future! In the meantime please check out my posts on the incredible country I recently lived in, Kazakhstan!