We picked this site as we wanted somewhere cheap to stay whilst visiting nearby Chessington, Thorpe Park and LEGOLAND. You can also bring your own tent, caravan or campervan here and electric hook-up is available.
During the summer holidays, it was only £70 more for us to stay in a pre-pitched safari tent than bringing our own with electric hook up so for convenience, we went with the Ready Camp option.
You can book online for Monday-Friday, Friday-Monday or Friday-Friday/Monday-Monday breaks. You pay £100 on booking and the balance six weeks before your trip.
Chessington World of Adventures - 12 miles away
Thorpe Park - 12 miles away
London - 40 minutes by train
Our Ready Camp Tent
We have stayed with Ready Camp before in Scarborough so knew what to expect. There are over 30 locations across UK if you fancy a cheap break away. As far as I know, all tents are pretty much identical.
They come with....
- Two bedrooms (one with a double bed, another with a Queen bed, single bunk and trundle)
- A dining table with six chairs which can be used inside your tent or on the decking
- Six fold-up chairs which can be used on the decking/grass
- Water carrier, dustpan and brush and cleaning equipment
- A small sofa
- Lamps in all rooms and on the decking
- A mini kitchen with crockery, pots and pans, microwave, fridge, toaster, cooking rings and kettle
- Bench space
- A hanging rail and shelves in the main bedroom
- Two plug sockets - one in the main living area and one in the main bedroom (bring an extension cable)
- A heater (we didn't need this in July)
The tents are fab for the money. They were nice and dark and warm enough too. They don't have their own loo/running water so you do need to use the campsite shower block/loos/washing up areas/water points and you need to bring your own bedding. We normally take pillows and sleeping bags as they are more compact in the boot.
Campsite Facilities
We loved this campsite. There's a reception area only open for limited hours where you can buy drinks and ice creams and a beautiful lake where you can fish or just say hello to the ducks/sit on one of the many picnic tables.
Entry is controlled with a barrier so don't forget the pin code. The only bins on-site were right next to reception which was a bit annoying as this was right at the other end of the site for us. We soon got in the habit of sending the kids along with our trash each morning though.
There are six Ready Camp tents and they are all situated around a lovely little play park. The Ready Camp tents were all filled with families doing the exact same thing as us (visiting the Merlin Parks) and the kids all re-grouped at the park each night from around 6pm.
They all played together from around 6pm-9:30pm which was lovely to see. They played games like hide and seek, tag, murder by wink - all the classics! And there were children of all ages just getting on together.
Harry was a little bit too old for this now and preferred to watch YouTube in the tent but that's fine with us. As I always say, it's his holiday too. He did venture to the park on a couple of occasions though so all is not lost.
One thing I will say about the park is that it is LOUD. It's right in the centre of the tents and kids are kids. Expect lots of shouting/shrieking as they are having fun. The grown-ups brought the kids in when darkness fell at around 9:30pm but if you're visiting with a baby during peak times, don't expect peace and quiet.
Sometimes Steve and I would head to the lake with a beer just to get away from the noise. The tents were full when we were there though and I don't think this is always the case. After 9:30pm it was pretty much silent until after 8:30am the next morning.
The shower block was right by the Ready Camp tents and was lovely and clean with modern, hot showers. There's also a family shower room and laundry room (there was even an iron) as well as washing up areas.
The shower block closed from 10:30am-12noon each day for a thorough clean which didn't really affect us as we were always out for the day by that point. There are other loos closer to the reception area.
We had a BBQ most nights - there's a concrete slab for disposable BBQs and we took our own stand. My top tip is to take your own BBQs as they were £9.50 in the local shop. Ouch! A pizza truck visits the site sometimes too (Tuesdays and Saturday nights from 5:30pm for us). 5 pizzas cost us £32 and they were delish! Highly recommend.
The shower block closed from 10:30am-12noon each day for a thorough clean which didn't really affect us as we were always out for the day by that point. There are other loos closer to the reception area.
We had a BBQ most nights - there's a concrete slab for disposable BBQs and we took our own stand. My top tip is to take your own BBQs as they were £9.50 in the local shop. Ouch! A pizza truck visits the site sometimes too (Tuesdays and Saturday nights from 5:30pm for us). 5 pizzas cost us £32 and they were delish! Highly recommend.
If it rains, there's an indoor play barn for kids which had a couple of ping pong tables but not much more. You had to pay to hire equipment. We didn't venture here but a good option if the weather isn't kind.
There is free WiFi on-site which wasn't great. We had good phone signal with EE though so it wasn't really needed. I loved sitting on the decking with a few beers as the sun set each night. The perfect tonic to our busy days at the Merlin parks.
The only negative I have about the site is that the welcome could have been a little friendlier. The managers kind of rolled their eyes about having to leave their office and check us in/show us to our tent and told us that if the electric tripped or anything went wrong, we weren't allowed to phone them after hours.
Good customer service and first impressions really count I think and they lacked here (perhaps we just caught them at a bad time but I have noticed similar comments over on Tripadvisor).
Good customer service and first impressions really count I think and they lacked here (perhaps we just caught them at a bad time but I have noticed similar comments over on Tripadvisor).
There are also no ball games allowed and although the Ready Camp tents are well spaced out, the area between them is used for camping and campervans with electric hook up and on a few nights, we felt like we had hardly any space because of this - they do seem to cram people in.
This is the luck of the draw through and you might hit lucky and have nobody booked on these pitches.
This is the luck of the draw through and you might hit lucky and have nobody booked on these pitches.
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| How much space you could have |
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| How close other campers can set up |
East Horsley Village
East HorsleyVillage is a 20 minute walk or short drive from the campsite. It's small but has everything you need and more including a couple of takeaways (Indian and Chinese), a bakery, two mini supermarkets, a hairdressers, a Lloyds bands, a cafe, beauty salon, butchers and more.
We drove to Aldi in Guildford on our first night but really, everything we needed was in East Horsley so this wasn't needed. There are also a couple of restaurants here and a pub within walking distance too.
East Horsley has it's own train station with direct trains to London taking 40 minutes. I priced tickets for us and it was £33 return using a friends and family railcard for the 5 of us. There are 170 car parking spaces and parking is super reasonable (or free) - take a look at the prices here. You could walk to the train station in around 20 minutes or drive in around 3 minutes.
We drove to Aldi in Guildford on our first night but really, everything we needed was in East Horsley so this wasn't needed. There are also a couple of restaurants here and a pub within walking distance too.
East Horsley has it's own train station with direct trains to London taking 40 minutes. I priced tickets for us and it was £33 return using a friends and family railcard for the 5 of us. There are 170 car parking spaces and parking is super reasonable (or free) - take a look at the prices here. You could walk to the train station in around 20 minutes or drive in around 3 minutes.
We loved our stay here and would certainly recommend to other families and re-book here ourselves if we were going to do the same kind of trip again.
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