Our Honest Review of Eurocamp Union Lido Cavillino (Near Venice), Italy!

“This place is Great!” (Sammy)

Okay, so let’s start this review of Union Lido with an open declaration: “Emma Loves Eurocamp” (that’s me, I’m Emma). There we go, I’ve said it! Eurocamp is in my blood, it’s part of my DNA.

I’ve been going camping in France and Italy since I was a baby. What started as my parents attaching a trailer tent to our car soon became my parents driving to a ready-assembled Eurocamp tent. That was the 80s, and Eurocamp has evolved a lot since then, but every time I return to Eurocamping I get that same warm glow. I love the way these holidays in open spaces make me feel so free, I love how for a few short weeks I can forget about doing my make-up, doing my hair, and simply concentrate on having fun. It was exactly this opportunity that our trip to Union Lido offered me, Paul, Sammy and Harry this summer.

Let’s start at the beginning. The Journey to Union Lido from Venice Treviso Airport is one of immediate immersion into Italian Beauty. Think quiet roads, rolling green Country-side, mini Vineyards dotted along the highway, and tall trees over-hanging roads in elegant Arch-ways.

We chose Union Lido, in part, for its easy proximity to Venice, a destination which would usually be fairly pricey to visit as a family. We hadn’t bargained on the surrounds of the Venetian Coastline being quite so pretty, the surprise was wonderful.

Click Here to Find Out More About Union Lido

As we arrived on site the wrap-around prettiness just kept on going, the immediate impression was one full of colour, with perfectly manicured flower-beds surrounding an on-site hub, filled with fountains and restaurants just as quaint as an Italian Village Square would be, complete with restaurants Gelato outlets and fruit shop. For a large site it offered an effortlessly homely feel, magnified by our the fellow “villagers” who were consistently charming, considerate and family-focused throughout our stay.

I’m not exaggerating when I say we absolutely LOVED our time at Union Lido. As our boys get older, finding a holiday that suits everyone is becoming more difficult, but we truly felt there were incredible opportunities here for everyone, from football-loving teens, to tweens who love waterslides, to toddlers who love to splash and paddle.

One of the key things I look for when choosing the Best Child Friendly Holidays is these real gems that offer so many facilities they literally don’t give your kids the time or option to be anything but happy, giggling and delighted from start to finish. We stayed here for 6 nights and tried to cover as many activities as possible, and still felt we’d only touched the tip of the ice-berg! We met many families on site who’d been coming back for years, and their kids still love to come to their “Summer home”: A true mark of child friendly holiday perfection!

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Here’s Why Eurocamping at Union Lido Makes for the PERFECT family Holiday Getaway:

Onsite Waterparks:

Union Lido has been at the top of my visit list for a long time, and one of the main reasons for that was the photos and videos I’d seen of the incredible Aquaparks. There are 2 on site and they did not disappoint. What I enjoyed in particular was that these epic splash fun zones offer amusements for children and grown-ups of all different ages. Whilst there’s a 130cm restriction on the largest slides, there are also a great selection of mid-tier slides suitable for slightly younger kids, several large splash parks, and dedicated quieter spray parks for babies and toddlers.

There’s also a wave pool, lazy river and lagoon for the whole family to enjoy, and, my personal favourite, bubble chairs! The queues for all of these activities were never too long or overwhelming, even in peak season, and the Eurocamp holiday homes are situated right next to Aquapark Laguna, the main waterpark, which is a great bonus! The lagoon pool itself is shallow enough for all and the 2 other pools have shallow ends to them. The pools and, indeed, the whole complex, are kept spotlessly clean, and we really appreciated the huge amount of effort that went into this.

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Onsite Access to an Incredible Beach:

The biggest and best winner for me was the onsite access to the most beautiful beach of sugar-soft sands and golden sand-dunes. The Venetian shore-line is just over 13km long and Union Lido occupies a good part of it, with endless sand and lovely, safe, clear waters which you can wade well out into without them getting too deep. There are several excellent playgrounds right on the beach too, for added amusement.

We saw some fabulous creations in the sand, went bouldering on the rock jetty and watched the most fabulous pink and purple sunrises in the mornings: just heavenly. Harry collected shells on bat and ball rackets, and the sea air and space was so freeing. We watched families in the sea safely swimming until sunset, after which they could take the easy walk home.

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OUTSTANDING range of Family Activities:

The range of family friendly activities on offer here is absolutely incredible. Firstly there’s a huge activity park with numerous playgrounds in it, accompanying the aforementioned playgrounds on the beach. Kids club for children up to 11 runs every day with a great range of arts, crafts and sporting activities on offer. On top of that there’s a full activity schedule to enjoy. Football school runs every morning from 10-12. This is a payable extra, but on top of that, kids’ football runs from 3.30-5.00pm at the football pitch, followed by adults football, which is for everybody from 13. Our 14 year old took himself off to this every day and absolutely loved playing his favourite sport with teens from other Countries, it was a real highlight for him. The activities schedule is extensive, from beach yoga, to Volleyball, to Basketball, to Aqua fit, there’s something for everyone.

Baby & Toddler Friendly Union Lido

There’s an amazing offering for babies and toddlers at this site, and I honestly wish we’d discovered it when our boys were small. Little ones paddle safely in the lagoon all day and there are life-guards everywhere, ensuring their safety. You’ll discover wonderful baby friendly splash zones for even the tiniest of adventures in both waterparks, and baby friendly play equipment in both the bouncy castle and activity parks. Eurocamp will also help you with any baby equipment you need: cots, baby baths, stair gates, toddler steps, you name it, they can make your accommodation as friendly and homely as possible.

Click Here to Find Out More About Union Lido

Evening Entertainment:

The Union Lido App allows you to plan ahead for the evening entertainment you’d like to attend, be it the mini disco or the 90s revival festival we attended during our trip! This was great fun, the boys loved it, dancing along with the crowd and one on the others’ shoulders! For kids under 11 a bouncy castle park with multiple castles and inflatable obstacle courses opens every evening from 5.30pm-11.00pm. As if that wasn’t enough you can also attend the site’s very own theme park “funny world” with race track, log flume and much more. Once you’ve finished riding, head for the arcade or crazy golf course next door. All of these are chargeable extras, which is frustrating at first glance, but when you realise how this helps to control the numbers it’s easy to understand.

On Site Amenities:

Literally everything you could need during on holiday is on site, there’s no need to leave at all if you don’t want to. We’re talking 2 full supermarkets, a hugely popular fresh bakery, a delightfully colourful fruit shop, a full camping store, about 20 different restaurants and eateries (all with exceptional food) and the BEST Gelato I’ve ever tasted (The black and white, if you’re there to sample it!). The eateries truly meet their 5 start rating, decked in lush plants, flowers and gentle lighting. We enjoyed a family sized pizza from Ca’Rustica, more Pizza delights at Pizza and Sapori, and Paninis for lunch at Vovi, all of which were absolutely delicious. A family-sized pizza will set you back just under 30 Euros, so the prices are very reasonable too.

Proximity to Venice:

Beautiful Venice is an Easy trip from Union Lido. The activities centre can organise the full trip for you, but we drove our car 10 minutes to the nearest port and then paid 60 Euros for the half hour ferry crossing, there and back. We arrived in Venice at 10am and left around 1pm, having made a whistle-top tour of all the main sites, taken in the beautiful back-streets, canals and Gondoliers. We were even back for pool time and football! The perfect family morning out, with minimal effort. Many other trips are bookable onsite too, including kayaking, boating and trips to the neighbouring Island or Burano and Murano.

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Holiday Home Accommodation:

We stayed in a 2 bedroom Azure with Eurocamp. Whilst compact, our holiday home had everything we needed for a comfortable stay, with two separate bedrooms and a separate lounge and dining area, fully equipped for self-catering. The decking area was a real highlight and we enjoyed many a peaceful game of rummy outside of an early evening. The main double bed is a Queen size, which really helps us as both Paul and I are quite tall. We also had the bonus of air conditioning in the lounge, which fed through to the bedrooms if we kept the doors open. This particular Azure model also had two toilets and two showers which was a great added bonus for us. With a holiday like this, you are paying for the 5 star facilities, rather than 5 star accommodation, but the Azure is clean and modern and has those two separate bedrooms I am so often asked for by my followers! Eurocamp does offer a whole range of different accommodation options, and with a larger family you could opt for the Comfort 3 bedroom on this site. I always recommend booking a 3 bed if you can as it’s not much more expensive, but adds extra square footage to your living area. The Azure is Premium range accommodation, but if you’re looking for more luxury you could even seek a Eurocamp park with an Ultimate which offers 2 bathrooms and more space (click Here to Find Out More).

Personally, when I went Eurocamping as I child I stayed in a tent with actual beds in it and, at the time, believed that to be luxury. My family at home were bowled over by the pictures, Granny even remarked “That isn’t camping!” and I think she was right, we were definitely more glamping it up!

Bonuses for the grown-ups:

We ran out of time before we got to sample it, but there’s an awesome-looking spa at Union Lido boasting views of the beach and sea with 9 different therapy pools and treatments for you to try. Family mornings run every day until 1pm at the cost of 30 Euros per family, for a couple to go for 2 hours in the afternoon whilst the kids are in kids’ club or activities, it’s 21 Euros. There’s also a large, fully stocked gym, which Paul would have made full use of if time allowed!

Click Here to Find Out More About Union Lido

Getting There:

There are many viable options for getting to Union Lido from the UK: pick which best suits you. Since we were only going for 6 days and didn’t want to waste any travel time, we opted to fly. We only booked about 2 months in advance and managed to score some great flights into Venice Treviso for just under £500 return for the 4 of us with luggage (booked Via Sky Scanner). Treviso is about a 1 hour drive to Union Lido, and a taxi will set you back £150 each way so we hired a car for £150 for the week. The roads were pleasant and not at all busy, there were no tolls. If you fly into Venice Marco Polo the journey is shorter, just 30 minutes, so it’s definitely do-able by taxi.

The other option is to travel by car from England, crossing at Calais, and then the drive is about 12 hours. If we did this we would want to break up our journey with a night in France, as my parents used to do when we used to drive to Italy. Obviously, this option takes longer, but it is also a more cost effective option with a bigger family. I think you’d be looking at around £450 return with petrol and tunnel charges, but you wouldn’t need to hire a car and you’d be able to take your bikes or scooters, so it’s definitely something to consider.

Hints and Tips

These are some insider hints and tips to Optimise Your Union Lido Holiday Experience:

1. Be prepared for the size of the site. Union Lido is the largest Campsite I have ever stayed on: 3000 pitches, so there’s some distance between amusements. Whilst it never felt crowded, it’s spread out across a very large area and this can be hard on the legs. There are a few ways to manage this. There is a small, complimentary onsite Taxi service which runs in a loop around the site, accompanied by a Live Map on the Union Lido App, so you can see where it is in real-time. You just wait at the nearest stop and it will take you to your destination. There’s also a train that makes its what around the site, saving your legs for 1 Euro 50 a person. A lot of fellow visitors had their own bikes and scooters, and we felt that if we visited again, bikes would be a must. You can hire bikes on-site, I even spoke to one person who’d bought Scooters at the camp shop. I later saw these in the supermarket too. We loved Union Lido but we clocked up more steps than we did at Disney World! We were, of course, trying to review rather than just holiday, so we walked a lot to make sure we tried out everything we could, a bit of planning and you could minimise the moving around.

Obviously it’s precisely because this is a big site that the facilities are so out of this world, so it’s swings and round-abouts, and 100% worth it with some work-arounds.

2. Take a high potency mosquito spray. I was prepared for this having read the TripAdvisor reviews, and we sprayed every day when we got up and then every time we showered or got out of the sea or pool. Sammy and I are very susceptible to bites but both escaped with just a handful on this holiday. Forewarned is fore-armed, and hey, it’s Europe in the heat, don’t let a few mosquitos put you off!

3. Borrow! At Eurocamp HQ on every site there’s a treasure-trove of toys, balls, games and inflatables left by other families. We made great use of these and they definitely added to the fun-factor. There were also some sun umbrellas to borrow which was useful, though even in August there was a nice breeze and we didn’t feel too lost without one.

4. Nip to the local Lidl. There’s a Lidl 10 minutes down the road which we found to be really well equipped and a cheaper option for food essentials.

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More Outstanding Family Holidays with Eurocamp

Thank you for reading my review of Union Lidoj, I hope you find it helpful, and I would truly recommend a holiday here, you’ll have an excellent time! For all of my top Eurocamp recommendations for Families please visit this link

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