Dolau Afon Camping

Liked Nice little camp site , really clean facilities , beautiful scenery including a small river which flows under the road bridge with access in the far corner of the field down a steep path
Devils bridge 20 mins away , well worth a visit

Disliked Never once saw the owners !!!, we had one telephone conversation which we made when we arrived at 14:20 to find what pitch we were on & that was it !!!, no information given except the pitch number oh and we were told rather abruptly that we were early and should not have been there until 3pm !!! although on the web site it said check in from 2pm
Notes everywhere on site about one topic or another , so I suppose this could be the owner’s way of communication

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From the manager: Thank you for taking the time to leave us a review, we are very pleased you thought our site nice, and with clean facilities. Its such a lovely location too with the river.

We are sorry we did not see you during your stay, we don’t always manage to see all our guests, (we are quite busy people) either they are not on site when we are, or we are not on site whey they are, however we are here most of the time cleaning, and tidying, but mostly leave our guests to themselves, but always happy to chat, but keep a low profile -there are lots of sites that you will never see the owner at all.

Pitchup does notify on the website of the times or arrival and departure to be from 3pm to 8pm this was changed on the 12th August. We sent out an email to all those who had booked prior to the change, which happened on the 12th August, and you were one of the bookings we sent an email to, informing you of the change of times, maybe in your junk. Our apologies if you thought us abrupt, I cannot comment on that, but there was a genuine personal reason for the times to change, sorry for the inconvenience this caused you, but you were notified. I will send you my email log.

Of course, there have to be notices on the site, and yes, it is communication and information for obvious reasons. Dog poo bin, Rubbish bins with recycling info on them, notice board with useful information – Dr’s Surgery, Nearest A&E, nearest petrol station, things like that. Sorry about the WiFi it doesn’t belong to us, but like you say phone coverage is good, so you didn’t need to pay for WiFi.

Liked Super little site - quiet, fabulous location alongside the river Ystwyth - perfect for early morning swim. Facilities clean and well kept and decent sized pitches.
Host Jill was helpful and lovely to chat with.
Will definitely visit again when we’re not having torrential thunderstorms ⛈️

Disliked WiFi was expensive, but adequate mobile signal so not a problem

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Liked Lovely, peaceful, spotless site surrounded by woodland and a river. Plenty of space and excellent facilities. Absolutely perfect, wish we could've stayed longer.

Disliked Nothing.

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Liked We've spent almost a week at this fantastic site. The hosts were very welcoming and always available to assist. All facilities were very clean.

The area was very quiet and peaceful; the river was clean and perfect for swimming if you were brave enough to venture into the cold water.

It was impressive how the location was nestled in the middle of the forest, yet just 20 minutes away from the beach.

Great network connection. The site has wifi too, but we haven't used it.

So far, it is our favourite camping site, and we will definitely return.

Disliked Nothing

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From the manager: Thank you so much for this wonderful review of our site. It means a lot.
We are delighted you had such a lovely time with us. x

Liked A nice, peaceful space by the river. I’ll definitely be back.

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From the manager: We would love to see you again, thank you. We are delighted you enjoyed your stay with us.

Liked Very little.

Disliked Pitches too close together. Not as website depicted (spacious riverside camping.) Only 2 showers and 2 toilets. They were clean. However, not enough for number of people staying on site (constant smell of human waste.) WIFI was a ridiculous £3 for 1 hour. Late night arrivals with car headlights beaming. Dogs constantly barking. We left 2 days early.

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From the manager: As you intended, we are very upset by your review of our site. We think it was un called for. We cannot be a perfect 10/10 all the time, and we cannot please all, but we come pretty close to it, despite your intention of damning our site. You just need to count our good reviews that we work hard to achieve and keep a standard. We won an award from PitchUp last year for our 9.3 reviews.

Regarding the site not as described, there are plenty of photos on Pitch Up, on our website and on the internet, informing those who do their research before booking have a clear idea of what we are like. There are spacious riverside pitches and there are also other pitches That are along the back of the site, of various sizes and suitable for all tent sizes including Giant ones, but we are still a riverside site.

I do have to point out your comment about the showers and toilets and I quote "Only 2 showers and 2 toilets. They were clean" yet you gave us a 1/10 for cleanliness on the score. There are actually 3 toilets, 2 urinals for men (separate) and 2 showers on site.

The other thing I would just like to point out is our WiFi - It is not £5 per hour it is £3 per hour and £5 per day, although many people are not bothered and don't use it much because we have very good mobile phone coverage, and most people if they need WiFi they search for a 'Hot Spot'. Incidentally, we do not own the WiFi, it is owned by Integrum IT Campsite WiFi, which was the only way we could have secure WiFi for the site, before the new phone mast was put up last year.

Regarding late arrivals - Our arrival times are between 3pm and 8pm, we have this 8pm cut off because we do not want our campers disturbed, and we would like an evening ourselves. if a camper cannot get to us before 8pm then they arrive later by request, and we did not have any late arrivals the '1' night you stayed. However, we cannot stop people who go out for the evening returning to their pitches late in the evening.

You mentioned dogs constantly barking, you had a dog yourselves. I'm sure that barked at some point during the time you were with us, but I can assure you, as we live on site and we had no complaints from other campers about dogs barking and disturbing anyone, or us, I really cannot comment.

As for the smell of human waste, we have never noticed a smell except on one occasion a couple of years ago, when it was very hot and we had a full site, the site was not full and it was a cooler day. Maybe you entered a toilet that smelled from the person before you. You don't say where this constant smell came from or where you smelled it. The number of showers and toilets are what we had planning permission for, for the size of the site and the number of pitches, as per the Ceredigion CC recommendations for a site our size (1 acre).

Liked Dolau Afon is an absolutely beautiful campsite – meticulously maintained and beautifully peaceful we had a wonderful stay. I would really recommend it to anyone that wants to have a peaceful and relaxing break.

The dark skies were particularly spectacular to do stargazing as was having a dip in the river – so refreshing and invigorating.

Disliked Having to leave!

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From the manager: Awwwww, that's a lovely complement. thank you. We hope you got some amazing photos of the sky at night.

Liked A very pretty site. Not very big but nice and level. The facilities were very clean too. There is a lovely little river which ran to the side of the campsite where we were able to let our dog go swimming (you can also swim too)

Disliked Nothing

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Liked Stunning part of the world to explore. Wales is a true gift of nature.

Disliked Extremely rude site owner, if you don’t like people, don’t work in hospitality.

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From the manager: Oh dear, I am so sorry you thought I was rude, I apologise.... however it would be helpful if we knew what it was that upset you, you have not given your reason?

We have hundreds of people a month come to stay, its impossible to keep track, but sadly, a very very few do stand out, and I cannot recall being rude to you, although I do remember what pitch you were on.

I have been in customer related jobs of one description or another, all my working life, and I think, given the challenges and demands posed by customers, that I have done well and I am fairly good with people and I still smile.
Of all our reviews, which I am proud to say are mostly 10/10 (we received a 'Review Award' last year from PitchUp), I have had so very few guests feel I have ever been rude to them?
I can be a little curt on occasions, but there is always a reason, perhaps you were disrespectful? There must have been something that you did not agree with, regarding our requests that I may have reminded you of, of what is or is not acceptable on our site.

We are fairly relaxed here and like to enjoy our work and hope our gests enjoy their stay too.

Liked Small, quiet, clean site.

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