Happy Camp in Camping La Masseria in Gallipoli

It was nice. Animation was great, but catered for Italians. The pool required a swimming cap which I found very annoying. The restaurant was ridiculously expensive but next to the animation stage (even though it doesn't excuse the price...). The minimarket was small but sufficient and at a very, very fair price. The chairs at the beach and pool had to be paid for, very annoying. But the animation, I repeat, was really good. The shows were funny and always entertaining. The animators we're all very nice, even though all the other staff was mean.

We stayed with Eurocamp for 6 nights at Camping La Masseria mid July.

Eurocamp were great - Phil, our rep, was fantastic, the caravan was great and well located and cleaned to a fantastic high standard. I’d give them 5 stars hands down.

The campsite: location wise this was well situated with the beach just a 5 minute walk away from our caravan and Gallipoli a 10 minute drive down the road (and there is a regular bus between the campsite and Gallipoli if you don’t want to drive yourself). The campsite wasn’t too big or crowded either which was nice, though I’m sure it does get busier in August.
Some parts of the campsite were a little tired / needed sprucing up a bit, such as the children’s play area and the shop, but this was mostly noticeable when compared to the pool area (see below). There are campsite cats/ kittens but they kept their distance and were extremely cute - we didn’t feed them so weren’t bothered by them and got to watch them play in the evenings.

The pool: this was really impressive and genuinely one of the nicest campsite pools I’ve been to (and I’ve been to more than I can count). It has clearly been done up quite recently as it was really smart and was large in size with plenty of space to splash about, along with a dedicated pool for lane swimming which actually was kept for lane swimming!
It’s worth noting that because it’s Italian, you have to wear cloth swimming hats when you’re in the pool - the lifeguards are super strict on this - but you can buy these on the campsite or we bought a pack of 3 off Amazon ahead of time.

The beach: as I said this is only a 5 minute walk away from the campsite which is fantastic if you love to swim but aren’t so big on the heat! It’s not the most child friendly beach as there are quite a lot of rocks - water shoes really came in useful - but it’s great to swim in and there’s a pier and ladder so you can get in the deeper water without having to navigate the rocky shallows.

Downside: one thing that we were a bit taken aback by was that you had to pay to use the subbed/ umbrellas by the pool and beach -€15 per bed per day!! This was because we booked through a Eurocamp site and not the campsite direct so we had the ‘no sunbeds for you’ coloured wristbands. Saying that, there was plenty of soft grass to lie on with shade from nearby by trees so it wasn’t a big problem, just surprising. There is a bar in the pool area and the staff were pretty rude and unhelpful there - refusing to understand us even when we were speaking (admittedly poor) Italian or pointing at things on the menu! Again not holiday ruining but just stops it from being five stars.
There is WiFi but it’s very weak and we couldn’t access it whilst inside which is strange - you have to purchase it if you want more than 10 minutes but can only purchase large packages, I think I ended up going for the 7days for 2 devices option which was €29 and had to actually hotspot from my phone instead.
Finally, there is a water park right next door and we found that sometimes the music from that could be quite intrusive, nothing too loud but definitely a background thud most days and some evenings.