This is going to be a wordy review, I'll try to describe the experience I had with the company as concisely as possible. For the record I made my arrangements with CheapaCampa but this review could be applied to any of the companies listed below as they are all under the same roof and business establishment.
They close at 430pm so my family and stayed in a hotel near the central Business District so we could see the downtown area for a little while at least before we left town. The cab ride from the Pullman where we stayed was around 70 to the Apollo/starRV/HIPPIE/CheapaCampa location.
The one good thing about the location is that it's very close to the airport.
When we got to the location the reception was packed, the check out process was underway for 3 or 4 groups, there were 3 or 4 groups waiting ahead of us. The waiting area was full. I'd say for our particular experiencein checkout it took almost 2 hours. Horrible experience, no one should have to wait that long. (I hate to do it but I'm taking a star from the review just for that)
The check out process
So many things to go over
Insurance
More insurance
Fill the gas tank
Clean it, or you pay to have it cleaned.....worth it.
The cleaning is a bit of a trap
The insurance is a good idea.
overall though having a camper in New Zealand is an awesome way to get around. I think the smaller the better though. All of the campgrounds that you can stop at very from exceptional to marginal. pick the ones that have the things that are valuable to you. That could be laundry, swimming pool, ocean view, hot springs etc. I think having a nice shower a hot tub and a kitchen every other third or fourth day is a good idea.
driving in New Zealand is relatively easy with the exception of some of the mountain roads. Again, smaller vans and campers are better than the bigger ones if you can. I highly recommend the hot spring beach. I also recommend doing a little research up front to find the places that you can camp without checking into a campground. They're certain beaches that you cannot camp at. this is mostly due to the fact that there are only a certain amount of parking spots for overnight parking and they're usually full. This is especially true during the busy season. for instance, at one place we had stopped for one night and when we came back later the parking area that we could have parked in was full and we had to leave.
Pretty easy to get around and pretty fun to have a camper van. read more