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Risk leaving downstairs Ocean mattress at home.

Monty6

Monty6

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Messages
88
Location
Wales
Vehicle
T6.1 Ocean 204
off to the Alps next week. Pondering leaving comfort mattress at home to save space as we are happy sleeping up top. Not sure it's worth the risk of bad weather and having to drop the roof.think I have answered myself...Silly idea??
 
I use a smaller comfortz mattress and always take it for three reasons:

1: Risk of very bad weather

2: Need to park up in stealth.

3: Night cramps in my legs requiring a very rapid "foot flat on hard floor" manoeuvre.

The last normally only occurs after intense training or a running event but if I ever feel my calves tight then it's sleep downstairs.
 
Yes wondered the same last year. Five weeks in Norway and we were lucky with the weather generally but when it was bad it was really bad. Torrential rain and windy so were glad we left the mattress is even though we only used it half a dozen times.
 
It's a long way to go home to get it so I would take it as you cannot rely on the weather abroad either it seems.
 
Perhaps you could bring the top mattress downstairs in an emergency??

We used to do that in our previous Cali. Comfortz mattress in the top which is in two longitudinal halves so easy to pull down.
Leaving the VW Comfort mattress doesn't really save a lot though as you still need the standard Cali bit on top of the boot shelf and that's the thickest bit.
 
Mine stays at home almost every trip , takes up to much space and we rarely sleep downstaires . And if we should sleep downstaires due bad weather or stealthcamping we got some stuff to put on top of the metal shelf like a foldable dog crate (fabric not metal) some fleeceblanquets , ....and sleep with our feet to the rear using sleepingbags , works fine.
If i know i would be go camping say in wintertime or one night stealthcamping at a party i do trow the foldable matrass on the shelf , rest of the days it sits in the garage attic.
 
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Thanks all. On balance, will probably take it. But, Hotel California's solution is a consideration. Will decide when packing the van up..
 
Just to add, Monty, we were in the Alps last week and twice in 10 nights we had to pull the roof down in the night due to sudden very high winds / storms. The kids had to join us downstairs until it passed, which was cosy! On both occasions the storms passed quickly, though.


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It doesn't take up much space, mine just sits folded on the wire rack and I pile all the bedding on it. I don't need to see out the back window because there are door mirrors.
 
Sitting having petit dejeuner at Groisy in the French Alps, lovely morning.
Yesterday at Evian by lake Geneva, a squall appeared, sending the lake from flat calm to white horses in minutes I wouldn't have liked to have had the top up in that wind.
We are on a Beach, left the mattress at home, slept up top for two weeks, no probs, but I did wonder whether we should have brought it 'just in case'
 
I have had two trips where the wind was quite high and I had to lower the roof, one of those trips I didnt have a mattress, I didnt sleep very well that night...
 
I find noise far more of a problem than the weather with regard to sleeping upstairs. Downstairs you barely hear a thing upstairs is basically like being outside.

Noise encountered this summer, birds - loud pigeons in trees just above my head, traffic particularly motorbikes with extremely loud exhausts France is full of them, people in nearby tents who snore loudly although my wife says sometimes when I'm asleep I get my own back.
 
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Agree. You should try being on a Moto GP campsite in Aragon. Bikes held on the rev limiters all night, could be in nuclear bunker and would still hear them
 
We've only slept downstairs twice in the last five years across fifteen countries. For the first three years we carried the comfort mattress everywhere just in case but for the last two years we've left it at home and haven't needed it. We usually follow the weather so we worked on the principle that, if we had to batten down the hatches, it would only be for one night and we could cope by utilising the upstairs mattress and Zonesleep. Maybe we've just been lucky so far but we're going to carry on for the near future.
 
Each to their own but we sleep upstairs and down (in really bad weather) without any extra matresses....have you actually tried it? (Tho we do use firm matresses at home).
 
We
Just to add, Monty, we were in the Alps last week and twice in 10 nights we had to pull the roof down in the night due to sudden very high winds / storms. The kids had to join us downstairs until it passed, which was cosy! On both occasions the storms passed quickly, though.


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We are currently en route back from 2 weeks in the Alps - we had fabulous weather punctuated by some seriously impressive thunder and lightning. Had to bring down the roof a couple of times.
 
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