Catarina K
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South Island ▷ Southland ▷ Waikawa ▷
Whistling Frog Café & Resort at Cathedral Caves
This was the campsite we enjoyed least during our 6 weeks in NZ.
It was our most expensive one (22$ pp non powered) with nothing to offer in return. The campervan site is a bland gravel carpark, the kitchen is extremely small and there are very limited picknick tables to enjoy your dinner
Positive is that the facilities are clean and you get an hour free WIFI if I remember correctly
Catarina, those are strong words - "nothing to offer in return...?"
You forgot to mention that we provide all your potable fresh water, free showers that are actually hot, sewage treatment and we put in a $5,000 solar battery powered wi-fi tower so you could get your 'free' wifi, (if you remember correctly).
There is no cell phone coverage in the Catlins, so we thought it would be nice to provide this service. Nothing comes free (we pay big money for all the GIG's you guys use) and we built this property from scatch so you could have a nice place to stay in the middle of nowhere. I don't think $20 odd is too much to pay for this service. How much do you think is fair?
We also have no holiday surcharge and I would say we are certainly not the most expensive camp ground in NZ. But I agree the DOC campgrounds, where you may have been staying prior to us, give us a bad rap, they are definitely cheaper than commercial campgrounds because they are heavily 'subsidized' by the NZ Taxpayers, at very great expense and in most cases people don't pay at all.
The kitchen is a reasonable size and has two sets of hot tops, two fridges, a big long dining table, two micro waves, a couple of bench top ovens, two toasters and a bunch of pots and pans and utensils, dish washing liquid and a place to wash your dishes, plus some covered outdoor tables and a very nice TV lounge with free DVD's - so I would call it adequate - for $20....? Let's be fair.... Catarina.
whistling
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North Island ▷ Auckland Region ▷ Auckland ▷
Hugo Campervans
We had a great experience renting our Hugo campervan for 6 weeks.
As said on the website, the vans are a bit old (but so charming!!), they were the cheapest we could find and you really have everything you need (we also took the Summer Slammer package for 100$ which included all cutleries, picknick table/chairs, BBQ, etc). The staff is extremely friendly and helpful and I am sure you would get good support in case of breakdown or anything else (which luckily didn’t happen to us). The vans seemed indeed very well maintained so I believe it shouldn’t happen too often.
There were maybe two points for improvement: The BBQ we got was really dirty (it took us almost an hour to get in decent state) and the music installation in the car was barely audible (we luckily had our own speakers).
Would still definitely recommend!
Thanks for your awesome review Catarina! We are working on some tweaks and improvements to the fleet over the coming months and bringing some additional vans onto our fleet too :)
Cheers
Woody
Hugo Campervans
Hugo Staff