Bongo Fury

Hi all,
We are a family of 5 - kids aged 8, 6, and 3 (plus 2 dogs). We're keen to get a van and love the Bongo. But are we being unrealistic in thinking we'll all fit?!
We'd plan to use a drive away awning for longer trips, and think we'd be ok to put 2 kids in AFT and 1 across front seats on hammock frame occasionally.

BUT -
What is the best conversion? Thinking either mid, or slim side.
Anyone had experience of putting 3 children across the rear bench for travelling? I believe we could get the middle lap belt converted to 3 point seatbelt.
Anyone managed to fit 3 children on an extra wide rock and roll bed (JAL think this is possible).

I'd be really grateful for your opinions / experiences.
Thank you!
Ryan

We fit 3 children in ours 10, 8 & 2 The two bigger children up top wife and myself on the front/middle seats and the little one on a cot mattress on the floor in the back. We have the back seats removed and a rear corner kitchen.
Don’t know where you’d put the dogs tho

I'm boggling about space for the dog also.
Got the kids car seats on first row, unconverted, but this means with the second row of seats there's hardly any room in boot for the dog...

Whoops pressed send too soon.
What I'm wondering is, if we took out the back row of seats then there would be space for the dog, the buggy and all the general camping /kid gubbins. But would obv reduce the size of the downstairs bed.
Is there a commonly used storage container the same height as chairs from somewhere which could have double function of storage and length of bed extension ? We only have 2 kids and one dog.

have you actually tried out a Bongo?
3 kids and child seats, dogs with straps, camping gear, you may well need a trailer as well to fit all the gear, awning, seats, loo, cooking equipment etc in ?

Awning

We went for our first weekend recently and had 2 adults, 1 kid and 2 dogs. It is a squeeze for humans/dogs downstairs, we have a rear conversion, and they slept on our feet

The bed is longer with front seats folded forward too (we filled the space with bags and pillows for sleeping) but I think you'd find it too hectic with 3 kids and 2 dogs, as much because of the associated clothes and paraphernalia! And you do run into issues about travelling off from your campsite during the day unless you take a tent to leave everything in.

On that front, ours came with an awning which I sold and got this instead. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hewolf-Automat ... 2217&psc=1

Packs up within a couple of minutes and is easy to carry in van. Held off the rainstorm we had but not sure i'd camp inside it in torrential rain.

by the way, echo g8dhe's thoughts on space, for some trips we might take the car as well to a) carry stuff and b) give options to spend day away from site without packing up everytime

Well I've done my packing and sorting out. I reckon if your van is unconverted and you can squeeze three car seats in a row then it is doable.
What I've done is remove the back row of seats. Pushed first row back a fair bit to maximize leg room which is where the dog sits. Bought 2 X 48l really useful boxes , thanks to other forum posts and packed as much as possible into these. These will extend length of downstairs bed, with big fat DBL SIM on top.
We always take a pop up tent to dump all the gubbins, car seats , buggy , bag of clothes, loo etc. The boot is going to be very full!