Is 3 children plus bed possible?

For bongoing parents to discuss issues re: travelling & camping with children.

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Jotillett
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Is 3 children plus bed possible?

Post by Jotillett » Sun Sep 01, 2013 8:25 am

Hi,
We're thinking of getting a bongo for our family. We're planning a 2 month trip around Europe next year. Speaking to people on a campsite recently we got mixed advice. The family with 2 children in the roof and a "real bed" said it was amazing. The other 2 families also put the kids up but didn't have the bed and slept on the "flat" rear seat. They both said this was fine for a weekend but not comfy enough for longer.
Is it possible to safely sit 3 kids in the back and have a "proper" bed for my wife and I?
Thanks
the laird
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Re: Is 3 children plus bed possible?

Post by the laird » Sun Sep 01, 2013 8:30 am

You can get a bed that goes across the cab from door to door .pm matt in fife(driver and passengers) he has on and could give you advise regarding it
Hope this helps
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Re: Is 3 children plus bed possible?

Post by the laird » Sun Sep 01, 2013 8:34 am

Update if you google vw and bongo cab beds the one I'm on about are advertised for £80
Vw beds bunks tested up ten stone made for bongo
Vw beds.com
Jotillett
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Re: Is 3 children plus bed possible?

Post by Jotillett » Sun Sep 01, 2013 8:44 am

Sorry, I was meaning a bed for my wife and I. Presume the beds you mean are for one person across the front seats. We weigh more than 10 stone between us!
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Re: Is 3 children plus bed possible?

Post by the laird » Sun Sep 01, 2013 8:51 am

Ok got you now! Mines is an unconverted eight seater,I'm of shall we say BIGGER frame!done France and Belgium with seats flattened but have used mattress topper.first was outwell self inflatable
Then the air mattres type but comfortzleisure do one that I'm going for that you can store behind the rear bench when not in use,they have a web page if you want to look think they're about £100 ish
We get great sleeps but you must make sure you tuck the seat belt buckles down and head rest retracted to enable good flat area
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Re: Is 3 children plus bed possible?

Post by Jotillett » Sun Sep 01, 2013 8:56 am

So do you use both rear rows as the bed or just the middle row? Without getting too personal, is 'bigger frame' high or wide?! I'm about 6 feet and don't fancy hanging off the end for 8 weeks!
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Re: Is 3 children plus bed possible?

Post by the laird » Sun Sep 01, 2013 8:59 am

Flatten both rows I'm 6/1after heavier than norm :D :P better half average (but sweet)incase she reads this! :evil:We often
N raise the rearmost up a bit to have a read etc
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Re: Is 3 children plus bed possible?

Post by Driver+Passengers » Sun Sep 01, 2013 9:08 am

Hi,

We've only got two kids (5 and <1).

Unconverted Bongos come in two varieties - two full bench seats, or one bench and two "gull wing" seats. In either configuration, there are two 3-point seatbelts for the middle row and two 3-point seatbelts for the back row. Each also has a lap belt.

Some people turn the middle row to face backwards, thereby losing the two middle 3-point seatbelts and while it is legal to have rear-facing passengers without seatbelts, you might not want to do this.

Something else to be aware of is that not all car seats will fit safely in a Bongo as the buckle comes up quite high - it looks like it is possible to wrap the belt portion below the buckle round the bar underneath the seat which should lower the buckle by a couple of inches to reduce buckle crunch somewhat. That's not official advice - I don't know how a single wrap of small radius affects the strength of the webbing. There are car seats and boosters that work - you might have to try a few or search on here for recommendations/experience.

Converted Bongos typically have reduced width seats and may or may not be suitable for travelling passengers (reinstating the three point harnesses would need signed off appropriately to be legal/safe.)

For 5 folk, I'm assuming you'd go for an unconverted (or small conversion) Bongo. I believe the later Bongos have a roof that lifts higher, affording the rabble a bit more head room.

Upstairs with the normal gas-lift internal ceiling and hatch makes upstairs relatively unaccessible. There are T/U shaped matresses which allow you to open the hatch as a hole in the middle of the bed, but kids can still sleep on top of this preventing you opening the hatch. There are a couple of alternatives... some people have what is called a Cat Flap conversion (Cat is the name of the person who popularised it - search for posts by umbongocat on here), others use bed boards - either ply, 3x2s or custom panels - djmckay is currently selling a set (forum/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=62921. The key is to leave a couple of feet at the back that is either open or openable so that you can pop your head up to check on the little ones.

We have removed our inner ceiling and added a single bed-rail at the front and the littlest one sleeps above the cab. Access is perfect - we just throw him up. Our bigger kid has a cab bed as Gordon said - a steel frame that sits on the window sills of the passenger and driver seats with a hanging canvas bed between the rails. He loves it in there!

As for the back - I can only comment on the "gull-wing" configuration as I don't have a rear bench...

The driver and passenger seats will recline fully, as will the middle bench and the back seats. The whole Bongo is then "level" but it is not "flat" - it's a bit bumpy but most people find a comfortable position over time. We keep the very back seats up a couple of clicks so not quite fully reclined, which we find quite comfortable for shoulders and hips - length is fine for me (6 foot). Others who may not have back seats use the middle and front seats (watch you don't kick the horn in the middle of the night!) I think the key is probably memory foam or custom cut foam wedges with some sort of matress on top. Inflatable air mattresses are a bit of a pain, and self-inflaters might not be thick enough to even out the bumps. Some folk who don't have the middle row use boards or boxes to provide the foot end of the bed, but with a middle row of seats (5 passengers), you probably won't use that.

Downstairs of an unconverted Bongo is fine for two adults (and a kid in the middle if they complain over night), but you'll definitely want an awning into which you can step - there's not much living space in a Bongo if there's five of you sleeping.

Three kids upstairs? Probably. Two up, one in a cab bed - fine. Two adults downstairs fine.

The Quechua Base Seconds awning is about £150, but goes up in a couple of minutes and would give you the ready landing/storage area outside you'll need if trying to entertain 3 kids as you move around from campsite to campsite.

Hope some of that helps - it's probably a repeat of a lot of posts on here.

Good luck!
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the laird
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Re: Is 3 children plus bed possible?

Post by the laird » Sun Sep 01, 2013 9:16 am

Nice one matt thought you'd one through
Heading your way today to ford show at lathallan
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Re: Is 3 children plus bed possible?

Post by JimmyG » Sun Sep 01, 2013 2:46 pm

You will definitely need a drive away awning the awnings will sleep 3, we use ours for 2 adults and a border collie, guess who takers up most room!
We have a Royal Traveller 3 which has a steel frame and is fairly robust can actually put up myself in about 40 mins but easier with a second pair of hands.
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Re: Is 3 children plus bed possible?

Post by Jotillett » Sun Sep 01, 2013 5:25 pm

Do you sleep in the awning then? Love the idea of just turning up somewhere, popping the roof and being all set. Is that unrealistic? Sorry to sound a novice but what's a gull seat? Tipping front and rear seats back sounds bumpy and like my wife and I will be sleeping miles from each other. Is that right or am I just having trouble visualising?
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cavey
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Re: Is 3 children plus bed possible?

Post by cavey » Sun Sep 01, 2013 6:37 pm

Jotillett wrote:Do you sleep in the awning then? Love the idea of just turning up somewhere, popping the roof and being all set. Is that unrealistic? Sorry to sound a novice but what's a gull seat? Tipping front and rear seats back sounds bumpy and like my wife and I will be sleeping miles from each other. Is that right or am I just having trouble visualising?
Admittedly, we only have one kid, but for short stays during tours, we do just that, (just turning up somewhere, popping the roof and being all set.) For me, that's what a campervan is all about. (We do have an awning, which gets used for longer stays, and we also have a huge tent for our main camping holiday for 10 or 12 days.....)

If the kids are young (small), there's probably space for them all in the roof, or there is room between you and you wife for the smallest one downstairs.

The 'gull seats' are generally in the pre-1999(ish) models and they are the rearmost seats which swing up out of the way to create a large boot area. You can still seat 5 using the front and middle seats, although the standard middle seat belt is only a lap belt which is no good for kids seats. Ours was modified before we bought it to a 3-point, so you could do similar? We have a removable kitchen unit in place of one of the gull seats. Similar to this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mazda-Bongo-K ... 3a83b2b530 I have taken the other gull seat out to save more space (and weight!) Both go back in when we need an MPV for 8.

The other thing to think of is luggage. With 5 people, you will need to store your clothes, toys etc somewhere, so you may want to think about a roof box or towbar mounting box, because it gets quite cosy when you don't have a awning and nowhere to store stuff.

The Mrs and I use the front and middle seats with a mattress on and it is very comfy. http://www.comfortzleisure.co.uk/#/mazd ... 4578474550 You won't be that far from each other!

Cheers,

Dave
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Re: Is 3 children plus bed possible?

Post by Alison01326 » Mon Sep 02, 2013 10:39 am

Jotillett wrote:Do you sleep in the awning then? Love the idea of just turning up somewhere, popping the roof and being all set. Is that unrealistic? Sorry to sound a novice but what's a gull seat? Tipping front and rear seats back sounds bumpy and like my wife and I will be sleeping miles from each other. Is that right or am I just having trouble visualising?
If you've got child seats in the car, it's a tad unrealistic. There are three of us and although we now have a caravan (husband's bright idea, not mine) we have always slept with the boy in the roof and us on the folded down seats. However, there isn't enough space inside the Bongo with that set up to store much overnight unless you travel superlight and don't have car seats, buckets & spades, and other paraphernalia which seems to attach itself to young children, so you will need somewhere to put your stuff. Likewise, if you want to eat inside the Bongo you have to do all the origami to get the seats back to "eating" mode, and again, you don't want to be tripping over your belongings.

It's all very do-able, but I'd say with any more than two people for any more than two nights, you'll need either a driveaway awning (best idea) or a "storage" tent of some sort.

I'll root out some piccies on here of my Bongo in sleep mode, and in dining mode, and with the awning attached, and also with the utility tent alongside. I know they are around somewhere but it might just be quicker to upload some more. No time for photos today, but might try and get it done tonight.

There are many photos of Bongo innards both converted and unconverted (including mine) here http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... 47&t=37365
Alison

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Re: Is 3 children plus bed possible?

Post by dom_e » Wed Sep 04, 2013 5:10 pm

If you've got child seats in the car, it's a tad unrealistic
Yup - that's the biggest hindrance. We've got two kids (1 just under 5, the other nearly two) and all sleep in the Bongo + the dog in the driver seat when we have him camping). We have an adult in the roof with one and the other kid and adult downstairs - not romantic, but hey. We have friends with 3 kid (6, 5 and 2) who manage to sleep all in an unconvertend Bongo.

We can squash two kids car seats into the driver seat area and use the passenger side to store boxes which sit neatly in the boot space (behind the flip up type seats) when travelling. other stuff lives under the bed and in the storage box/seat/bed bit which I made.

Logistics is the biggest challenge - the ease to which you can pull up, open the roof and make a bed also depends of the weather. If it's peeing down outside, you'd be left crawling over each other trying to sort beds out and move stuff from the boot etc....
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Re: Is 3 children plus bed possible?

Post by Driver+Passengers » Thu Sep 05, 2013 8:41 am

We've managed without so far but something like a Quechua Base Seconds - no fuss, no poles, no teamwork, no time - just park up, send the bloke outside with a pop up tent to slide up against the van, peg it if windy, then slide open the door and let it all hang out! If a picnic blanket or a couple of camping chairs/stools are the first thing to come out, then there's a landing area for the kids to have a snack, out of the way.

A couple of times I've fired up a tarp as a first shelter to dump stuff out on arrival, then put up the tent later. It looks a bit antisocial, but it can be really quick too.

Or get a trailer.
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