Review: Cheapa Campa is part of the Apollo campervan family and as such their vehicles are very similar. Ahh, who are we kidding, their vehicles are identical! You even pick them up from the same depot location.
Their vehicles are well designed and young (0-3 years old), they have a campervan or motorhome to suit just about any budget or travelling party size, and they have depots in lots of locations, so, yes, Cheapa Campa and Apollo are pretty much the same.
Their website has an easy to understand, well laid out design that has a “compare” button that lets you line up side by side the vehicles you might be interested in and check the size, fuel consumption, transmission, amenities and lots of other features. The booking engine on the site is, strangely enough, identical to the one used on the Apollo site, but for one minor detail – the prices are lower! Now I’m not exactly sure what Apollo are aiming at here, but with Cheapa Campa, you get an identical vehicle to that of Apollo for a lower price!
So what’s the go here? Well on VERY close inspection you will notice a few little niceties supplied in the vehicle are different between the 2 brands. Apollo will include a personal kit such as towel, sheet, pillow etc where Cheapa Campa will not, however in a quick comparison test of hiring the cheapest identical vehicle over the period of 25 days, the Cheapa Campa hire comes in $388 cheaper than that of it’s identical Apollo brother. So, for the $388 difference you would get access to pillows, sheets, blankets, towels and a slightly larger fridge for 25 days. Now if you can’t find that stuff floating around in your own luggage or available in a cheap store for about $60 all up then there is something wrong. So, if you are willing to make a little trip to the discount store then Cheapa Campa will the be campervan hire company that you will be after in this situation.
But what else does Cheapa Campa have to offer? Well, hi-top roofs spring to mind. Every one of their vehicles is a hi-top or a pop-top meaning ability to stand upright in the back. This might not sound all that fantastic initially, but after a few hours of having to bend over in a vehicle you will notice the luxury of being able to stand upright. The “budget” campervan companies bypass this expensive addition to vehicles, which helps keeps their prices down, abut also means you have to keep your head down. Cheapa Campa has spent the extra dollars on their vehicles and ability to stand upright in the vehicle is assured in all models.
Other items to note about Cheapa Campa is that all models come with a fridge, the ability to cook inside, are manual gear (stick shift) and they have a selection of diesel and petrol models. If heading to the outback then you will definitely want diesel but if you are just sticking to coast roads, then it really won’t matter.
Whilst Cheapa Campa might be a little cheaper compared to their Apollo brothers, they are not necessarily the cheapest in the market. There are definitely cheaper campers out there if you want to shop around. The Apollo family’s budget range is “Hippie Campers”, so if money (or lack of it) is your driving factor then Hippie is where you want to look, however if you are looking to get some luxuries but are willing to cut out some trimmings then Cheapa Campa should be on your radar.
One word of advice though, despite having a multitude of vehicles in their fleet, Cheapa Campa does book out often. At peak times it books out extremely early, so if you think this brand of campervans might be for you, then you are advised to book as early as you can. However, there are plenty of other campervan companies to choose from if you can’t get a Cheapa Campa.
To see more reviews, head back to the campervan hire home page. If you are sick of reading reviews and just want to compare prices, click on the compare prices button below.
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| Ratings | |
| Vehicle Quality |  |
| Service |  |
| Value for Money | |
| Overall | |
X Vogel
from Germany
Ranking: 8/10
we know the van are 3 years or older so they were in good condition for us no problem.
Reviewed 26 February 2010 and experienced in November 2009
vanijzendoor
from Netherlands
Ranking: 7/10
Good service, but cars can be better checked before giving them away.
Reviewed 26 February 2010
Hannah Clark
from United Kingdom
Ranking: 7/10
Well equipped campervan – has everything we need but we were slightly misled as to what the price included. Comfprt wise though, very good.
Reviewed 24 February 2010
Susanne Santer
from Austria
Ranking: 7/10
Cheapa Camper was one of the cheapest.Therefore the van is a bit older. Thats ok. Not ok was the start:
1) Battery needed charging
2) Gas was empty
3) It wasn’t very clean
The car is all in all ok. Good average
Reviewed 23 February 2010 and experienced in November 2009
Susann Koschmeider
from Germany
Ranking: 7/10
Prices are reasonable, but they charge you a lot for the insurance- i.e. if you only want the standard insurance you still have to pay credit card fees & transaction fees etc. quite a few hidden costs.
Reviewed 23 February 2010 and experienced in November 2009
Lynn Maguire
from United States
Ranking: 8/10
We have a 4 berth campervan and love it + love tourism radio and music + info.
Reviewed 15 February 2010 and experienced in December 2009
frederike
from Germany
Ranking: 8/10
The campervan is technically O.K and comfortable.
Reviewed 11 February 2010
pimn
from Netherlands
Ranking: 7/10
Booked a camper 3 -5 years old. Got one that is much older. Few start up problems but after a few days we have accepted ‘it is what it is’.
Reviewed 03 February 2010
barts
from Netherlands
Ranking: 8/10
The campervan is fine, although we have some smelly pillows…Cheapa campa is a great options – 2-4 years old and much cheaper.
Reviewed 25 January 2010
Cheapa Campa / Apollo
We rented a 6-berth motorhome from Apollo in Perth for 3 week vacation in northern WA. Our plan to was to drive north and visit Kalbarri, Monkey Mia, Ningaloo Reef, and Tom Price. On the 4th day out our vehicle stalled on the highway and glowplug warning light came on. We pulled over, was able to get engine started again but engine would stall again each time it got back up to highway speed. called the Apollo service number from a roadhouse, was told that since it was after 5, there was nothing that could be done. The following day, limped into Exmouth and called the serivce number again- this time directed to a repair shop mechanic who detected a fault with the diesel fuel injector system but since there is no Ford repair shop in Exmouth, I should just limp 1200 km back to Perth for service. decided to cut our trip short and drive back to Perth. The condition of our vehicle persistently got worse (Had to drive under 80-90 kph with frequent stalling- very dangerous and unnerving especially around other vehicles.) finally limped back into Perth and spent the day taking the vehicle to repair shops to confirm diesel engine was stuffed. Apollo service informed us that replacement RVs were unavailable, but they could graciously provide us with a Toyota Camry to continue our trip. I had to refuse this generous offer since we could not possibly fit our group of 5 adults (and gear) into such a nice car. Since RV could not be drive far from town, we have spent the last week of our vacation in a caravan park in Perth. Overall enjoyed our visit to WA, but be forwarned: do not expect any ‘service’ from Apollo once your vehicle is on the road.
Reviewed by: R. Vilgalys Date: June 07, 2009
[...] the other companies in the group. Just for the record the Apollo campervan group includes, Apollo, Cheapa Campa and [...]
cheapa campa? crapa campa would be a better name. we got 400kms into a planned 2000km journey when the camper we rented had a major engine failure caused by lack of long term servicing according the the RACV man who came out. we were then told by chepa campa that it would take them 5 days to replace the van and whatever we did until then was down to us. once we agreed that we had no choice but to cancel our trip cheapa said they’d refund us all but our 1/2 days use we had out of the camper at about $90, instead they kept over $400. AVOID these shysters like the plauge and also I’d avoid APOLLO too as it the same company under a different name.
Although it was a little bit of an older van, that’s fine with us -since they are really cheap- we didn’t had any troubles with it at all.
We had a great time on our trip and the camper was pretty comfortable and well equipped.
Great price-quality value, camper was 100% o.k!
We rented a 4D camper van for about a month. The camper van was just perfect for our purposes, an extended trip to the Outback. The cooking facilities are great, and A/C is an added bonus.
The problems started after returning the camper van. After 2 weeks we got an email from Apollo, that there’s a traffic infringement and Apollo will charge 100 dollar admin fee for that, which they will refund provided e prove the infringement is not valid. My credit card was promptly charged by Apollo. After a lot of hassle with Eastlink, we got email from them confirming that the infringement was invalid since we had a valid Melbourne Pass on the alleged day of the traffic infringement. That done, I sent the confirmation to Apollo and expected to have the refund swifty paid, given that I had already had to spent hours of my holiday sorting out a mess that was not even our fault. It has been now 6 weeks and I still have not been refunded by Apollo, basically we have been ripped off by Apollo and thanks to them our honeymoon in Australia has a bitter stain.
I wanted to share this experience so you will be aware what to expect from them.