Spaceships vs Apollo

Every Apollo model is automatic, and so is every Spaceships van bar the manual version of the VW Cosmo, so the gearbox is not a booking trade-off here. Both companies run Auckland and Christchurch. The same roads are off the table either way: Skippers, Ball Hut and Ninety Mile Beach sit on Spaceships’ excluded-damage list and on Apollo’s prohibited list. Apollo bans Crown Range Road as well, despite the sealed surface. Only Apollo runs Queenstown, and only Apollo goes past three berths: four Spaceships models sleep two and the Cosmo three, which settles the pair outright for a group of four.

Inside Spaceships’ five models the split is legal rather than physical. The Beta 2S, Sigma and Cosmo are listed as green-warrant certified, each with a fixed toilet and a solar panel; neither the Beta nor the Dream Sleeper Mini has a toilet or standing headroom. thl’s booking system marks all seven Apollo categories certified self-contained. That describes where you may legally sleep, not what is fitted inside. Apollo also states that make, model, year and layout are indicative, so the certification that counts is the warrant on the vehicle handed over.

Equipment is where that distinction bites. Apollo lists bedding, a gas stove, a microwave, a fridge and cookware on every model, with a 12V house battery, a 240V hookup, solar, and fresh and grey water tanks throughout. The shower and the diesel living-area heater belong to the five Euro models. The Hitop and Endeavour carry driver’s-cab heat, which does nothing for a parked van overnight. Spaceships mostly equips for cooking outside rather than living inside: a gas cooker, cookware and two included gas canisters on the equipped models, a fridge on every model, and 25-litre fresh and waste-water tanks on the Beta 2S and Sigma. The VW Cosmo is the exception, with a fixed kitchen, a 75-litre fridge, and a hob and heater that run off its diesel tank. On a summer route the nights are holiday-park nights either way, and that gap costs you little. On a shoulder-season route it is the trip — heat and hot water decide what a wet evening indoors is like. Over a fortnight the campsite bill is the larger number, so weigh these two as a total trip cost rather than as a daily rate.