Notsobigjoe,
The dinette is fine, I guess. The cushions are very firm, but I think that is good as in they might not compress and sag for a long time.
My teen son does sleep on the dinette. We bring along a foam mattress topper just to make his bed a little less hard. It fits folded up in the upper bunk nicely during the day.
I do like how the backrest cushions are thinner and attached to the walls. You don't have to fiddle with rearranging them, especially when making a bed.
With the Lagun table being so flexible in terms of positioning and getting it out of the way, you can sit in the dinette in so many configurations and make yourself more comfortable. With the 2 additional cushions (bed making and step-up), a pillow, and the new flip-up footrest, I think it is fine. Of course, it will never be like a traditional couch or recliner. In our old TT, the fixed face-to-face dinette was not comfy except for eating and short card games.
Speaking of Lagun tables, we did remove the long table top that NS supplied that matches the countertops. It was nice but just soooooo heavy. We made a lower weight, stained birch table top with different dimensions. The new size now allows us to get rid of the additional drop-in board used to make the bed (which lived on the cabover bed during the day) and not stow the original table propped up by the back cabinets every night. The new table now serves both functions and 4 people can still fit their plates on it. Simpler solution for us.
We like our cassette toilet and would not go back to a black tank. It is simple and convenient to dump. You do have to watch your capacity a little closer (we have 4 people). We usually use campground facilities if they are convenient enough and only go #2 in the cassette if it is an "emergency". Now if we go boondocking in the sticks a week straight...:E
In addition, we don't need our stinky slinky dump hose anymore! We now use a garden hose arrangement to dump only our gray water.
Yes, Northstar gives you the option of having a traditional black tank, 13 gallons, I think.
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Just a few other observations we have had after 5 weeks on the road with it. Overall we love our camper and its quality build. We are glad we didn't get anything taller, with slides and basement, etc. We took the rig on some 40 mile gravel, washboard roads in Canada. It was so bad sometimes in the truck cab that I thought surely I would see walls separating from cabinets, seams split, etc. Nothing moved, just the coffee cups rattling. SOLID! Did I mention the potholes in Nova Scotia?:E
Some improvements might be in the works for the newer models. Bill in NH and Rex are getting lots of feedback from owners, including us.
1. The 2 cubbies near sink and dinette had long! protruding screws inside, ouch! Rex will most likely add paneling inside to finish it off better, like the other cabinetry. We covered ours up.
2. Some protruding screws under back overhang. Not a problem unless you mindlessly reach under to grab the cable, etc. Dremeled ours flush.
3. The hinges they use on cabinet doors that swing the usual way and the bathroom door are such that there isn't much clearance between door and frame. This means that the screw heads they used were digging/denting into the frame paneling and you had to exert more force to get the doors to close and latch. We were worried about the stresses on all parts over time. Bill kindly replaced the screws with flatter heads and it mostly took care of the problem.
4. I wish the fresh water tank drain valve was located such that I could drain the water somewhere else than into the truck bed. Several times this past summer we have loaded up on water for 3 nights of dry camping for 4 people and found we'd only used 1/4 of the tank! Instead of hauling all that weight 100s of miles to the next campground, we would have liked to dump it. Running the pump would take forever!
We had the camper off the truck the other day and I wanted to attach some kind of additional hose to get the water elsewhere. However, short of drilling a "conduit" for the hose through all framing members to the back end or out the side of the camper wall as someone else has done, that isn't going to happen in the near term. The best idea otherwise was to tap into the drain hose inside and run a temporary hose through the wheel well doors and up over the bed rails...and syphon...
Did I mention that I LOVE being able to see how much fresh water we have just by opening the kitchen cabinet?? No more inaccurate tank gauges!
5. Somewhere along the production process a dimension must have changed. There is a ~1/2"-3/4" "gap" between entry door frame and wall paneling, like the door used to be wider but they haven't updated their cuts to the wall panels. This to us was the most glaring oversight. Bill bridged the gap for us with matching material.
6. Drive with the dometic shades partially up. If left down loose in the frame they will rattle the whole way and drive you nuts. Occasionally on very rough roads one side pin of the long dinette shade would jump out of its locked position if pulled up too high and cause the shade to crumple down a bit on that side, weight being held by the other pin. Hopefully not a problem long term.
We do like these windows, you just have to be careful how you operate them, treat them nicely and go slowly.
7.Utensil drawer could have more substantial sliding hardware. I noticed on the smaller model with smaller drawers they had 2 substantial drawer guides. This bigger drawer has one flimsy central guide. There is a lot of cabling that runs behind the drawer, so maybe that limits the amount of hardware they were able to cram in. We are just careful when we use it and don't pull it out all the way.
8. Despite the lights being all LED, they do get HOT!???
9. Water pump is loud...
10. There is more inside storage than you will ever need...
