Poll: do you use the comfort station?

[Napria]

Please no flaming. I'm honestly curious whether you use the campground comfort station, your rig's bathroom or both. If you use the comfort station, why?

We have used the campground's showers only once in ten years, due to four people having to get ready for dinner reservations in a short period of time.

[tahoemc]

DW,DD will mostly use the 5r facilities, but if we are dry camping and the shower facilities are "acceptable" they will use the campground showers. Toilet facilites = usually the 5r.

During the daytime and if the toilet facilities are convenient, I'll use the campground facilities. For "midnight runs" I'll use the 5r toilet.

[Escargot]

Nope.

[Racine96]

We stay in Houston for winter in a nice place with clean showers and bathrooms. Yes, we use them there. In route, it depends how they look.

[Stefonius]

shagan77 wrote:
Yeah, same here. We stay at a park in Austin TX, very, very nice!!! Very clean, secure private showers (locking doors). We use them as they have significantly more pressure, lots of really hot water and room. I'm 6'2, 250 lbs, with a 52" chest. (Not bragging) but fitting into the shower in the rv, I have to back out to change my mind.... So, campground showers whenever decent.

This is a bit off-topic, but can you provide the name of the CG in Austin? I have a friend who moved there recently, and DW has been wanting to go visit.

[Stefonius]

In general, I'm willing to use the CG facilities if they're not too skanky.

DW prefers to use her own facilities. For me, it comes down to which option is closer to where I'm standing when nature calls. If nature is compelling me to conduct my business from a seated position, I will head for my own bathroom nearly 100% of the time.

I'd prefer to shower in my rig (especially if we have FHU), but for me at 6'5" and 300#, our "neo-angle" shower is a bit like trying to stuff a grizzly bear into a phone booth.

The Next Fiver (and boy is there a list of amenities in that category) will have a much more "bear-friendly" shower setup.

[Landroamer1]

We will use the CG showers if they are well kept also

[ddschuman]

I have only used the campground shower once since we started RVing. It was on the last trip, it was late and we had been in the lake or at least outside all day and needed a shower. It was already dark when we went into the RV and discovered we had lost the converter and had no lights or hot water...our battery was dead.

There is nothing wrong with using a campground shower if you want or need but I just feel more comfortable in my own space. Where we were, the campground showers were not too private...the showers had no door or curtain. It made me a little uncomfortable. As a child though, my family tent camped a lot. We always used campground showers. Although that was many years ago and I thought nothing of it then.

When we purchased our 5er, some of the "must haves" on our list was large shower, 10 gal water heater and large holding tanks. We anticipated never needing to use the campground showers or toilets. I am certainly glad they were available on the last trip even though I wished I did not have the need to use them.

[JIMNLIN]

never

[gdweb]

me, yes. her, no way

[Dagma]

When we first started camping, we used the comfort stations most of the time; we were afraid we would fill up the holding tanks and would have to unhook to go empty.

Now, we use our 5'er bathroom most of the time and the comfort station occasionally; showering in our bathroom is so much nicer than most of the showers in campgrounds. We so far have only been on camping trips of 5 days or less, so no problem with filling up the tanks.

We do use the comfort station to do our dirty business if you know what I mean; that way we don't have to worry about the mess in the black water holding tank.

[Aridon]

Only time we have used them is when we are walking out and about and nature calls when too far from our RV. Handful of times in the last 8 years.

[richfaa]

Of course we use them when we want to. Now you will find a foul one from time to time but it is not good business for a C.G to have nasty restrooms and we have seen very few in our travels. we also have seen many Rv'ers that do not use the RV bathroom and only use the C.G facilities saves money they say.....

The facilities in our Winter C.G are spotless and we have no problem in using them if we are nearby. The laundry facility is also spotless and we use them for large loads. There are also folks who never use their on board W/D as it saves money by using the C.G facilities.

[Dutch___Di]

We've been fulltiming for 18 years and have a 5th wheel. That said, it wouldn't matter what I owned, we bought our RV to have all the comforts of home. Especially my own bathroom and bed!
When we boondock, we do shower but have learned how to conserve water. When we boondock that is the only time I use plastic plates and glasses which means little cleanup. It doesn't take long to learn shortcuts so save water so we can still have our cake and eat it too. Hugs, Di

[2gypsies1]

Napria wrote:

Dog Folks wrote:
I am honestly curious as to why you posted the same question in Class A Motorhomes and wanted only response from motorhomes, and now you are ask the same question here on 5th wheels?

Don't both have bathrooms and face the same decisions whether or not to use the CG facilities?

I replied to your question on the Class A thread, but I'm going to reply again here because it's a valid question and others here may also be curious...

There is an RV park reviews site that I check when looking for a campground. For years I've wondered why most of the bathroom/comfort station ratings were posted by people in motorhomes. The site asks reviewers to state what type of RV they camped in. I'm beginning to wonder if reviewers on that site are simply not changing the default (Motorhome) to what they're actually camping in. The differences in respondents between my question on the two threads here on RV.net seems nil.

...and I replied to this statement in your motorhome post suggesting that if I was giving a serious rating in a review on a campground but not using the showers, I would at least go in and inspect them. If you see that a reviewer rated them bad or excellent I would welcome that review even if he just looked at them and not used them. The ratings don't show if the person used them or not.

We don't go by everything stated in the review sites. We weed out the very bad reviews and the very good reviews and then judge for ourselves if we want to stay there. Giving a bad review because of not getting satellite or because it was muddy and raining or the neighbor was noisy is not a review to me. It's a complaint of things that I can live with and that's how I'll weed them out.