Marybeth Finn, 17 june 2008
First I want to preface this review with the fact that we had a wonderful time travelling in Australia. A camper is the only way to go with a family of 6 (2 parents and 4 young adult children). Staying at mostly Big 4 parks was quite pleasant. It was a great way to keep this trip affordable for us all and to see as much as we could in 10 days! Upon arriving at the Brisbane Maui office on 21 May 2008 we were served within 10 minutes. Guess we got lucky for by the time we left there were 2 families that had been waiting for at least 30 min. The staff were all very pleasant, helpful and efficient. The instructional dvd was helpful, but a manual to take on the road would have been most appreciated as you don't retain much after travelling for 23 hrs! I was somewhat disappointed with the condition of the camper interior (Maui Spirit 6): refrigerator wasn't clean, broken air conditioner cover, broken bathroom door latch. We also had a broken camping chair. Those were all minor inconveniences compared to the blowout we had driving up to Port Douglas! We also had to have another tire replaced as it was losing air and had a wire protruding from the side of it. The Maui customer service line was helpful in giving us the name of a tire dealer to go to, but unfortunately they didn't have the tire in stock. It took us a 30 min drive to another dealer for the replacement only to find out that they could only replace the one tire as there was only 1 tire that size on the entire East coast!!! We also experienced a crack in the windshield and were very glad we took out the No Worries coverage as it covers 2 tires and 1 windshield!!! Driving on the left was a bit of a challenge in the cities, but not on the highways. NavWoman, as we came to lovingly call the GPS system, was helpful for the most part except for the 2 times she took us on a couple shortcuts not on the maps through a sugarcane field and on a gravel road in the dark! But she did get us to our destination both times. Returning the camper was simple and we were complimented on how clean we left it. Renting through Ideamerge online was easy and we would do it again without hesitation. Our main complaint was with the tire quality on the camper and this we addressed with the Maui personnel only to receive a shrug and "4000km is alot of driving!". The country of "No worries!" It's good to be back in the USA!

Eric McClure, emcclure69@yahoo.com, 06 june 2008
We went with IdeaMerge(IM) after quite a a bit of research into renting an RV in Brisbane, Australia. There were a number of companies over there to rent through, but IM seemed to have all of them. We were hooked on the Apollo Hitop camper based on it's size and features, but a number of companies offer similar vehicles. Having an IM customer rep in LA to talk to about our vehicle options and the insurance options in Australia was great, and really helped us feel confident in putting money down for a vehicle rental some 9000mi away. We ended up going with the Apollo Hitop (or so we thought), and got into Brisbane after a mere 24hrs of travel time. Needless to say, I was in no condition to get the runaround at the Apollo dealer, but it turned out to be simple and we were impressed in in their staff and service. Our only little snafu was that we had ordered the Hitop, but ended up with the Eurocamper. Not bad conisidering that it was a larger vehicle with a diesel engine instead of petro, but the interior layout was not as good as some similar campers out ther through other renters. The vehicle was nearly new, clean, full of fuel, and ready to go. We opted for the full coverage insurance after finding out that insurance is nom-compulsary in Australia, and we didn't feel like dealing with it if we wrecked the camper. $25 a day is totally worth it for the piece of mind. We were out on the open road in no time...but plan on some initial confusion with driving on the left, and I would definitely recommend an automatic transmission. The 6 spped manual (shift with your left hand) was a little too much to handle after a 24hr trip and learning the local traffic rules. The 10 day trip up the Sunshine Coast was amazing, and the caravan parks are clean and plentiful. We'd definitely go through IM again if we go back or head to Europe.

Matthew Grant, matthew.grant@hotmail.com, 22 may 2008
Lets start with the positive side. We loved the camper van. Travelling with our 7 month old daughter in a 6 berth camper van that had only done 1000 miles was fantastic and great fun. It gave us to be as flexiable as we needed to be. On the down side, when we arrived at the Maui office I was told that I had an additional 200 £ (NZ) to pay. Due to the time differences I could not contact ideamerge so instead of getting worked up I paid the money and decided to sort the issue out on my return as I knew how good ideamerge had been in the booking process. Sure enough, just a simple email to ideamerge on my return resolved the issue. Thank you ideamerge for a pain free booking system and resolving my problem quickly.

David Killey, 21 may 2008
Picked up our ideamerge motorhome in Sidney (Jan 2008) and embarked on a 72 day adventure. The unit was not ready when we got there, but the staff quickly supplied us with a car to go shopping and upon our return we received cash back for that days rental. We left about 3pm that day. Our unit was great and we did not have any issues to speak of. We used the co-pilot GPS system with our laptop and stayed in mostly the Big 4 parks which were excellent and had good power to run the A/C during the hot nights. I would have like more instructions when we picked up unit. Did not see the cruise control feature till we were almost done trip. The auto/manual tranny has some issues that cause it to roll back on a hill when you start out. This caused us great grief and almost an accident until we figured out to use E brake to hold position till tranny engages. Roof a/c has features we did not know of until well into the trip. Driving on opposite side of road did not present any problems at all for me. RVers are the friendliest people on earth and this is a great way to see any country.

anne goodman, anne-marie@ameg.org.uk, 20 october 2007

After a long gruelling journey we had to wait over an hour to get served in the Brisbane office. The guy behind the counter said that people had to wait 3 hours sometimes. When I complained I was sort of ignored. After a long journey you just don't need that. They need more staff in the Brisbane office.