Mighty Campers Review: 3 Weeks in a Mighty Deuce in Australia

Mighty Campers is worth booking if you want a campervan that works rather than a campervan that looks new. We hired a Mighty Deuce 2-berth in Brisbane, drove it up the Queensland coast to Port Douglas over three weeks and handed it back in Cairns. Everything worked for the whole trip, nothing broke, and the one real complaint was the standard of the clean we were given.

That trip happened before mid-2019, so every section below says where Mighty’s current Australian specification differs from the van we actually drove. Mighty is the budget brand of thl, the group behind Britz and Maui, and its fleet is made up of vehicles that have aged out of those pricier labels. Mighty says as much on its own spec sheet, which lists the Deuce as “from 4 years on fleet”.

Is Mighty Campers any good?

Mighty Campers is good value rather than good condition, and knowing that before you book is most of the answer. Our Deuce drove smoothly for three weeks of Queensland coast road, every appliance in it kept working, and the rental cost roughly half what three weeks in a comparable camper would have cost us in Belgium at the time.

What you give up is newness. Our two previous motorhome rentals, both from more expensive brands, arrived looking showroom-fresh. The Deuce did not. It had visible wear, small things nobody had got round to fixing, and a bedroom area that had been cleaned quickly rather than thoroughly. A friend who lives in Australia and had hired a campervan there before told us ours was in good condition next to the one she had once been given, which says something about the category as much as about Mighty.

Book Mighty if the price gap matters more to you than the paintwork. Book Britz, Maui or Apollo, which run newer vehicles from the same parent group, if arriving to a spotless van is the thing you would be annoyed about.

What is the Mighty Deuce?

The Mighty Deuce is a 2-berth campervan with a toilet, a shower and a full kitchen, built on a 7-metre van chassis with an automatic gearbox and a diesel engine. Ours was a converted Mercedes Sprinter. Mighty no longer guarantees make, model or layout on any booking, so treat the vehicle photos as indicative and the specification below as the thing that actually holds.

The Deuce’s current Australian specification is listed below.

Two lines in that table have changed since our trip and both matter. The living-area air-conditioning and the microwave only run when you are plugged into mains power at a campsite, which is not obvious from the booking page. And the Deuce can no longer take children at all: Mighty’s current rules say child and booster seats cannot be fitted, and that the van cannot carry children of seven and under, nor children over seven who are still in a restraint. When we hired ours, the cut-off was four years old and there was a small pull-out child bed at the front.

Linen, bedding, crockery, cutlery and cooking utensils come with every Mighty camper. Camping chairs, a camping table, an awning and a satellite phone are extras. Well-behaved dogs and cats are allowed for a per-hire fee.

Mighty Deuce or Deuce Plus?

Choose the Deuce Plus if you are three people and the Deuce if you are two, because that extra berth is the whole difference. The Deuce is sold as a 2-berth and the Deuce Plus as a 2+1, and since the standard Deuce now excludes children of seven and under, a family of three is pushed up the range rather than into a Deuce with a pull-out bed. Mighty’s larger Australian campers run to the Double Up and DeLITE at 4 berths and the Big Six at 6.

Booking a Mighty campervan

Booking on Mighty’s site takes a few minutes and asks for the trip before it asks for the van. You enter how many people are travelling and when, your pick-up and drop-off branches and times, and the country that issued the driver’s licence. If you already know which camper you want, you can pick the model in the search box instead of browsing.

You then get a list of available campers with full details for each one, and a filter for whether you need a toilet and shower. Choose your van, hit book, and the next screen is insurance and extras. Mighty’s Australian branches are Adelaide, Alice Springs, Brisbane, Broome, Cairns, Darwin, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, so a one-way Brisbane to Cairns run like ours is a standard booking rather than a special request.

Insurance and liability cover

Liability cover reduces what you owe if you damage the van, and it is priced per day on top of the rental. We took the Mighty Inclusive Pack, the most complete option, which also covered the extra-driver fee, a linen exchange and the hire of a camping table and chairs. It cost AUD 51 a day (about €32, $37, £27) when we booked, and liability pricing has been restructured since, so check Mighty’s current liability options rather than budgeting on that figure.

Vehicle liability cover is not travel insurance and does not touch your own medical costs, a cancelled flight or a stolen laptop. If you need that for a long Australia trip, SafetyWing’s Nomad Insurance covers travellers who are already abroad, which most policies sold at home will not do.

Which Mighty extras to skip

Three of Mighty’s paid extras cost more than solving the same problem yourself, and the ranked list below starts with the one that costs the most.

1. Skip the in-van data top-up. Mighty’s Deuce has an internal hotspot and the Inclusive Pack came with 1 GB. Extra data was AUD 35 (about €22, $25, £19) for another gigabyte and AUD 65 (about €40, $47, £35) for 5 GB, which is several times what a local plan costs.
2. Skip the prepaid gas bottle refill. It was AUD 38 (about €24, $27, £20) prepaid, and refilling the bottle at a campsite cost us AUD 30 (about €19, $22, £16). The Mighty employee who handed over our van told us to do exactly that.
3. Skip the first aid kit. It was offered at AUD 35 (about €22, $25, £19) and we declined, on the theory that nobody rents out a vehicle without one. At pick-up we were told there was a kit in the van already and that we would only be charged if we used it.

A satellite phone is the extra worth considering, because it solves a problem no supermarket can. Large stretches of Queensland have no mobile reception at all, and you do not need to drive far from a town to find them.

Getting online in the van

An eSIM beats Mighty’s data top-up on price and beats a rented hotspot on faff, as long as one phone is all you need to connect. I have carried a pocket Wi-Fi device for years and it earns its place when several people are sharing one connection, but for a couple checking maps and email, a data plan that installs on the phone is simpler and much cheaper than AUD 35 a gigabyte. Airalo sells Australian eSIM data plans you can activate before you land.

Reception is still the limit, whichever you pick. A hotspot and an eSIM both run on the same mobile networks, so neither works where there is no signal, and in rural Queensland there often is not.

Picking up the camper in Brisbane

Pick-up at Mighty Campers Brisbane took minutes rather than the hour we had braced for. A week or so beforehand we got an email inviting us to check in online, much like a flight, so the driver’s licence details were already filed before we arrived. Mighty still runs that online check-in, and it is the single thing that shortens the queue most.

We did not have to wait for a turn even though other customers were already being served, because a second staff member came over with a tablet and did the paperwork on it. Once everything was signed and the confirmation had landed by email, we walked out to the van.

The handover itself followed the usual two steps. First a walk around the vehicle with the staff member, who noted every dent and scratch even though the Inclusive Pack already covered us. Then a tour of the interior with an explanation of how each system worked, which went quickly because we had rented a motorhome twice before. We loaded the bags and left.

Pack soft bags rather than suitcases, which is Mighty’s own advice and good advice. We each had a 75 L trekking backpack and both slid into the boot and stayed there for three weeks.

Inside the Mighty Deuce

The Deuce’s interior runs front to back as cab, dining area, bathroom and kitchen facing each other, then the lounge that becomes the bed. It is a common campervan layout and it works better than the floor plan suggests, with one exception covered below.

Front cabin

The driver’s cab is roomy, with comfortable seats, several drink holders, USB sockets, a radio, air-conditioning and a good number of small storage cubbies. My then-boyfriend found the automatic easy to drive on the highway.

The sound system was the weak point. We rarely got a clear radio signal anywhere on the coast and the speakers were the most basic kind fitted to a van. We solved it by plugging in a USB stick of music we had loaded at home.

Dining area

The dining area sits directly behind the cab and turns the front seats into part of the living space. Both cab seats swivel to face backwards, and a removable table slides in behind the driver’s seat with a bench on the far side. We ate there every day.

The area also had two 240V sockets, a cup holder and a small-items cubby. The safe lives under the bench. Ours was awkward enough to open and close that we stopped using it.

Bathroom

The bathroom holds a chemical toilet, a small sink, a shower and a shelf for toiletries. The toilet tank was noticeably larger than in the motorhomes we had hired before, which means fewer trips to the dump point.

We used the toilet daily and it worked without fuss. We never used the shower, because the facilities at every campsite we stayed on were better than a cubicle in a van.

Kitchen

The kitchen sits opposite the bathroom, which is the arrangement almost every camper of this size uses. Ours had a gas hob with three burners, a small fridge with a freezer compartment, a microwave, a sink and storage packed with pots, pans, plates, cutlery, a toaster and a kettle.

We cooked in it constantly. Apart from the days we spent with my friend on Magnetic Island and the last few days in Port Douglas, lunch and dinner happened in the van. Bear in mind the microwave only runs on mains power, so it is a campsite appliance rather than a roadside one.

Lounge and bed

The lounge converts into the double bed, and converting it is the Deuce’s one genuine design annoyance. The lounge is a U-shaped box you can lift the lid off for storage, topped with cushions so it doubles as seating. A pole slots into the floor in the middle of the U to make a table, the same system the dining area uses.

To build the bed you pull the pole out, rest that tabletop on the edges of the U, then carry the dining tabletop over and drop it onto the lower part of the U so the whole thing becomes one flat rectangle. Lay the cushions on top and it is a bed. It is not difficult, but it takes both tabletops, which means the dining table has to come down every single night.

That is the part that wore on us. You cannot leave the bed made, because the storage underneath is then unreachable and the dining area has no top. I am usually awake before my partner was, and having breakfast at a table meant either waking him or sitting outside. One spare tabletop would have fixed it.

The sleeping itself was excellent. I had worried the cushions would be too firm and that curtains rather than blinds would leave the cabin too light, and neither turned out to be true. Every campsite we used was dark enough, and Queensland gets dark early, so we went to bed and got up earlier than we normally would on holiday.

The bedding was better than expected: one large sheet over the bed and two separate double duvets, so there was no nightly negotiation over who had more of the covers. The head pillows were thin, but there were three of them, so I used two and my partner used one. Storage runs in lockers along both sides above the bed and swallowed all our clothes.

We also watched a film most nights. Our van had a television with no antenna, which was useless for broadcast and fine for the USB sticks of films we had brought, and the bed is a comfortable place to watch from. Mighty’s current Deuce specification does not list a television, so do not book expecting one.

Outside the Mighty Deuce

The Deuce’s exterior carries four things you will actually touch: a barbecue, a slide-in table, a light and the boot. The rest is the plumbing and power connections every campervan has.

Pull-out barbecue

The barbecue slides out from a hatch in the side of the van and runs on the same gas as the hob. You open the hatch with one of the van keys. I cannot tell you how well it cooks, because we found it easier to cook inside and never used it, and Mighty’s current Deuce specification no longer lists one.

Slide-in outside table

A tabletop slides into a channel on the side of the van to make an outdoor table, which is useful if you did not hire a camping table. Our Inclusive Pack included a proper camping table and chairs, so this went unused as well.

Outside light

The outside light is the exterior feature we used every day and the one worth knowing about. It is switched from inside the van, so you can light the awning area without going out into the dark first.

Boot

The boot runs underneath the bed and holds the camping table, the chairs, the water hoses and your luggage. There is an internal hatch into it through the U-shaped lounge, but reaching through that is awkward and there is rarely any reason to.

It is not tall, for the obvious reason that the bed sits on top of it. It still took the camping furniture, the hoses and two 75 L trekking backpacks without any packing puzzle.

Dropping off the van in Cairns

Drop-off at Mighty Campers Cairns took about as long as pick-up did. We were flying home from Cairns, so a one-way drop-off was part of the booking from the start.

Staff asked how the trip had gone, refunded us for the water filler cap we had replaced after it vanished somewhere on the coast, then checked the van for new damage and confirmed we had emptied and refilled the tanks that needed it. We were offered a taxi to the airport and took an Uber instead. The rental closure confirmation arrived by email and that was the end of it.

Should you book a Mighty Deuce?

Book the Mighty Deuce if two of you want a self-contained campervan in Australia at the lowest price a toilet and shower can be had for. Ours drove well for three weeks, everything in it kept working to the last day, and the only fault worth writing down was that the bedroom area had not been cleaned properly before handover.

Go up a brand if condition matters to you. Britz, Maui and Apollo sit above Mighty in the same group with newer vehicles and higher prices, and Mighty’s own “from 4 years on fleet” line tells you where its stock comes from. If a campervan is not the right shape for your trip at all, hiring a car through DiscoverCars and booking cabins or motels along the coast is usually cheaper per day, at the cost of unpacking every night.

Everything here comes from one three-week hire, so read it as one couple’s experience rather than a survey. On that evidence I would book Mighty again, and I would ask about the clean at the counter before driving off.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 5 tips below come from our three-week Brisbane to Cairns hire and from Mighty’s current Australian rules for the Deuce.

1. Check whether your children are allowed in this van before you book anything else. Mighty’s current Deuce rules exclude children of seven and under, and any child over seven who still needs a restraint, because child and booster seats cannot be fitted. That pushes a family of three to the Deuce Plus or higher.
2. Refill the gas bottle at a campsite, not through Mighty. The prepaid refill was AUD 38 (about €24, $27, £20) and a campsite refill cost us AUD 30 (about €19, $22, £16) for a large bottle. Without the prepaid option, Mighty charges per litre to refill it at drop-off, which was AUD 3 (about €1.90, $2.15, £1.60) a litre for us.
3. Do the online check-in when the email arrives. It lands about a week before pick-up and takes the licence details off the counter, which is why we walked out of the Brisbane branch while other customers were still being served.
4. Turn down the first aid kit. We refused it at AUD 35 (about €22, $25, £19) and were then told at handover that a kit was already in the van and we would only be billed if we opened it.
5. Ask whether a spare tabletop can come with the van. Making the bed uses the dining tabletop as well as the lounge one, so the dining table has to be dismantled every night and rebuilt every morning. One extra top removes the Deuce’s only daily irritation.

About the author. This review is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the first-hand notes here come from her three-week Australia road trip in a Mighty Deuce, picked up in Brisbane and dropped off in Cairns. The team covers campervan and car hire, connectivity and travel insurance for independent travellers, and updates this page when a rental brand changes its fleet, its rules or its prices.