16' Casita (Spirit or Liberty) Deluxe

[Timothy F]

We sold our 17' casita in order to buy a smaller trailer that will fit in the garage. we are currently considering a Chalet xl1930 that folds down for storage, or another Casita Spirit Deluxe 16 foot but was wondering if it felt substantially more claustrophobic feeling inside? I am 5'9" , so with shoes on walking around, am I going to be continually banging my head on the ceiling? especially if I have another fantastic fan knob hanging down? also, the 48" rear bed is a real concern for us. we are not large people but still, that seems like a mighty tight fit. we did fine in the 17' model but loosing 6 to 8" of bed space does not appeal to me. I know we could get a Liberty model with more bed space but the Mrs. insists on another Spirit model if we buy again.
Is the bathroom exactly the same dimensions on the 16' and 17' ??
Any thoughts?

p.s. we also looked at HI-LO, I do like them but we didnt care for the fabric walls that make up the bathroom and the floor plans are not that great on smaller models. We like the Trail Manor but we can no way afford one and prefer not to buy a 5 yr old one that fits our budget, again, the MRS prefers a "New" camper. The Chalet XL1930 has a nice floorplan, queen bed on one end, a dinette on the other, its alittle too much $ but are still considering it. But overall, the MRS. prefers another Casita and if I could just feel comfortable with the smaller dimensions, perhaps we will take the plunge.

[Ken C]

I dont know if scamp is on your shopping list but their 16 footer Interior height: 6' 3"

[Fred Patterson]

Timothy,
It really is a matter of what you are willing to tolerate. We have a 2001 Casita SD 16' and we love it. I'm 5' 10" and I can scrape my head on the ceiling if I try hard enough. It's really not that hard to get used to and I suppose I probably just slouch a little when I'm walking around in it. As far as the bed is concerned, we really haven't had any difficulty getting a good nights sleep even though our bed at home is a queen size. I guess its just that whenever we are able to get away in our Casita, the little differences are not that bad. I guess if we were full timing, there might be some other issues, but for now the 16' works great for us.
Fred

[Greg A]

The Chalet and Aliner a-frame trailers look cool, but my understanding is that leaks are a problem with them.

I'd go with the molded fiberglass Casita myself.....

[Timothy F]

Thanks, that's good to know I wont bonking my head in a 16' casita. but is the bathroom the same height and dimensions as far as you know? I'd also like to hear from anyone who owns a 16' Liberty model and how they like it???

As far as the Chalets go, thank you for your input, I didnt know there was leak issues although in Reno NV, we only get about 5 days of rain per yr and the trailer will be in my garage about 355 days a yr so not much chance in putting that theory to use but again I do appreciate your input.

[Donna D.]

we are currently considering a Chalet xl1930 that folds down for storage,

Here's a couple of discussions on the foldups, at least one discusses the leak problems and has a comment about a link to another forum dedicated to foldups:
Cabin A / Aliner versus Trillium
Trailers I didn't buy

[Lynn Musgrave]

The Chalet and Aliner a-frame trailers look cool, but my understanding is that leaks are a problem with them.

I'd go with the molded fiberglass Casita myself.....

we are still fiberglass owner"want to be's"...........but we do "still" own a 1997 Chalet....we have never had any problems with leaks anywhere in the camper. Have also never had a problem with high wind issues. I do understand that these are some issues with the A-Liners. One of the best things to do is to go to the Chalet owners site or A-Liner sites and read some of the talk on those sites. (Yahoo has a group for both that is very good) The same goes for Hi-lo....

Research is the key and then it comes down to what works Best for you.

Good Luck

[Timothy F]

Anybody out there with the 16 foot Casita Liberty model.....was wondering, do you have to crawl over the seat cushions of the small dinette in front of the rear bed to gain access to it or is it easy to get around? is there a way of setting it up to where its a compromise so the rear bed is bigger but you can still sit on the forward dinette seats to eat?

[Mary F]

Timothy, our first trailer was a 16 ft. Casita with the Liberty floor plan. I liked it fine, but my husband, who is about 5'10" wanted to move up to the 17 ft. Liberty once they began making them. The bathroom in the 17 ft. is slighter larger, with just enough more elbow room to make a difference. In the 16 ft., we slept with the bed made into the "king" size. This requires a certain amount of planning for the next morning. In other words, if you stow your coffee making apparatus under the bench seat, you better get it out the night before or you won't be able to make coffee until you're both up and at 'em. (In the 17 ft. Liberty, we've never used the "king" bed arrangement, as we find sleeping cross-ways adequate.)

We did the opposite of what you are doing. (Started smaller and went larger.) For the most part, we liked the smidgeon of extra space in the 17 ft. I don't know how it would feel to downsize...

We do really like the Liberty plan, whether 16 ft. or 17 ft. model. During the day, it feels more spacious with the whole back end of the trailer one space, and that 48" back bed area is perfect as a "day sofa" made by rolling up the bedcovers and pillows. (In the 17 ft., the bed is just a hair too wide for it to work as well.)

Another thing I like about the Liberty is the side windows are longer (wider) than on the Spirit. Of course, with the Spirit you have that other nice window next to the side dinette.

I do think you could fashion some kind of extra support to widen the back bed on a Liberty 16, if you don't want to use the "king" arrangement at night. Not sure how you'd want to do it, but you certainly could.

You should probably contact Casita and see if there's anyone in your area who is willing to show you their Liberty 16. That's really going to be the best way to answer your questions...

Good luck with it!

[Mary F]

Anybody out there with the 16 foot Casita Liberty model.....was wondering, do you have to crawl over the seat cushions of the small dinette in front of the rear bed to gain access to it or is it easy to get around?

The forward dinette is easily removed (in fact we almost never use it), so the floor is open. No crawling required. If you have the forward dinette table in place, it is quite difficult to get past it.

With the Liberty, there is an "extra" support board. (The forward dinette table is part of the support for the "king" bed arrangement, but that still leaves room for another board of the same size. I don't know if this makes sense. I'm not describing it well.) This extra board has no hardware on either side for attaching to the table leg. We often use this board by setting it either on one of the bench seats, or on the bed (during the day), rather than set up either dinette table.

Of course, we normally eat outside; but in inclement weather we will set up the forward dinette. It's cozy, but functional.

Hope this helps.

[Mary F]

Timothy - FWIW, I edited the topic title to include Liberty. You might get more people to read and respond to your questions with the expanded subject.

[Timothy F]

Thank you for all the great posts, it really helps with deciding. talking with my better half, I think we will give the Spirit Deluxe another try, we sure liked the 17' one. Guess we can live with the 48" bed, just might help rekindle old sparks! anyway, we do love having the side dinette up all the time and your posts were helpful at putting us at ease the 16' bathroom will be fine and that overall headroom should be fine also.

Thanks again, there's alot of good people on this site. very helpful, and much appreciated.

[John Hussey]

Thank you for all the great posts, it really helps with deciding. talking with my better half, I think we will give the Spirit Deluxe another try, we sure liked the 17' one. Guess we can live with the 48" bed, just might help rekindle old sparks! anyway, we do love having the side dinette up all the time and your posts were helpful at putting us at ease the 16' bathroom will be fine and that overall headroom should be fine also.

Thanks again, there's alot of good people on this site. very helpful, and much appreciated.

I am 6'0" and have a 16' SD. I am occasionally conscious of lightly rubbing the ceiling but it is not objectionable. Most of the time i dont even realize it. I believe I am tilting my head down. I dont suspect ceiling height to be much of a hangup unless one is much higher than it

[Chris Z]

The 16 Scamp height is same as 17 Casita (or very close - we've had both). Our A/C was in middle of roof so it was shorter there.
One thing I found out after we got rid of our Scamp was that the Deluxe 16 Scamp's bed is wider than the normal 16 Scamp. Never knew that but that's what I'm told. You might ask Scamp. The biggest reason we switched from 16 Scamp to 17 Casita was the width of the bed in the SD.

[Donna D.]

We have a topic that addresses the bed sizes (and gives dimensions). Look at the posting by Brian_B-P, about half-way down the first page. If anyone sees a trailer not listed and knows the size of the bed, please feel free to add that information: Bed Sizes

[JMoreno]

You have 4 choices if you want to fit your RV trailer in your garage.
Chalet, all models including the XL series.
A liner, all models
Trailmanor, some models
Hi-low, some models
We own the Chalet XL1930, we bought ours new in 2006 and we store it in our garage.
We use our Chalet all year around, rain or shine, as we live in California, we camp on the beaches, rivers, mountains and even Death Valley.
One member of this site mentioned water leaks in all A frames. Well in 3 years of camping, we have never had rain leak into our XL1930 and we have a Heki pop up window over our queen size bed. In fact we love to sleep in our Chalet on rainy nights, and we have been in some very wet and windy nights.
The main advantages of the A frame campers are, 30 second set up time, lots of elbow and headroom, great fuel milage, no swaying in high wind, no storage fees and cheap insurance.
They are more expensive than bread box type trailers of the same size, but in the long run they save you money lots of money.
When we pull into a site with our mountain bikes on the rear bumper and have our XL set up with jacks down, water, sewer and electrical hooked up and the air conditioner running all in less than 3 minutes, other RVers tell us how they wish they had it this easy.
There is no way to compare a bread box type trailer to an A frame, and we will miss all the A frame advantages when we retire and move up to an Airstream after we reach our 60's.


Eagle out.

[Randya]

We sold our 26' hard side self contained, to buy a tent trailer(kids left home and I wanted a smaller pickup),, sold the tent trailer(two years later) to buy an Aliner, sold the aliner to buy a Casita. I would never trade back. The Aliner was hands down, an improvement over the tent camper. My wife did not want to part with it. But we did. Never had any problems with it, except in winter. It was hard to keep warm. I am talking 15 to 20 degrees. Ours was a 2002 and was just pretty handy and easy to pull. The newer ones are even better. I would not hesitate to buy either a Chalet or Aliner. But I also would only part with my Casita, for an Escape 5.0!

The Scamp is taller, but Scamp seems to have the same decor as it did 10 years ago.