In March, we moved out of our 1991 29-foot Alpenlite fifth wheel and into our much newer 30-foot 2014 Forest River Wildcat Maxx when the neighbors, kiddy-corner across the street, offered it to us.
We had lived in that Alpenlite for over 8 years. It served us well. We gave it to a guy who lives in here. He was grateful to get it and we didn't have to worry about cleaning it out and all that. I wasn't really into it, to be honest.
Our neighbors were moving into a house and they offered to sell us this whole set-up...for a song! As chance would have it, we happened to have the cash saved up and were able to simply buy it outright. Yes, we paid cash for it and yes, it was a lot of cash. LOL!
This is a 2014 Forest River Wildcat Maxx. It's 30 feet long, with 3 slides. It also has an outdoor shower and an outdoor kitchen.
We bought the trailer, the canopy over it and an outbuilding that has electric and cable run out to it.
Here is the outbuilding. Everything is still a work in progress. We have bought a patio set to put in there so that there is furniture and we do have a TV for out there, too.
I digress...
This is about the pros and cons of our new fifth wheel.
It is a very nice looking trailer. It serves our needs quite well. There are a few things that I just do not like about this trailer, however.
I do not like how high the cabinets in the kitchen/galley are. I cannot reach them, even with that nifty step stool that is in the kitchen. I also don't really dig having a cat box in my kitchen, but it was the only logical place to put it and, honestly, having it there is a good reminder to keep that sucker scooped out.
I also do not like my kitchen sink. In the old trailer, I had stainless full-sized double sinks. In here, I have white sinks that I have promptly stained up because I wash so many dishes and one is bigger than the other. Why would anyone, intentionally, want such a small frigging sink?? I don't get it. We did replace the faucet as the other one was stuck on spray and I didn't like that. It was an easy fix, especially when you have a MacGuyver for a husband, like I do. He's one of those guys with skills. You know, skills. He can fix any-frigging-thing that there is, especially if it's electrical.
I took a hit in the kitchen department with this trailer. The kitchen has much more floor space, but it sucks as far as how high the counters and cabinets are and the size and position of the sink. Also, the stove only has 3 burners.The lighting is horrendous and, with the canopy over the trailer, it is dark in the kitchen. We are going to install a florescent fixture in the kitchen somewhere. There is absolutely no silverware or utensil drawers unless you put them in one of the 4 drawers under the pantry. There is no counter space and the counter space that is there to work with is awkward and not reachable. Those are the cons of the kitchen. This fifth wheel was not designed for those of us that are 5'5" or less.
However, the pros are that I can plop my cutting board over the corner of the sink to prep for cooking and watch TV. I have a microwave. The stove cooks hot. The oven temp is spot on. It's easy to tell when you need to wipe everything down. I can't let that many dirty dishes accumulate because the kitchen isn't tucked into the back of the trailer, the kitchen is right smack in the middle of the trailer.
In summary, I liked the kitchen in my old Alpenlite much better. I had more room. I had more usable counter space. I had great lighting. I had a ton of windows. I had 4 burners. I could reach all my cabinets. I had full-sized double stainless sinks.
Now, on to the rest of this new trailer.
Moving on to the bathroom. The bathroom in the Forest River is hands-down the better bathroom, without a doubt. The shower is bigger. It has built in shelves for shower supplies. There's a skylight in the shower. There's a big medicine cabinet. There's a linen closet. There's under the sink storage. There's adequate towel racks and there's a storage shelf. There's a sliding, pass-thru door to the bedroom. The only thing that the Alpenlite beat the Forest River in is the size of the bathroom sink. The Alpenlite has a bigger bathroom sink. Other than that, there's really no comparison. The Forest River has an opulent bathroom compared to the Alpenlite.
I have to mention this pantry. This is part of one of our slide-outs. This pantry houses all of my at-the-ready pantry items and our dishes. In the top two drawers are silverware and utensils and in the other top drawer are those big and bulky utensils under kitchen towels. In the bottom drawers, I have one for excess spices and the other holds my other bulk items, like flours, seeds, etc. Both of those bottom drawers are crammed full. I'm working on using up the spice drawer so that I can move the bulky utensils into it.
We did not have a dining nook in the Alpenlite. The dining area was in the kitchen. This a separate dining nook. We have a ton of under the bench storage for canned goods and kitchen appliances. This is located in the same slide-out that the pantry is.
This is another of those areas that there is absolutely no comparing, the living room area. Hands down, the Forest River has the better living room area. There's so much more room in there and there's another slide out that we have a small Ikea sofa sleeper put into. It's more like an animal lounge that they deign to let Bob sit on every now and then.
It's almost not fair to compare these areas that have the slide outs because the Alpenlite didn't have any slides at all.
Just this feature, on its own, would win the contest as to which trailer has the better living room. We use this every single morning.
The bedroom area is another one of those rooms that can't even be fairly compared. The Forest River bedroom area is the better area. There are, however, some pros and cons. First, the pros are that I can stand upright in the bedroom in the Forest River. I could not do that in the Alpenlite. The built-in dresser drawers in the Alpenlite were much bigger than the Forest River's are. The closet was also bigger. In the Alpenlite, we had under-the-bed storage (as we do in the Forest River, as well) but, there were 2 nice sized drawers under the bed in the Alpenlite. We don't have those in the Forest River. So, as far as clothes storage, we had more space in the Alpenlite. The entire wardrobe on the Forest River is the third slide out. In the Alpenlite, we had 2 drawers on either side of the bed, in the built-in nightstands. In the Forest River, we have cabinets under the nightstands. I'm not sure which I like better. Sure, I can shove more stuff into a cabinet, but I'm not into squirreling a bunch of crap away in a cubbyhole. I'm trying to whittle down to only the stuff that I actually use. I don't need a ton of superfluous crap.
Also, in the Alpenlite, under the steps going up to the fifth wheel, the whole floor lifted up and it was storage space. We called it the basement. We also had a big linen drawer under the clothes closet.
So, just because I can stand upright, I'm going to say that that I prefer the Forest River bedroom to the Alpenlite.
Now, onto the outside areas of each trailer.
This, right here, is what clinched the deal for me. This is our outdoor kitchen. There's a cabinet, a small counter, a pull-out 2-burner propane stove, a utensil drawer and a small refrigerator. We love the extra outdoor storage. We had to replace the rams on the hatch. This is a great little area.
We also have climate controlled, carpeted under the trailer storage in the front and we do have an outdoor shower.
In the Alpenlite, we just had 4 outside storage cubbyholes.
So, in conclusion, the Forest River Wildcat Maxx is the superior fifth wheel for full-time living as far as amenities go. It has that great electric fireplace heater. It has a built in radio/CD/DVD player. It has central air/heating. It's super propane efficient. It has quite a few windows and there's a skylight in bathroom and in the living room. It also has outside quick-connect hook-ups for a propane grill (not counting the stove in the outdoor kitchen). It's much easier to empty your black water tank in the Forest River and there's a back flush on the tank so that you can clean it out much easier. The hot water tank is both electric and propane and, if you're doing dishes or showering, you can flip the toggle switch to propane assist and it will keep some semblance of warm water. The pass-thru bathroom is just freaking cool, no matter how you want to look at it. There's also an actual bedroom door so that you can close it off and have some peace and quiet...well, at least until the cats and dogs figure out that you have locked them out. The slide-outs make a world of difference as far as space. The Grrr-ells (that's what we call our 3 female Australian kelpies) can stretch out and not be on top of each other. Of course, the cats have ripped up the screen door and the piece of lath next to it, but we did expect that and have bought a replacement piece of lath that matches. As far as the door, we'll probably replace the bottom with a piece of plexi-glass and really mess with the cats.
The Alpenlite had a much better kitchen.
So, the Alpenlite served us well, but we're onto better things now with the Forest River.
