JUCY vs Apollo

Both run Auckland, Christchurch and Queenstown and no other depot, so a one-way between airport gateways is an ordinary booking with either. Both fleets are seven models, every one automatic, and both contracts keep you on sealed roads with a narrow carve-out for a short access road to a commercial campground — Apollo caps that exception at 12 kilometres and bars ski-field access roads from 1 June to 31 October. Apollo then bans Crown Range Road outright, and that road is sealed. On the structure of the trip these two are close to the same booking.

The split starts at the bottom of each range. JUCY lists five of its seven campervans as self-contained; the two-berth Crib and the Cloudbreak are not, and the Cloudbreak carries neither a toilet nor a waste-water tank. thl’s booking system marks all seven Apollo categories certified self-contained, the two compact vans included; the Hitop and Endeavour carry a 12-litre hideaway toilet that Apollo calls built-in and fixed, and of its model pages only the Hitop’s repeats the certification. Only a green warrant has counted in New Zealand since 7 June 2026, and certification belongs to the vehicle rather than to the model page. JUCY publishes no per-model warrant status, and Apollo states that make, model, year and layout are indicative and cannot be requested. Check the card in the van you are handed.

Heating points the same way, and harder. Apollo lists diesel living-area heat on its five Euro models, which does not depend on a hookup, and cab heat only on the Hitop and Endeavour. JUCY heats the living space in the six-berth Big Kahuna alone, and qualifies even that as working when connected to a powered site. For a December-to-February North Island loop that is a detail; for the South Island in May or September it decides the trip. What Apollo asks in return is that you stop choosing a vehicle and start choosing a category — it sells the class rather than the van, and sets a five-day minimum on one-way hire, where JUCY publishes chassis years, tank sizes and berth counts model by model. Those chassis years run from 2000 to 2019, and an ageing fleet is the complaint that recurs at all three JUCY depots on Google.