Hi all love this site and know you lot wont laugh at my question. last year was our first caravanning and we loved it...have bought a larger newer van this year. can you tell me what sort of plates mugs etc you all use. I bought melamine sets last year but didnt like them ...mugs cracked when i took black tea or coffee... couldnt heat plates. Was thinking of using " real" crockery this year but how do you stop breakages and chips without wrapping all up everytime you move site.
With a proper plate/mug holder they should survive most lumps & bumps.
I use proper crockery, mainly because it's cheaper & easier to obtain.
Don't let a few chips put you off either, it's not the Ritz. But seriously, if you have the correct caravan crockery holder the crockery should survive.
I use stuff from charity shops, or supermarket value ranges, or Ikea type places.
My most recent stuff was all given to me by family.
I have always used melamine plates yet have one ceramic one to put in the oven. Always use ceramic mugs I hate melamine for tea or coffee . I put some bubble wrap around these when on the move. Free bubble wrap from tescos it's on the apples.
Melamine is lighter apart from won't break . We have had ours for 20 years and it's still like new. That is plates bowels and tea plates.
Quote: Originally posted by clbewi on 13/3/2012
Same here. Melamine plates/bowls but have to have proper glasses and cups.
Us too
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The road can be tough and rough,but what you put in you get back 10 x more.
We have been using our old enamel plates, dishes, etc from our tenting days because I couldn't find a design I liked in melamine (and some of them are so expensive)! They are great for putting in the oven to keep things warm on or even just put the barbecued food in and covered with another to keep them warm.
Like most others, we have melamine plates (probably go back to the 70s - they came with our first folding camper), but have 'proper' glasses and mugs. Ours are the 'Arcoroc' toughened glass ones that you can buy in French hypermarkets. I have also seen them in our local 'Warehouse Clearance Superstore' - don't know whether those are a national chain or not. We have kept the original packaging for quite a lot of these glasses, so they just get put back in their cardboard sleeves for travelling, but for odd items that don't have a box any more, we usually wrap them in the tea-towels for travelling. In the ten years of so that we have had these, we have only had two breakages, both times when something fell out of a locker and landed on the glass!
We use melamine everything except mugs, I do have one ceramic of each, small and large plate and a bowl incase I need to put them in the oven. I got a fantastic bargain off Ebay, full set of melamine for 6 people also serving bowls, egg cups and trays and only paid about £30 for it, all brand new. That was 4 years ago and it is all still immaculate.
This is something like what I got but a different pattern
Arcopal 'coloured glass' type for me and myself and a few melamine plates and bowls for visitors. Certainly no melamine cups or mugs. The Arcopal is great if you have a microwave and it will even survive quite high temperatures in the gas oven. In over 20 years of using it I have never had a breakage. It is a bit heavier than melamine and you may find that there are various thickness options but even the thinnest ones seem robust enough for caravanning.
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We have had our set of Melamine crockery for over 12 years and its still like new it was a very expensive set but perhaps you get what you pay for sometimes.
I think I get it from my dad. He has always insisted he won't eat or drink from anything plastic, so even as kids we had crockery in the caravan.
The only plastic thing I use is wine glasses (which is completely the opposite to you lot ) But that is simply because I had a set of 4 for my tent camping, so I put 2 of them in the caravan. There was 2 long glasses in the 'van when I bought it.
My bowls are either enamelled-tinware or plastic, as these also came out of my camping-kitchen bag. I'm still waiting to find some china bowls.
I honestly thought there would be many more people using real crockery. It never used to bother me what I ate or drank from, but as I get older I get more like my dad, & now I can see his point. I don't think I could do a melamine set. I can do enamelled-tinware (just) & I can happily drink out of the plastic wine glasses, but I think that has more to do with their size (they are quite large! )
Oh wow! I though I was nutty (as did dh) when I announced that I wanted China mugs now we have the caravan. I too don't like drinking tea out of plastic so bought 4 denby mugs for £1.99 each st Clarks village last week. So so glad its not just me. We do use plastic for everything else. Except pots and pans ang and now two baking trays as well
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Topic: plates, mugs etc
) But that is simply because I had a set of 4 for my tent camping, so I put 2 of them in the caravan. There was 2 long glasses in the 'van when I bought it.
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