Disclaimer: GhostBed® is a new advertiser with RVtravel.com. Upon coming onboard, they asked if anyone on our team would like to test out one of their mattresses. Tony didn’t decline.
RV mattresses—I don’t understand why, but they are universally horrible. I’m not sure how this started, but the mattresses in RVs are some of the most rock-hard, flimsy, and lousy sleeping surfaces known to humankind.
In fact, when I was selling RVs, we would get customers who would just ask us to dispose of the mattresses and I would take them to a shelter. It didn’t take long before I had to find a new place to take them as the shelter was no longer interested.
When GhostBed® offered to send us one of their mattresses to try out, who was I to turn it down?
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GhostBed®
GhostBed is one of the companies that ships mattresses rolled-up like a burrito in a vacuum-sealed plastic roll. If you haven’t been shopping for beds lately, this has been the trend in the industry. It has also meant that mattress buyers get a lower cost and, potentially, a better bed.
The biggest hurdle to this system is how one determines if the mattress is right for them and what happens if it isn’t.
Interestingly, GhostBed was founded by Marc Werner. You may recognize that last name if you’ve been shopping for a ladder recently. Marc’s family is actually the one who created the Werner Ladders. Marc is the third generation there. But he also had issues with mattress shopping and mattresses in general. Because of that, he worked to create a new company that produced a different product. GhostBed is the result.
Mattress choose-o-meter
One of the first things that impressed my better half was the mattress choice tool on GhostBed’s website. This is “Marc’s Mattress Tool” and is a series of questions designed to help you choose a mattress.
It’s actually a well-done system, and helped us choose a mattress suited to us.
We have been parked in my wife’s sister’s driveway for a week now and plan to be here a short while longer. One of the benefits of this has been being able to get products shipped to us. This includes the GhostBed, which came in a box that you wouldn’t think would have a whole mattress in it.
The unboxing
I hope you find the video I’ve attached here of the GhostBed mattress informative. There’s a time-lapse portion of removing our old mattress, which was surprisingly light yet stiff. Then you see us unpacking the new mattress.
Essentially, you unwrap all the plastic and the mattress magically expands to form, well, a mattress.
First impression
Our old mattress was that hard-as-a-rock RV model with a three-inch foam topper. It worked okay. This new mattress feels firmer than what we’re typically used to, but the cover and materials you touch are really nice.
One of the things I can’t generally do is lie on a mattress on my back for very long. Typically this results in significant pain if I do it for more than ten minutes. So I usually get in bed and almost immediately roll over onto my side.
Once we had the new mattress in place I stretched out on it and was fiddling around with my phone. Eventually, I realized that I had been lying there for quite some time and was concerned about my back, but there was no reason for concern. No pain, no pinch.
Promising.
Snore test
Of course, the full test is sleeping on the mattress. Both my wife and I found it to be very comfortable. Despite the initial impression that it was firmer than what we were used to, it seems that the mattress has some slow-moving give to it.
The bottom line is that both of us really liked the sleep experience of this bed.
That’s saying something, as we have a sleep number bed at home and our “numbers” are quite different. Peggy likes to sleep on a rock, and I on a cloud. But this one mattress served both of us very well.
Other considerations
One of the things that can bother me is the smell of some products. For example, when I was selling RVs there were models I just wouldn’t go into anymore due to the strong chemical smell in them.
I was concerned that something that ships like this would have a smell to it, but I didn’t detect any. I didn’t feel the need to air out the mattress at all to get rid of unpleasant odors—there just weren’t any. This is saying something, as I have to wash new clothes before I can wear them as there is just an unpleasant smell that I don’t like.
The bottom line
Would I recommend this mattress? Absolutely. I also like that the company has the mattress chooser tool to help you choose what’s appropriate for you.
GhostBed also offers some of the odd sizes that some RVs need, including short queens and short kings. The mattress we got is certainly heavier than the one we took out. But when you combine the foam topper and the mattress that came out of our trailer, this one’s not far off in weight.
I am also a fan of supporting U.S.-based companies that make stuff here. GhostBed checks that box, as well.
Of course, the obvious challenge is comparing this to any other mattress out there. I am only able to compare this to our previous RV bed, the bed we had at home, and any mattresses I’ve experienced in hotels. I think this does compare well to all those experiences.
This is a much better experience
While we previously found the combination of the torture mattress plus the foam topper to be acceptable in the trailer, this is a much better experience.
I also have been told that foam-based mattresses tend to feel hot. We have been testing this in July 2022 in Colorado, where the daytime temps have been in the 90s and nights cool down to an acceptable 70-ish. In testing this, we never ran the trailer’s AC so I could check on the heat factor. I can report that GhostBed’s claim that these mattresses sleep cool seems to be true.
Further, the company offers a 101-night trial. So if you go through the process of picking a mattress that fits your preferences, get it into your RV (or home) and don’t like it, there are no consequences.
I’m always honest with you, no matter what
As mentioned above, I did get this mattress from GhostBed to write this story. But I’m always honest with you all when this happens and also forewarn the company that if I don’t like the product, I’m going to share that with you.
Here’s the tell on this. I like this mattress enough that, when we do get a new house (assuming someone finally buys our darned house in California), I will get a GhostBed mattress for that house.
As mentioned, we had a Sleep Number bed and, in the process of moving, left it in the garage for a couple of days where the community cats rendered it unusable. So we knew we had to buy a new mattress when we got a new house. This is the one we both agree is worth spending our own hardly-earned money on.
If you want a GhostBed of your own, you can use the code RVTravel for 31% off your mattress. Click here to learn more.
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Fortunately, for us we started RVing back in 08 and bought an Americana 5th wheel. It was way ahead of it’s time and came with many amenities that other manufacturers came out with years later. One thing was it had a Sleep-air mattress that had separate control for each side allowing you to adjust the firmness to fit your comfort. (Americana has since ended since the owner retired.) We still have our Americana 2007 15 years later and still going strong. Very well built back then.
We replaced the RV king mattress in our Montana with a foam queen. We had put a 3 inch egg shell foam topper on it which helped. We cut the platform down – about 4-1/2″ on each side – to fit the queen. We needed the room around the bed Our mattress is a 10 inch memory foam bed in a box. Not a Ghost bed but similar design. We have had it for almost 2 years and spent many nights – well over 6 months on it and we are very pleased with the sleep quality as well as the mattress quality.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006LAK9A4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Just a thought. We became landlocked when our truck was stolen from a body shop. Long story! not the subject here. In a rented house in SC, my wife purchased a similar (but NOT A GHOSTBED!!!) rolled mattress; it started out just like Tony describes, very nice, indeed. However, we’ve slept on it for about 2 years now, and there are disappointments; a ‘mountain’ between us in the less used (but very important!) area in the middle, and softer areas where we sit down first and lie down most. Sitting on that part, and sitting on the end are now different experiences. The ‘cocoons’ are mostly comfortably form fitting but somewhat restrictive – e.g. my butt goes ‘up hill’ if I slide over to move my knees to my chest, and I slowly slide down if I sit against my pillow to read. Not really bad (as the trailer mattress), but not perfect any longer. What I’d like to see is a REASSESSMENT of the (and any) MATTRESS AFTER 2 OR 3 YEARS. That’s a little sooner than I’d like to need a new one.
Sounds like Tony needs to do a long term review of this in a few years.
Sound like someone needs to rotate and flip a mattress from time to time.
We have a similar problem with our mattress after 4 years. It’s not a matter of “flipping and rotating” These types of mattresses can ONLY be rotated. They are not made to be Flipped at all. The cover that is made into the mattress only covers 1 side of the mattress.