Congrats Hivey sailer!
You ordered the latest version of our 2007 2350 on the Ford E350. We too have the fixed dinette with no slide-out and my wife and I are both extremely pleased with that decision. You will greatly appreciate the extra storage from the benches as well as the huge over-head cabinets. The dinette itself is also quite nice. The table is a good size for two and plenty of space for the meal and extras as well. Not so if the dinette was in a slide-out.
Here are other things we had the factory do for us with our 2350 and we loved the results.
1) We had the factory mount the subwoofer for the stereo in the front-most dinette bench, as far from the bed as possible. That sub box is typically mounted under the bed in the outdoor storage compartment. Relocating the subwoofer greatly improved the ever-precious outdoor storage compartment space. It also allows one person to sleep better if the other stays up to watch TV.
2) We had the ladder and roof rack NOT mounted to the motor home at all, but rather had the factory place that stuff inside in pieces. I felt them ugly, flimsey, and dangerous to use. The ladder gets in the way of opening the rear storage, and they both add many holes into the rear cap and roof. The parts are stored at home, in-case I ever change my mind. Three years later and I have no regrets. I use a free standing ladder to clean the roof of the RV.
3) I highly advise to GET the thermal pane window option. They make a huge improvement for a comfortable quiet night sleep. They are warm in cold weather, and cool in hot weather. You will be sleeping next to two huge windows. Single panes will radiate outside temps, but the thermals will not. They also make the RV much more quiet on the open road as well as in noissy camp grounds. Passing trucks are so much less a noise irritation. In campgrounds at night, crying children in the tent next door are no issue. Being "Slide-Free" with thermal windows, your RV will be like sleeping in a Thermos bottle. Ours retains the heat well on cold nights. We camped a few times at high altitude in the summertime where temps would get down into the 40s. Our furnace ran only 3 times overnight.
4) Get the leather dinette bench seats, not the cloth like we did. The cloth prevents us from easily sliding in and out, and the material wrinkles & bunches up from sliding across the seat bottoms. I recently priced leather bench seats from Phoenix USA, but my wife doesn't want to spend the $400 plus shipping. So I'll be wineing about them forever.
5) Get the undocumented color matching dinette window awning. It's great. It cools down the RV from the heat of the sun and allows the window to be open on a rainy day.
6) Get the 14' main awning, not the 12'. Our 14' covers completely over our bedroom window which benefits the same as the dinette awning. Our box awning can also be partially opened a foot or so for protection from rain on a calm day, allowing us to open the kitchen and bedroom windows without fully deploying the awning. We do that a lot. I assume the newer motorized awnings can also do that.
7) We got the full body paint job which has made it so very easy to wash and keep the RV looking clean. Our old RV had the white raw gel coat fiberglass. What a hopeless case to keep it looking clean as the RV aged.
8) Look for my post in the Tips & Tricks section of this website, called "Improvements and enhancements". You will find it useful.
9) You can see the fixed dinette you ordered in the "Pictures" section. There are only two posts so it is very easy to find it.
10) Some people got the undocumented closet & desk in place of the barrel chair we have. We like our barrel chair, but maybe you'd like the closet better. The desk is utilized by the passenger seat swiveled 180 degrees.
11) If you plan to do a lot of dry camping (no hook-ups) like we do in remote areas, I advise to consider investing in the expensive diesel generator. Propane is precious when dry camping, and the propane generator will eat it up. If in remote areas, getting propane can be a challenge. No propane means no fridge, no stove, no hot water, no furnace, no genertaor which means no a/c, no 110v, then soon becomes dead batteries. If you run out of propane, the entire RV quickly becomes dead.
If you are an RV-Park person, then the popular lower priced propane generator is no issue for the few times you use it.
12) We mixed interior colors, getting a sagemint green interior, but requested gray leather captain chairs to break-up the monotiny inside and color coordinate with the gray exterior paint job. My wife loved doing that.
You can see much of what I discussed by visiting my fliker site by clicking on this link.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37432012@N08/sets/ADDING: I am partial to the Ford-V10 chassis over the Sprinter.
The Sprinter provides roughly a 25% improvement in fuel economy over the Ford, if the Ford is driven and loaded the same. The Sprinter has a more comfortable driver compartment with improved leg room. But it has a down side as well.
- inflated purchase price by a whole lot
- much less horse power than the Ford-V10
- limited loading of people, water, gear, etc.
- limited towing ability
- limited mechanical service shops
- it comes with a propane generator or you spend much more on a diesel generator
- diesel fuel costs more than regular gasoline
- a narrower rear axle which decreases stability
- the Sprinter diesel engine is not allowed to idle for extended periods which is detrimental when you need a/c but there are generator restrictions or you have generator or roof a/c failure. The Ford-V10 idles quiet and will pump out very cold dash a/c far into the 2350 cabin very effectively (I think even better and more quiet than the roof a/c), and you can safely idle the Ford-V10 until it runs out of gas. BTW: At idle, the V10 uses the same amount of fuel as the generator, so you have an economical a/c backup plan, especially valuable if you have pets or health issues.
- there are numerous aftermarket economical upgrades available for the Ford chassis to improve handling
