I've been camping since I was a teenager in the scouts, and I've never really had a very comfortable night out. As an adult with a girlfriend, 20 years later, I'd like to just throw some money at the issue and be done with it and have ourselves a comfortable bed for car camping. ("Car camping" meaning we will have the car next to the campsite and don't care about weight or size much.)
This Memorial Day weekend, we went out with a few other couples, and I don't think a single person had a successful sleep. We brought a feather bed as an experiment and it was pretty terrible, feeling only slightly better than the ground (warm though). Other people spent 30-60 minutes fussing with getting their air beds inflated, and then they leaked or went flat by the morning. I've used self-inflating Thermarest pads and I'm sure those are the best for backpack camping but they aren't great and they get quite expensive once you start buying two of the XL ones.
Are there other choices I'm missing? Or is there an air mattress option that isn't fussy and frustrating?