Yes you'll need a groundsheet, we also had ecomat for the big awning as it's soft under foot but the wet comes through it. We used a proper dinner service to start with (in fact I'm still using some of it at home!) but I got fed up with packing it away and eventually bought a lovely melamine set. You can get some funky designs now rather than the old fashioned flowers and patterns. It was easier to just leave it in the top lockers. Going away was supposed to be a break and there was no way I was going to make work lol.