Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

We bought this tent in July in anticipation of our first camping trip in 5 years. To say my spouse is a reluctant camper is an understatement, so I did whatever I could think of (short of renting a furnished cottage) to make our week on the coast of Maine comfortable. I had been reading the comments about this tent for about a year before we decided for sure that we'd be camping this summer. Wish I'd gone for it in early summer, when Coleman was running a $20 rebate program! Oh, well. We practiced raising the tent one time before leaving home. In the hot sun, it took us a few minutes of frustration to figure out how to get all the arms extended, but really it wasn't too bad. Knocking it down wasn't bad either -- we managed to get it back into the case without opening up the gusset for extra space. Fast forward a week -- we sure were glad we had done a dry run as we raced the sunset to arrive at the campground. Setup went very fast. We used a tarp underneath (smaller than the footprint of the tent, as recommended by some of the commenters here), but that was it -- no seam-sealing or other prep. Someone else posted this week about using the tent for 2 people -- honestly, we were happy to have all that space for just the two of us, and couldn't imagine sharing it! It's spacious, but we liked the elbow room. To give an idea of how much room there was, we used a double-high, queen-size air mattress, and had plenty of room to walk on either side. I had little nightstands on either side of the bed as well. I also had a 4'x6' rug (from Ikea, in case you're interested) in the front area of the tent. I'll see if I can post a photo. We had only one day of rain that week, but it was torrential. Storms kept blowing through the area, so it rained hard, on and off, for hours. We had been out all day -- when we got back, we noticed that there had been a small leak. The vulnerable spot seemed to be where the curtain/room divider was sewn into the roof of the tent. We didn't have a fly, but we had staked the tent out as taut as we could, and that was the only moisture issue we experienced. Never noticed condensation inside the tent, even though we were by the coast and mornings could be damp. We were among pine trees, so it was easy to put the stakes in, but I was glad that we at least had a few longer spikes for the four corners of the tent, and a mallet. That kit that Coleman sells is actually kind of nice -- we asked for it in our wedding registry. It comes with four of the sturdier stakes, the mallet and a stake puller, plus a cute broom and dustpan. It all came in handy. Coleman Tent Kit One result of all that rain -- even though the tarp was much smaller than the footprint of the tent, a lot of water got trapped between the tarp that the underside of the tent. We discovered it at the end of the week, when we were dismantling the tent. But we never had any moisture underfoot, inside the tent. The bottom material must have been very well coated. The person who commented about needing both hands free to get in and out of the tent -- we experienced that as one of the major annoyances of the tent. It's the reason I gave it 4 stars and not 5. We wanted to keep it zipped, to keep out the mosquitoes, but every time we wanted to bring something into or out of the tent, it was hard to juggle it while holding onto the bottom of the zipper with one hand and raising the zipper tab with the other. Quite a pain, as our daily routine required many entrances and exits. Maybe next time we'll be a little less obsessive about keeping it sealed, since the zipper is protected by a nice, heavy flap with a few sturdy patches of Velcro along its length. Putting the tent back into the bag, with the bottom all wet and muddy, was a lot harder than when we did it the first time, when all was clean and dry. We didn't want to touch it and get our clothes all dirty, but you do have to kind of get down to roll it, and show it who's boss. It's a lot of work, IMO. That was where my "glamping" concept got a reality check! Looking forward to using it again, and I hope I won't have to wait 5 years! Also hope we don't experience the parts failures that others have described, or at least that Coleman will have come up with a suitable fix by then. It's worrisome to hear that these things can break, apparently for no good reason.