For the first time since we've had kids, my husband and I decided to go camping with the whole family. I've always wanted a nice big tent since I've only been tent camping once in my life previously. We decided on getting the Coleman WeatherMaster 7 person screened tent. We purchased our tent from Costco for $116.99 (a great deal)!
I loved the size (17'x9')! It is also very feature rich. It has several roll down windows, a hinged door, and a screened porch!
Before we actually used it to camp in, we did a practice run to make sure we could set it up with no problems and to make sure there were no defects with the tent. My husband hates putting up these kind of tents, but he let me buy it anyways because I had to have it. We had a good family friend help set it up with us (since he was going to be on the camping trip with us too). I left the two men to do their business and set up the tent, only to come out to have to help them figure out how to set it up...sometimes you really just need a woman's touch. The tent was easy enough to set up (with the right directions from a woman). The poles are marked and you just have to put them together and slide them through some slots on the top of the tent. At the bottom of the tent, near the base of each set of poles, there's a pin you have to slip into the bottom of the poles in order for the poles to remain standing. You have to start raising the tent by assembling the poles that are 2nd from the front (porch area), then you do the 3rd set of poles then the front and back poles. For some reason if you don't start with the 2nd set of poles, it's impossible to get the pins in the holes.
Once the tent is raised, there's a little bag that has all of the metal strips that you slip into the window coverings that help them roll up and down with ease. This is a VERY cool feature. For the hinged door feature, there are some corded tent poles you fit in the door. The door stays closed with a velcro feature or you can zip it shut.
The thing I loved most about the tent was the hinged door. It was so easy to get in and out of our tent with it. I didn't realize how much I liked it until we bought another tent without a hinged door and suffered through all of the zipper problems. You see, we camped with an 8 year old, 4 year old and a 15 month old. My youngest would nap during the day and if we needed anything from the tent, we could quietly get in and out without him every knowing. The next time we camped with a zippered door tent, the sound of the clanking zippers and the loud zipping noise would wake him up AND on top of that the zippers would frequently get caught in the tent material. It made us really appreciate the hinged door feature.
The tent is attractive looking, spacious and packs neatly into a duffle bag that has the instructions sewn into it. The kids love that there's two rooms (there's actually 3 rooms if you want to use a divider, which is included). I would definitely recommend buying this tent or a tent like this from Coleman.
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