Five stars hands down!!! I recently used this 6-person tent for the first time at a four day camping and music festival.. On our way there it started pouring and i got a little nervous.. Then we arrived.. In the rain.. Set up was a BREEZE.. No problems with the poles bending or anything.. We waited out a pretty crazy thunderstorm and didn't get a DROP of water in the tent! Once it stopped we set up.. Two queen sized air mattresses fit side by side with room in between to walk and plenty of room at the foot of the mattresses for our gear.. In the screen porch we fit a very large cooler, a small table, an XL camping chair and a folding papasan chair.. And at one point during the rain we fit one more chair comfortably! Sleeping was amazing.. Even with the rain fly on and all zipped up the air flow was great.. One night we fell asleep with the screen porch door partially unzipped and only the screen doors zipped on the tent part and we still stayed dry and comfortable! Oh i almost forgot- NO BUGS!!! There were thunderstorms every night and we stayed comfortable and DRY!!! Other tents were blown away, crushed and filled with water.. I was truly amazed at the quality of the tent.. It was everything i expected from LL Bean and more!! All of out festival neighbors were very jealous and spent alot of time visiting!! Thank you LL Bean for a fantastic product that exceeded all my expectations!!! If anyone is looking for a comfortable, DRY, roomy, bug free tent and is even considering this tent i hope this helps make your decision :o)
After extensive research on finding the ideal family tent for my family of 3 plus a couple dogs, this was the pick by far! I was hesitant at first, due to the complaints of the poles breaking. I'm here to tell you, THE POLES ARE FINE! Take your time, use care, and follow the instructions. After setting the tent up and taking it down for the first time, the poles look brand new, no bends or cracks. A little suggestion when placing the second end of the small pole in either the yellow or the blue slot, push the slot/tent away from you in order to place the pole in the slot, rather than bend the pole toward you. Couldn't be happier!
This is a super design for a tent. It went up easy and the foot print went out under the screen porch area. After reading some of the reviews I was concerned about the rods but I found that if you make sure that everything is put together right there is nothing to worry about. The curve of the rod holding the rain defelector is tight but if care is taken in putting it up it works fine. We just set it up to get used to it before camping and were very impressed with it. Color coded clips make it easy to get it set up right, lots of indoor storage areas, easy tie backs for the doors or screens. Just a lot of all around good ideas. My wife and I are the only ones that will use it but it could hold 4 as long as you left your large items in the car. The only suggestion would be that it would be good to have velcor strips to attach the screen porch area to the ground cloth. Super design work!
Just used the tent for a trip in the Adirondacks and even though we had a lot of rain, the tent remained dry. One mistake we made was not zipping up the rear door window during a heavy down pour (yes, there are two doors which isn't made clear in the description). Even though the back outside flap was zipped up, some rain managed to get in. Zipping up the inner flap solved the problem. It's very spacious for two people plus gear but I can't see four people fitting inside comfortably. The "porch" was great - gave us protection from the rain and bugs as well as privacy. Set-up was easy because of the color coded sleeves.
