I received this tent as a birthday present last april in anticipation of a long camping trip. I set the tent up in my backyard for two days prior to the trip to make sure I could set it up solo. It was a bit tricky to get up alone (especially the fly), but simple with two people. When I took the tent down after just two days in my yard, a couple of the main support poles had bent near the connectors at the apex of the tent. The slim pole for the awning of the fly had snapped at the connector point. This made me a bit apprehensive about the ability of these poles to survive my 33-day camping adventure.
During the long trip the tent performed very well in numerous ways. It was dry despite almost daily rainstorms (summertime in florida). The only area that sometimes got wet was the area in the front of the screen room where the zippers come together. Despite using the footprint, water made it's way in near the doorway.
The tent is quite spacious. Due to the dome construction the peak height was only able to be taken advantage of in the screen room. Because I was using an air matress, I wasn't able to stand up in the main tent area. Despite this, I found the size of the tent to be more than adequate, but I was camping alone in it.
The tent was very well ventilated when the three zipper flaps on the fly were rolled up, but quite hot when these were closed.
My only real complaint was the poles. During a rather windy rainstorm two of the support poles snapped (the fiberglass broke off in the metal connector tube). I used pvc pipe and duct tape to fix them for the rest of the trip. I then had to put both the broken poles on the bottom part of the intersections, as they would not fit through the sleeve of the top part. Before the end of the trip the other pole for the main tent area also snapped. Luckily the pvc reinforced pole beneath it kept it supported enough to stay up for the last week. All in all, by the end of my first camping trip using this tent 3 of the 4 support poles, and 1 of the 2 rainfly poles had snapped in half. I have since read this complaint in a number of reviews. This is why I would not recommend this tent to anyone. If it weren't for the poles I would LOVE this tent, but as it is I will be returning it.
I am a brand new camper and bought this tent because of the LL Bean name and quality. I was able to set this tent up with just myself (at 5 feet tall) and my 6 year old! We had a ton of room and the tent stayed nice and dry even when it rained. Even though it says 6 person it really is a comfortable 4 person tent with a nice screened in additional room. It was very easy to set up and take down. We are excited for our next trip with our tent!
We love this tent! Every time we've gone camping there has been a storm but this has kept us dry every time. We love sitting on the "porch" and watching the storms....dry! The "porch" really helps with keeping the inside clean too. We bought the footprint and it makes a good floor to the "porch". GREAT TENT!!
We bought this tent after extensive research, despite consistent comments in other reviews about pole fragility. We have an excellent four-season backpacking tent, but we wanted a tent that we could live in for almost three weeks during an extended trip to Oregon and Washington. Our first campsite was overlooking the Columbia River Gorge, close to the Hood River, where average winds of more than 35 mph make the area one of the best for windsurfing. It was with trepidation that we set up our new tent; however, the tent performed admirably. For four days it stood directly in the wind, including one day of very high winds and thunderstorms. Properly staked, the sides of the tent and the rain fly did not flap, and there was no buckling or damage to the poles at all. We pitched this tent on the north side of the Olympic Peninsula and on the Oregon Coast, as well, and we found that it stood up to heavy winds, rain, and nighttime temps just above freezing. We loved it! We were warm and dry every night, and after two setups could pitch this tent in under ten minutes, including footprint, fly, and stakes.
I agree with several other reviewers about the awning, or "overhang" pole's design flaw. Although we have not yet experienced any pole damage, it is necessary to bend the poles to an extreme degree -- especially the awning pole -- in order to set up the tent. LL Bean redesigned this tent's rainfly based on previous concerns about lack of coverage over the screen room. Maybe they will consider a redesign of the poles, as well. Also, other reviewers have mentioned issues with the zippers, and we found the multiple zippers for screens and doors a bit frustrating at night after removing glasses/contacts, because they all have the same color pulls. Other elements of this tent are color-coded to make set-up easy; making screen pulls one color and door pulls another would fix this frustration easily. As for complaints that zippers sometimes don't meet horizontally, we found that staking the tent directly over the footprint to avoid stretching the floor and sides solves this problem.
We can't wait to go camping again, just to use this tent!
