This turned out to be a GREAT purchase. The tent is HUGE, well made and looks fantastic, especially at night where it glows with a soft warm light when lit from within. The outdoor screen room is large and spacious and the inside is MASSIVE. There is a central atrium with a very tall ceiling and a wing on the right and left side that each fit a queen air mattress with some space to spare. The wings also have ceilings that allow for standing upright. On the backside there is another wing with a slanted "stargazing" mesh roof that can fit another queen mattress. This room would be great to leave open if you enjoy seeing your surroundings, it can also be completely covered. We ended up making the back room a storage and changing room since it has a pulldown cover for privacy. The tent was absolutely perfect for two people and a lot of gear. You could easily sleep 4 on two mattresses plus tons of gear and space to congregate or very comfortably sleep 6 on three mattresses with some common area.
One thing to note is that the tent only has a privacy sheet for the back room, the other two wings are open and can't be closed up into separate rooms unless you make your own wall.
The tent did take some time to set up, but now that I know how to do it, I could get it up in probably 15 min easily. The main thing is that you MUST pull the main section (left and right wings and common area) taught and stake the four corners first before doing anything else. Make sure you bring a mallet and a good metal hammer and be prepared for firm ground if your campsite has that (ours did and it was very tough setting the stakes without a metal hammer). After that, assembling and popping up the four main support ribs that hold up the main section is a breeze. It's just necessary to have the corners staked down well first because the tent relies on the tension from the corners to keep the middle section taught. There are two other poll supports, one for the front and one for the rear that go up in maybe a minute each.
There was some light/medium wind and a rain storm that lasted about an hour and a half while we were set up. The tent handled both beautifully. The ribs/poles of the tent are large and made of rigid metal, when the tent is staked properly and the fabric is pulled over the poles the tent barely moves in light/medium wind despite it's size. It's definitely not meant for consistently rough weather but light weather events should be no problem.
Taking the tent down and packing it up was a breeze, we were able to do it with two people in less than 10 minutes, it was almost as fast as other people in our party who had "instant" pop up tents. In the future setting up the tent should be a breeze now that I know the importance of staking and remember how the poles are situated. The poles use a color coding system that makes things very easy once you realize it's there.
Overall so so happy with this purchase. It's an excellent value for the price!
