Ozark Trail 16x16-Feet 12-Person 3 Room Instant Cabin Tent with Pre-Attached Poles

Great Family size tent. We have used it a lot and it has been through several thunder storms and stayed dry and kept us dry also. Plenty of room and nice set up.

The media could not be loaded. Huge wonderful tent, just the size I needed for a big family. I was excited to find big storage pockets inside. See picture of pockets. I was also happy to see that I don't have to spray water proofing on the tent, in fact the instructions say to not, that the waterproofing was already done in manufacturing.Unboxing I was disappointed by the amount of cardboard used to package it, even after I thought all the cardboard was off, there was a piece of cardboard taped around each joint.I was surprised that the windows do not have ties to roll the open flap into, so they hang loose down when open, see picture. I was also surprised that the windows do not unzip all the way to the bottom of the mesh, see picture from the outside with a fully unzipped window. Not a big deal about the windows but surprising.I was able to get it to fit in the back of a very small car (Prius picture for reference) but one seat had to be folded down, big tent is too long for the small car back otherwise.First time take down by myself took only 15min to get everything back in the bag, see time lapse video. I did have to unzip the secondary expansion zipper on the bag, that is very helpful.After quite a few uses this summer, a small black piece popped off when folding it away. I took a picture of it and where it snaps right into the top as a joint cover. Not a big deal.

So I bought this tent to camp with my 4 kids. We've owned an Ozark Trail tent in the past and it held up for 3 summers (probably 30 camping trips, including wind, rain and a tornado a mile away) So my expectations of this tent were high. I bought the Instant because hey, who doesn't like less hassle when putting up the tent?The set up: The directions are not clear. There are no words, just pictures you have to try and decipher. After finally getting it up we did not put the rain fly on as it was gorgeous outside.The sleep: had plenty of room for the air mattresses plus bags. Kids liked having their own entrance. We liked the extra little area outside the door that provided some shade. When I laid down and was able to look out the screened door and just see stars and lake, that was awesome. I was digging the new tent!The weather: Around 7am my phone started giving alerts to rain rolling in. I jumped up and had my oldest help me get the rain fly on. While attaching it I though "hmmm, that's weird. Usually they attach to the pole and then you stake them down" This rain fly attaches to the tent, in a little loop, sewed into the seam, then you stake it down. So we get them all hooked up and staked. The wind is blowing but nothing too bad. Rain comes in, so far everyone is dry. Winds about 20 mph, nothing my old tent hadn't weathered before and I had high expectations for this one! My kiddo inside says "mom, something is hitting the tent" I walk to the back corner and see that the stake had come loose and the rope was hitting the tent. So I grab the rope about the time a gust of wind (25-30mph) comes thru and rips 1-the rope out of my hand and 2-it ripped the tent. That weird hook for the rainfly? Yeah, it ripped right a that point, all the way up the seam. The corner of the tent just flapping in the wind.I am so disappointed. This tent was not worth the money. I expected much more, especially for the money that was spent. I strongly advise against anyone purchasing this tent! There was no reason for it to rip. The other tents around us held up well. This one is poorly designed!

The good stuff first - the main reason we bought this tent was for the space. Especially during rain, having sleeping stuff separate from where we are trying to hang out with three kids was a must and this delivers. The shaded corner is a plus as well, as is the large windows. The learning curve for set up is I think similar to other tents, once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy. I will say, be careful, if you bend a pole or break something you can't replace it. Especially extending the two arms, our first try we had real issues with it, I think mostly because you have to extent them at the same time (if you extend one before the other, it makes the angle just off enough to make extending the second one hard). Don't get frustrated and try to force it, just collapse both and try again. In terms of weather, this held up great through three nights and a day of some very heavy down pores. The wind wasn't fierce so I can't speak to that, but we didn't have leaks, except a little bit in two of the corners on the ground. I should also preface this by saying I put the tent in a bad place (the low place on the campsite where the water was running off to). but the less than one cup of water collecting in the corner was very manageable, especially given the rain we had. One other positive, this tent went back into the bag in came in easier than I thought.So, the downsides. My husband is not fond of the all in one nature of the construction. Again, if you break a pole the whole tent is trash. Also, hard to clean underside off as you can't just lay it out and flip it over. In hindsight, an undertarp would solve both that problem and the bit of water we had. The other downside is the rainfly and airflow. My husband used this tent and the conditions were just right so that condensation happened on the underside of the fly. Because the ceiling is all mesh, as soon as someone jostled the poles, all the condensation dropped down into the tent, which made for a rude awakening. We didn't have this issue the second time, in part I think because it was warmer at night, and also we did use some battery operated fans to move air, because it was so warm and we had to have fly on for rain. With the fly on, you can have the windows down a few inches (unless the wind is really blowing the rain) so airflow isn't bad, with windows all the way down or fly off, airflow is great.