Wenzel Blue Ridge Tent, Red, 7 Person

This was purchased for a car camping trip to the Northwest. After setting it up only a few times the poles began to split length wise. I will spare you the rig-a-ma-role I went through to get the '10 year warranty' honored and simply quote from the last email I was sent by the Wenzel representative."I have shipped you a new set of poles for your Blue Ridge tent and they will arrive in 3-4 business days. Please remember in the future that the Wenzel tent is meant for backyard camping in great weather. We do not warranty the tents or poles for any weather related events."The Wenzel tent apparently is nothing more than a stupidly expensive backyard play tent. This also contradicts the description given on both Amazon and the Wenzel website; "Perfect for camping with a group, the roomy Blue Ridge 7-person tent is a great companion no matter where you decide to set it up"False advertising anyone? I have replaced it for next season with a tent from a more reputable company. I absolutely do NOT recommend this tent for any use you can get a much less expensive department store tent to play in.

Just for some background, I have a tent made by Wenzel from 2003 that is still going so I had high hopes for another good tent. That is not the case with this one. When I received the tent I decided to set it up in my house since I had extra space, that's when I realized this tent is not freestanding, you have to have it staked out in order for it to remain upright. It will just keep falling over from side to side if you don't. This means if you don't have a backyard and need to setup your tent in your driveway or garage to clean it out, you will not be able to do this. And I wouldn't trust this tent if you are staking it down in sand either. The only guy wires are on the rain fly, nothing attaching to the actual tent itself.A couple days after the initial attempt at setup, we had a rain storm coming so I thought this would be a great opportunity to make sure it's watertight before I take it out to the forest. Well I staked it out and then put the poles in. There were some odd things I noticed right away with the first setup that aren't going to work for a tent.The two middle poles should have been in an "X" pattern instead of parallel, that would have eliminated a few of the problems with this tent.Pros:- It actually fits back in the bag- The rain fly had taped seamsCons:- Not freestanding (X pattern on middle poles would have prevented this)- I could not get the material taut in the middle. (X pattern on middle poles would have prevented this)- The sleeves for the outside poles is split into 2 pieces making a gap in the middle, hence another place for the poles to get snagged on while setting up or tearing down. The middle sleeves were one piece so not sure why they did this.- The middle poles go from a large diameter down to a smaller one at the ends. This one puzzles me, I have no idea why the majority of the weight bearing poles would go from thick to thin.- The end poles were too long and stretched the tent corners a little too much. It ripped my stakes out of the ground and seemed really close to ripping the stitching out.- I had an extra 6-8 inches of extra flooring material at the corners of the tent. I don't know if this is due to the poles being too long for the tent or the floor not being the correct size. The extra flooring is shown in my picture and the sidewall corner stitching is stretched to the max.The biggest problem with this tent.... IT LEAKS!!!! After a 2 hour light rain there were puddles in every single spot that had a stake or pole. Nothing inside the tent was seam taped and there is a seam going around the entire tent about 18 inches up from the bottom and not covered by the rain fly. My old tent had every single seam taped even ones covered by the fly. Even the stitching on the flooring wasn't seam taped on this tent.Oh, I almost forgot.... And just for extra piece of hatred for this terrible tent, when you go to open the door all the water that is sitting on top of the rain fly runs off directly over the front of the tent and onto your back. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. It's a good thing I was only in my backyard and it wasn't cold rain.Wenzel missed the mark on this one. It's a shame their quality isn't what it was 20 years ago. I bought this tent strictly because of the good experience with my other Wenzel tent.

Adequate tent and a great size but the poles snap very easily, even from the very first outing. For starters, the rain fly pole that goes over the door is just WAY too long and when you try and bend it to fit in the metal grommets, it snaps. I removed one section from that pole and it is way better.The shorter of the 4 main poles also snaps too easily. It seems like all of the poles are about 1-3" too long so the flexing stress placed on them when setting up just makes them snap. We had one pole snap and we sleeved it only to have it snap below the repair. Not good.It's a shame because the tent is a great size for our family and all of our gear. But the tent is not fun to setup or take down so for a one night trip it really feels excessive. I guess that's what you get for the price. We're thinking of getting custom aluminum poles for the tent but it might be wiser to spend that money on getting something more durable and easier to setup.The pole snapping thing must be an issue because their customer services says they are months away from having replacements. Glad camping season is just about over until we get our tent situation resolved.

We've had a few tents in the past that have last for years and years, but wanted a new one to match our family needs space-wise.At first it was okay: spacious, extra room divider, etc. We had minor leaks during rain, but nothing serious. Set up, like others have said, require staking down first.Now for the long-term durability...We use this tent on two or three camping trips per year and are gentle with it. Holes developed in the pole sleeves probably at year one. The first pole snapped at year three. We called and got it replaced. On year four, three more poles snapped, and the zipper stopped zipping no matter how many times we worked to fix it.This has been a good family tent, but was hoping it would last more than four years. It's now going in the trash. :(

We used this tent on a Yellowstone trip and found it worked quite nicely. Setup takes a little time and skill, but once up it is very sturdy. We were able to have two adults with cots, and could have easily had at least one more. It is nice, however, to have plenty of room for gear, tables, chairs, etc. I did have a little leakage during the rain. Just a small amount, but annoying. The water seems to wick through a sewn in label in one corner.If you are serious about camping, you are going to want to buy some good stakes and the included set is kind of wimpy.After two trips now, we have no damage and the tent is ready for more.

We went for a week to France, a mix of lovely sunny weather and torrential downpour. The tent was easy to put up (myself and my 10-year old daughter), and take down, and a relatively small package for the huge interior size. It is a very well designed tent and perfectly constructed, not a single flaw that we could find. After two days of almost non-stop rain, there were some damp spots inside, where it was starting to leak where items were pressed against the fabric. Highly recommended for a family trip.

Given the enormous size of this behemoth, it is extremely light and very simple to put up/take down. Once it's up it's stable and sturdy - we used it once as a 'fort' for a bunch of 2-4 year olds who were throwing themselves at the walls and it handled them just fine. Another plus is the amount of ventilation you get through both the roof and the end windows, and being able to take the roof off is a masterstroke. It heats up inside under the sun, just as any other tent does, but you certainly feel the benefit of having the openings when they let a light breeze in.It's not the best tent in the world when it encounters rain. I've had it up twice in moderate rain and woken up with some leakage around the door and end windows, nothing too drastic but enough for a little harumph. You'll need to plan ahead with a towel or newspaper to put inside the door for taking your mucky boots off too. We once had to take it down while it was really teeming down and that was a disaster. Given that when it loses the structure afforded to it by the poles, the huge opening in the roof of the tent gets exposed, this meant that by the time we were ready to fold up the tent there was a fair puddle sloshing around inside and it was not easy to get that water out without a multiple-man operation flipping and tipping a wet, heavy, cumbersome tent.I got this tent for around £120-130, can't remember exactly, but for that price it's a steal. If you get this then obviously the main thing your going for is size on a budget, and on that front you can't go wrong.

did not arrive despite lots of messages, not worth a star at all, but you have to give one!

Used this weekend. Very easy to pitch. Great size. Held up extremely well to high winds and major down pour. Very pleased with my purchase and fits back in to it's bag easily. Definetly recommendef.

Realmente excelente producto, no estorboso y facil de armar. Pero se necesitan 4 personas para volver a guardar. Muy satisfecho. Como consejo, mientras mas grande mas frio en las madrugadas. Asi que tiene buen tamaño sin ser ostentosa como otras de 3 habitaciones. Recomendado de verdad. Entran 2 colchones inflables twin y hay mas espacio. Todo el techo tiene ventilacion para que no sude por las noches pero ojo porque se pueden volver un poco fria