Your opinions, please: COMO 8 Person Tunnel Tent

[spacejunk]

Hello,

I am new to the forums and (somewhat) new to camping in general. My kids (ages 6 and 10) have a little experience under our belts now and I'm looking to upgrade us from a 6 person dome tent to something bigger that might even accommodate mom should the stars align and she decide to join us .

Two big things we discovered we needed: better shelter for our stuff, and some space to comfortably wait out rain showers. The Outwell brand of tunnel tents from the UK look completely awesome and fit the bill, but they are -- from what I can tell -- not really available in the US, and very expensive.

Tents by The Camping Equipment Company look like they might be a bit more down to earth price-wise, and available in the US, but I can't find anything about them. Does anyone here have experience with them? I'm looking general thoughts on built quality, and rain protection, but I'd love your thoughts on this sort of layout as well.


Thanks!

Phil

[wedgies]

Re: Your opinions, please: COMO 8 Person Tunnel Tent

I purchased this tent to replace a much smaller one. Generally 4 of us go camping, but with a lot of equipment so I like to have a lot of room for storage and to move around.
I am 5’8” and had plenty of head room. We setup a 36” square card table and chairs in the middle and still had plenty of room to move around without getting in each other’s way. This was nice and negated the need to bring up our popup gazebo.
The instructions provided for setting up the tent look like something created by an 8 year old with a dark crayon pencil. It took quite a while to figure out how to set it up properly and I was glad we did a dry run at a local park rather than up in the mountains on an actual trip. The tent has a lot of components and sets up different than a normal Coleman or main line tent you’d buy a Dick’s, Walmart or Gander Mountain.
Once we figured out how to setup the tent, the second time was very easy. We found staking one side down to the ground made it easier to set up on a windy day. The tent comes with both the heavy yellow plastic tent stakes, and the skinny metal pole style stakes. I ended up purchasing more of the yellow tent stakes at Walmart and forgoing the metal ones provided as they tended to bend or twirl around and not stay secure.
The detachable floor tub for the main living area is a nice touch, however, for the tent I received it was a few inches too small so I had to use short lengths of bungee cord to attach the floor properly to the rain fly to keep it taught, and the walls of the tub upright. If I had used the clips that come standard, I think the floor seems around the edge would have ripped out eventually from walking near the edges due to the tightness.
It is important to make sure none of the lips or edges of the inner tent components are poking outside of the rainfly or water will get in. We were not mindful of this for the center main floor tub, and water leaked in because the tub wall on one side had laid flat during the night because we didn’t clip it at first due to the aforementioned.
It rained and was very windy the first night, and other than the previously mentioned tub floor issue, the tent stayed dry and held up extremely well.
The fly is heavy and made well and did not leak.
The zippers for doorways and windows seem very durable.
The two main doors do not have a screen option, so in the heat of the day if you want to use the tent, but keep the bugs out you have to close the doors completely.
The sleeping pods have screens and provide nice bug free areas. I would say with all your equipment, 7 people could sleep comfortable in this tent if you only used the sleeping pods and reserved the main area as a living/gaming/storage room.
The bag to store the tent is basically useless to me. It’s like a large rectangle sack with a huge opening, and difficult to maneuver or keep closed. I opted to use another bag that zippered shut and was made of a heavier material I had from my own belongings.
Make sure to have either several battery powered lanterns, or keep the windows open and turn up a propane lantern all the way to get enough lighting. Due to the height and overall size of this tent I found a single LED lantern barely provided enough lighting.
I am generally very happy with this tent and hope to get several years usage out of it.
I would recommend purchasing it, but opt for a better storage bag to protect your investment.