Hillary 10 Person Rio Grande 4 Room Family Dome Tent

Summary

Cheaply made tent.

Used tent for two camping trips, has 3 ripped seams, and 3 broken poles. cheap tent. my inexpensive tent from Kmart ( before Sears bought it), is better and still intact after 5 years.

I bought this tent on sale from Sears, for something around 100 bucks. I wanted a family tent for summer (hot weather) camping, so this tent with its ventilated roof looked like it would stay cool during warm days and nights; which it did quite well.

We camped about 11 nights in five different Rocky Mountain states in July and it did very well, even during several rain showers. I've read a bunch of reviews from people whining that it's leaky, however, we didn't really experience too severe of problems with several days of rain. We slept on cots which definitely helps.

Sure it leaks a little bit, but show me a tent that never leaks. . . . Uh, hate to break it to you, but there really isn't any such thing folks.

I am an avid outdoorsman and camp 10 to 12 nights a year during the fall and winter in an "almost leak proof" tent (Cabela's Alaknak II), but here's the catch, that tent costs around 6-times what the Hillary tent runs! Yep, $600 bucks! But even after a couple of days of rain, the floor of that $600 tent will get a few small puddles developing.

Pure and simple, you can treat the seams of any tent with sealer which helps, but anytime you get fabric that is sewn together, it WILL leak eventually.

The Hillary tent isn't as bad as what many say. It's a great hot/warm weather tent, and will keep you relatively dry if it isn't really windy. Basically, you get what you pay for. And for $100, it's a decent value.

Do NOT BUY THIS TENT!!

We bought it last year, and have used it twice. Last year went ok, just the divider hooks ripped off with very little pressure. The dividers are really TOO small for the opening, offering very little privacy. Okay, so I can sew the hooks back on or MAKE larger dividers.

THIS year was a different story. When we unpacked the tent we found that the shock cords for the poles had disintegrated. OK, so we went out and bought new cords and fixed the poles. What really frosts me is that, this year it rained. Not a heavy rain but steady. Our four boys might as well have been camping under a screen. Every seam, every corner, every door and window leaked. There was condensation? on every wall. Four boys, their sleeping bags, and ALL their belongings were soaked. We spent two days of our six day camping trip trying to correct the leaking, mopping up and then drying EVERYTHING! Our relaxing camping trip turned into a nightmare. Can you imagine camping with four soggy, tired, stressed out boys, age 9 to 15??? I cannot believe that ANYONE could possibly sell a camping tent, that would leak like this. Absolutely, totally unexceptable. (I am currently waiting for an E-mail response from Sears customer service)

We just bought ours and this was our first camping trip. I did not know anything about this model (no homework!) so it is a little late but I found out what doesn't work: the room dividers are a joke, if you hung a sheet, you'd have more privacy; the head clearance is poor, only in the very center is where you can stand and that is where the bed went; you can't stand in any of the side rooms; the floor plan has a stange pattern so I had a real hard time fitting the tarp for the floor under the tent; again, because of the pattern, the tarp that I bought to use OVER the tent did not fit no matter how I tried to reposition it, so two bedrooms had water inside. The only good thing about it was that it was easy to assemble.

The shape of the tent is perfect for my family of six with 3 wings and a "common area".

The tent leaks if you don't seam seal both the main tent and the fly. As an experienced camper I am not use to having to seal the fly.

It is an awkward shape to get a tarp for underneath.

My biggest complaint with it is once the main door eyebrow is installed the main zipper doesn't work.

It seems to be discoloring prematurely as well.

water everywhere, broken zippers, my wife me and our two children trying to sleep in the mattress in the middle of the tent where we were getting less wet than on the sides of the tent.

please people, do not buy this junk, is just perfect for the kids if they want to camp inside the house.

I own three Hillary tents and don't know why I keep buying them. I will not any longer, I just got back from a camping trip and it was steady rain the whole time. The tent leaked very badly from the roof, needless to say it really sucked. If you are looking for a good tent look elsewhere, I camp a lot (just usually not in the rain) so hopefully I'll find one that doesn't leak so bad soon.

UUUUUUUGH!! Might as well have slept outside in the rain because the tent offered no protection. It seemed like there was no roof on the tent the way the rain was coming in. The shame of it all is that it was a birthday present for my son.

Tent went up fine but when it started to rain there was no protection, rain came right through. Rain water all over the floor, all the bedding was soaked. I had five children in the tent with my wife and what a mess.