User Review: Northwest Territory 14' x 14' Vacation Cottage III

Reviewed September 5, 2006 by polarisnik

Rating: rated 1 of 5 stars
Design: 2 rooms (one doubles as a screen porch. Still nice!
Sleeps: 6+
Ease of Setup: Two of us set it up in about 15 minutes
Weight: Pretty darn heavy, but the bag has wheels on it.
Price Paid: $149.99

I worked long and hard to talk my boyfriend into getting this big and comfortable tent. Despite the fact that we have a 16x10 Eureka Blue Mesa, I wanted one that would feel more homey. Homey I did get. We spent about $25 on "Seam Grip" to seal the mammoth fly, no problem, $20 on "Camp Dry" to waterproof the walls and doors, again, no problem. It started to thunder and lightning and rain, still no problem. Then it got windy...PROBLEM.

We set up our little portable palace at my family's cabin about two weeks after we bought it and spent hours waterproofing it. We slept in it for a total of two hours before the wind picked up and blew our little house in. I woke up at about 3:30 a.m. to the ear shattering sound of the ridiculously weak plastic joints snapping one by one as they broke. My boyfriend tried to hold the ceiling up while my 8-year-old daughter and I made a run for it, I felt like Dorothy dragging Toto to the storm cellar until I stepped outside... I'll just say it sounded a heck of a lot windier inside the tent than out.

As rain poured in on my poor boyfriend he tried to find the door through the maze of screen and wall material that just five minutes earlier had been our sleeping quarters. As we stood in the cabin, soaked to the bone, I dreaded the first conversation I would have with my boyfriend which undoubtedly would start with, "I told you not to get that tent!"

I was wrong. He acknowledged the fact that it was no way windy enough to do the kind of damage that was endured by that tent. The plastic connectors are a joke. There was not one stitch of damage anywhere else on that tent. If those bubble gum and mickey mouse connectors had held, we would probably still be camping in it. Instead, we had to go home and get our Old Faithful, the Eureka.

Another storm blew through while we "slept" in the Eureka and I waited, on pins and needles for the snapping to start on that tent too. Waited in vain. It held up and I slept dry and secure, unlike the few nights before in my "brand new Vacation Cottage".

If you have this tent or are thinking about getting one, buy some rope so you can anchor down the poles to take any undue stress off of those connectors, because believe me, THEY WILL NOT HOLD UP TO MUCH.

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