I'm about to buy a new tent and have done so much research my mind is a haze now! We are a family of 6 although my eldest won't be camping with us everytime. We need three bedrooms and I really like the tunnel design with a canapy out the front. I've narrowed it down to six tents: Outwell Arkansas 7, this is the one I really like but I need to find a cheaper model or maybe it will go down in the sales! Outwell Sunvalley 8, although I'm worried that with the third bedroom being at the front that there won't be enough room inside and that it'll be a weird shape. Royal Bordeaux 6 ZG or XL, only thing that worries me is the weight of this one. Vango Amazon 800, though I really wanted the side of the canapy enclosed.
Help, help, help please...if you have any experience with any of these or have any pictures of the inside of the Sunvalley 8 I'd be very grateful!!!
Thankyou.
------------- lisa
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I have no pictures handy, but I can confirm that the SV8 works well for sleeping and eating and lying around.
We have had 5 adults plus dog plus all the clutter, during a very very very wet week in ours, and it coped really well. The weird shape isn't really so weird when you see it in the flesh.
The SV8 has plenty of room for junk, as I know to my cost, as I kept tripping over yet another set of hair straighteners. Usually, it's not so much the sleeping accommodation that is the problem. Rather, the space needed by so many bodies if you are stuck inside during the inevitable monsoons.
However, I would say that 6 adults might be pushing it to the limit, unless you are all good friends all of the time. Or you could leave the women and their toys at home.
Another vote for the SV8. We are a family of 5, kids are 8, 6 and 5. The eldest had the front room to herself and the two little ones share the back bedroom.
I had dismissed this tent as on paper it looks like a bizarre layout, but then we looked at one and instantly me & DH decided that this was "the one" (very romantic!).
Apologies for the massive photos, I can't work out how to make them smaller on Photobucket!
Kitchen station should be outside under the canopy, you don't want to be cooking inside the tent and filling the tent with steam and cooking smells(use a plastic barbecue cover or patio chair cover to keep it dry if neccesary) and our table and chairs gets put out side most of the time too. we fold chairs down and lie them under the table when not in use. I have a large table in ours and not found it too cramped inside.
When in Wales at beg of August we ate outside all the time.
There is room under the canopy for our picnic table, a double alu roll table to one side that OH uses as a kitchen station and the cadac on the other side(as in the photo of the girls sitting at the table under the canopy).
Only rained one day and there was no problem at all.
We don't bring the picnic table in at all - it lives either outside and up or folded and in the canopy area.
We have the kitchen unit inside against the front bedroom and opposite another double roll up table then a kitchen cupboard - then the left side doorway
Between the front bedroom and main bedrooms we have a single table.
We bring in our chairs to sit when it gets chilly or later at night.
We have a little back packers table to play games on etc and we could comfortably fit 6 in if we had to (there are only 4 of us though)
If you look at my photo taken from the inside out then the canopy covers all the area up to the end of the blue tarp - it's a full section size as in my first two photos.