We have the Hartford XXL and have never had issues with pitches. We do ask when booking and by and large the sites don't fuss about it. Sometimes we just turn up and pitch without fuss. On the odd occasion we've paid a small supplement for large tents.
It depends on the sites you use. We tend to use ones who don't have marked pitches. I suspect the ones with marked areas and a more strict regime may be a tad more fussy.
Good luck.
Don't forget to leave a review of all tents you've used, for a chance to win fantastic prizes
Well, thanks everyone for the advice. It was really useful.
In the end we decided to not worry too much on the size, but we avoided one of the 'tripod' shaped tents just so the footprint was not too big.
So we bought a Wynnster Perpignan 8. It's 5.5mx6.8m which is slightly out of the C&C size, but close enough. It was a good balance between cost, weight and size for us. It has a really large main room (5.5x2.6m) which is great for our two little boys to run around in. We are very pleased with it.
We tried it out in the rain last weekend - we had a great time and are really pleased to have decided to buy the tent. There will be many more trips in the future!
It too a while to learn how to put up the tent, but next time it will be much quicker. (A proper review when we get the chance)
Only problem is how to dry the tent properly as we don't have an 5.5m by 7m rooms in our house! Didn't think of that...
Glad you had a good time, you should try and find my thread about drying my tent out as there were some great tips on there. I think it was called What To Do With Our Sopping Tent?! We had to drape ours over our dining table in the conservatory and just keep moving it so that different bits dried out.... not sure whether you have a room that you can do that in - might take a few days though!
Quote: Originally posted by Kat67 on 04/10/2010... you should try and find my thread about drying my tent out as there were some great tips on there...