Vango Illusion TC vs Kampa Croyde

[fopper]

Please help me, Mumsnetters!

We are a family of 3 and we go to several music festivals a year. We currently have an Vango Seaton 800, which is a bit big. We have very kindly been given some money by my parents and they wanted us to do something frivolous with it, so we have been looking at inflatable tents.

I'd like to go for polycotton, because it would be nice to be able to take the tent abroad and not melt (impossible with our current tent). There's a website at the moment with some amazing deals, but they expire tonight.

I'm really torn between the Vango Illusion TC 500 and the Kampa Croyde 6. Are there any owners of either tent on here that might be able to help me to decide?

I've been told by a very helpful person at a rival online retailer that the Vango deal I've seen is amazing and I should seriously consider it, but it's just over £1000, which is very jarring even though my parents' gift means we could definitely afford it!

We have the vango illusion poly cotton. We’ve only had a short trip to Scotland and a three week trip in France and Spain with it. I really like it, the poly cotton made the very hot days comfortable. The living space is great with children and it is v easy to put up for a tent of the size. Cons are that it takes a lot of practice to pack down effectively and the size of it packed in the bag is pretty big and heavy as the poly cotton doesn’t pack down much. It takes up a lot of space in our boot!

That is indeed a good price for it also. I’m still unsure we did the right thing spending so much on a tent

Thanks for your reply. I got the Illusion in the end...£1019, which I thought was a great deal. We'd like to camp in France, I think - we went last year, but in a mobile home owned by the (excellent) campsite and it was very hot. This was before DD started school and we looked at the same campsite this year during school hols, and it was mega expensive. But it would be a lot cheaper if we had our own tent. However, our existing tent gets really hot if there's a tiny bit of sun in Wales!

Glad you like the tent. I have heard good things about it. V.helpful to know the cons. I've looked at the bag size and it does indeed look absolutely massive - and I know it's very heavy too. But when we go to festivals we never carry the tent...we use a trolley/trailer thing.

I found out that it is 65%cotton/35% polyester, as opposed to 35% cotton/65% polyester for the Kampa and that (as well as the price) swayed it for me!

Mega bucks indeed on a tent but it will hopefully pay for itself with lots of 'cheaper' holidays.