Ok here goes.
We have a Varrie 9 tentipi. There are 4 of us - dp who is over 6 feet tall and has a bad back, dd11 and ds6. We camp a lot, but don't go in for "roughing it" very much. Our last tent was a Kyham dome-y thing with 2 rooms.
We bought the tipi 2 years ago and we sill love it. Some of the good things.
t packs quite small, and is light enough to carry (although not very far!)
It is SOOOO easy to put up and take down - we're well into our first glass of wine by the time most of our camping friends have finished pegging out. We can do it in 10 minutes if everying goes right first time - usually about 15.
There is tons of room inside - we once had 14 people inside eating dinner in a storm. We were pretty cozy but no one was on anybody else's lap.
The ventilation is excellent, and we have a fire pot which we put in the middle for winter camping.
It looks BRILLIANT!
Now the downside.
It's difficult to keep tidy because it's all one room.
There's no privacy for the same reason, but we are thinking of ways to make a divider across the middle.
Ummmmm - I think that's it for disadvantages apart from the price. But because it's so easy to put up we use it a lot more than we used the Kyham - it's perfectly feasible to go away for one night.
Lennygirl - about the mad bear one. Our friends bought one, and they may just have been unlucky, but they used it for a week in the summer, then another two weeks in September, and bits of it are breaking already - they are going to send it back.
Bring on the questions!