has anyone bought the cheap family tent in Argos?

[oregonianabroad]

here

or

this one

Why is there £30 difference between them?

Are they OK for new campers who are not that sure how often they will do this? It seems so nice that you can just get everything together.

Sorry if I can't answer the pros and cons thing about both models but we bought a similar looking one from Argos a couple of years ago and it was absolutely fine for the 'fair weather' camping we did.

Whilst it IS a good idea to be able to buy a kit, if you DO like camping, I suspect that within a year you'll be modifying and upgrading stuff!

We got decent sleeping bags (Outwell, 25 quid each) and thermarest style self inflating mats, for example. We found 200gramme sleeping bags a bit too cold and damn cursed airbeds! Replaced at least one every trip (leaking) and they can be cold to sleep on! However, that's not to say that given a decent summer, this isn't very good value. And of course you can sell stuff on if you either don't like it or want to upgrade.

Thanks faraday, that is helpful.

1200 HH

that is very very low.... i personally wouldnt have a tent with a HH of

I agree, I would not have gone for anything less than 3000HH

Now, the difference between these 2 tent packages you listed are....the more expensive has a better sleeping bag and flock air beds not just PVC.

I personally would not buy either of these, as you see them around on ebay early summer, sold by people who have used them once and hated it because they had a rubbish time! There is no sewn in ground sheet (sig) so you would be likely to get creepie crawlies in the tent, the waterproof is rubbish and the layout is not practical ith kiddies.

If you are prepared to spend another £80 ish on top of the more expensive one, can I make a suggestion?

If you look at this tent here vango orchy 500 it's a really good tent that a lot of people rate, it sleeps 5 but you can always do with extra space, it has a good resale value after one use, will be more than you would get with the Argos one if you tried to sell it! This one has a sig, and has a HH of 3000. (more waterproof)

Also, just take some cheapy air beds something like these at the bottom of the page. take your duvets and pillows, make sure you also take blankets for under beds to keep out cold....I bought sleeping bags for the kids, they hated them, now they use their dvets, wasted money on those....

If you decide you like camping then you have a decent tent to keep hold of and you can just stock up on the rest when you need it, the main thing is the tent!! If you had the cheapy one, and liked camping, you would be searching for another one in no time, then you'd have the cheapy one that cost you £100 sitting around and you would resent having spent that much on something you wont use now!! (trust me, I know from experience!!)

Apologies for the long post, but I'd hope you get the right equipment to start with!

Good luck

Emma

Thank you very much nannyL and Emma (mumshadenough) -- we were just about to collect the cheaper of the 2 today, thinking that if we had a good time, we would upgrade, but based on your advice, it is likely that we would not enjoy ourselves if it got wet.

Thanks for your tent suggestion. The only disadvantage was that it doesn't seem to have a separate area for the kids like the Argos ones did (although it was hard to see in the pictures for sure). Any other suggestions?

Hi, i can't help you with your tent choice, as i'm having my own problems deciding what to get at the mo. However, if you look on www.worldoftents.co.uk or might be .com. Its a fab website, and they seen to have almost every tent going, its well laid out and each tent has all the details, with pics and a layout plan. Hth.

The orchy has 2 bedrooms, it's a drop down curtain separating them, however, I'm sure you would come to realise that when you have to see to your kids in the middle of the night, you dont have to get out of bed!!! with the ones where the sleeping pods are completely separate, there's a lot of zipping and running around in the cold of night involved!! would rather be able to lift a curtain!!

Once they are asleep they wont move around too much, and when awake, they are not trapped in their rooms until you get to them.. All depends on how old your kids are! If little, ideal, if older, the further the better!!

Emma xx

Thanks again, mumshadenough & I'll check out that site, Thrifty.

As with a lot of these tent packages, the airbeds provided don't actually fit into the bedrooms they're supposed to go into! Look at the dimensions. We bought one of the argos tents like the green one, used it in the garden to see if we liked camping and probably won't use it again, 'cause you can't stand up in it, I now know I'd like a sewn in ground sheet, etc.

We've got a Vango Orchy 600 as our middle sized tent and it's fab. If the kids are little and shout out in the night it's a right pain to get out of your cosy bed trudge across the tent to sort them out, easier to put your hand out and calm them down!

Thanks, Flutterbye, the orchy ones look really nice.

we bought a family tent kit from Halfords last summer - only used it once in the pouring rain in France but it seemed fine to me - it all packed into a handy case on wheels too. You can stand up in the main section of it and it has 2 bedrooms too.

thanks, Becks, will have a look there too.

We got a tent from Argos for our first camping experience. It was 3 day big family trip with a 3 year old and a 9-month old. It chucked it down on the final night. Because there was no sewn-in groundsheet the water ran through the tent like a river and the roof leaked. I ended up travelling back from the Isle of Wight in wet pants - not nice. Took it back to Argos the very next day and got a refund. (also learnt the trick of keeping a spare set of clothes in a waterproof bag; you live and learn!)