Coleman Fastpitch Air Valdes 6XL Tent 2018 6 Berth Inflatable Tent

I've had this tent for almost 2 years now and I've really enjoyed it so though it needed a review. I've used it in most weather conditions and I've just come back from a sunny but chilly week camping with temperatures down to around 0°C overnight. I did have a generic 4 person tent before this and I decided to upgrade after a weekend of the tent turning in to a greenhouse with full daylight by 6am. There were 3 main reasons why I chose this tent; size, blackout rooms and airbeams.The size is huge, only 4 of us plus 2 dogs but it's great to have all the size you'd need and more. You can fit 3 x double blow up beds in the individual rooms or you can take down a divider and have 2 rooms with one large and one double. The foyer can fit everything you need and more and you could comfortably live with 6 here without being on top of each other. The porch/awning is great and you can have a fold out bench and kitchen unit there plus loads of room for other kit. The hinged door is handy and when it's cold it keeps the heat in very well. You can close it on the jar without having to zip and unzip it each time.The ventilation is also good and it allows heat to escape if you leave the ample vents open. The blackout rooms really do keep it cool and they will be comfortably cool until at least 9am. The blackout rooms are very effective. There is a beam of light that can get through where there is a mesh vented panel above you but it's still more than dark enough on a bright morning. The equivalent to a blind being down in a bedroom. You'd need to see it to believe how such a thin sheet can block so much daylight.The airbeams are great and make pitching it that much quicker. Now that my wife and I are well versed in it we can have the main structure up in 5 minutes. There remaining pegs take a good 10 minutes though. Once you figure out that the air valves lock open or closed you'll save yourself time when you pull out the pump and all the air escapes. Took me too long to figure that out! They are very sturdy and don't lose a drop of pressure over a week. After the reviews on here I just inflate them to 5psi and that is plenty and they feel like rock at that pressure. If it was a very hot day I'd drop a couple of PSI through peak temps then reinflate them overnight.When packed down it is a bit large but then it is a huge tent and for the size of it I don't think it's excessive. I find that if you store the poles for the awning and pump elsewhere it packs down nicely. Especially with a few extra straps to compress it further. This way it fits in to boot of my wife's Skoda Fabia hatch for context of size. Similarly it fits in a Thule Easybag like in the picture and with space for a few duvets and pillows too.This tent has made camping so much better for the family and I. It's well built and has lasted well over 2 years with no sign of fatigue or rips etc. I've reproofed it once but it was still plenty waterproof. For the alternative being yurts and glazing pods this has paid for itself over a couple of years and has more space than both of those. Hopefully we'll have plenty more years of use out of it and I'm planning to take it on a 3000 mile Eurotrip!

The Good:After lots of research on inflatable tents, I decided on the Coleman Air Valdes 6XL tent, because of its generous size, the blackout bedrooms and the Coleman brand being a trustworthy one.So, it was delivered quickly by Amazon, I went camping with the tent the following weekend with my oldest daughter, her friend and her father.The tent was very easy to put up, had lots of good features (3 doors, 1 hinged door, blackout bedrooms, etc). We followed the instructions to the letter, inflated the beams to 7psi (the instruction say between 7 & 8psi) - the tent felt sturdy and was fine for the first night.The BAD:But then we went out for the second day and returned to find the beam above the bedrooms completely deflated (exactly the same problem as the previous review) & it couldn’t be inflated again at all. It just wouldn’t take any pressure from the pump, so it was obvious there was a puncture or it had burst.The kids were originally scared to sleep in the tent again then, but after some persuasion, we talked them into staying in a half collapsed bedroom for just 1 more night (we had no other choice except pack up and go home!!).My worry would’ve been if I gone camping with my wife and very young baby. The collapsed bedroom (and possible loud pop/bang!) would've at best scared my wife and baby, let alone the danger of suffocation of our baby - which is not a nice thought at all!Amazon have been great and collected the tent the next day with no fuss or charge (good work Amazon!).Conclusion:This is actually a very good tent, but it looks very likely that there is a basic design flaw, which is such a shame, as I can’t find another tent that fits the bill as well.The day it popped was quite a hot sunny one (but just UK sunny, not Sahara sunny!), so my guess (and it’s just that), is that the beam heated up in the sunshine and burst due to the air expanding in it. On the same camping trip, there were several other inflatable tents, from other brands (Berghaus, Vango etc even a smaller Coleman), pitched right next to our tent, that didn’t suffer the same bursting fate!! So it would seem to be just this Coleman model.My advice would be to wait until Coleman have rectified this problem and then look to buy it then - that’s what I’d like to do… unless I need to go camping again first!!

I like it, but.... my issue is that we a product defect; on erecting the tent, we found one of the pockets was ripped in the bedroom membrane. So, I was hoping I could contact the seller and they could send a replacement bedroom membrane. But my struggle here (we all learn!) is trying to make contact with customer support as it is supplied by amazon. It appears you can only choose to return or exchange and I don't want either as the tent itself is fine. Are Amazon knowingly making it harder to make contact in this way, or am I missing something.