Xtreme Northwest Territory Olympic Cottage Deluxe Cabin Tent: an Honest Review

I don't know what came over me, probably just a Gramma thing, but I decided to take 4 of my grandsons camping for the weekend. They range in age from 10 to 13. It was my first time tent camping in many, many years, but I didn't think it would be too difficult to pitch a tent and sleep in it.

With a brand new Northwest Territory Olympic Cottage Deluxe Cabin Tent on "loan" we headed to the park for a fun filled weekend. This gorgeous Olympic Cottage Deluxe Cabin looks like a cottage. Over the course of the weekend, several people stopped to tell me how cool it is, and many that didn't stop were pointing and talking about it as they went by our camping space.

It is a 16X12 foot cabin tent that slept the 5 of us comfortably. The box is labeled "sleeps 10", but honestly, that would be a little crowded. We had to single cots and a double air mattress and still had plenty of walk around room. The tent package includes a room divider, which we did not use. However, it clearly creates two separate rooms, one slightly larger than the other. The Olympic Cottage Deluxe Cabin tent is 86 inches high in the center, so there is no need to crouch. This is truly a spacious tent. There is a neat little opening by the door that allows you to run a power cord outside. The windows are great; 2 in the front 1 on each side and 1 in the back. All the windows are large and allow a lot of circulation and light into the tent. The entire roof is screen which also allows for great circulation. The roof cover fits very snug and keeps out the rain very well.

One of the great features is the closets; located on each side of the rear window, they extend out of the rear of the tent so they will not take up any floor space. The closets are pretty neat, with hanging rods for keeping your clothes wrinkle free. There is a shelf included for each closet as well; hardly sounds like a tent does it? Everything has a down side.

What, you say, is the down side of the Northwest Territory Olympic Cottage Deluxe Cabin Tent? Assembly; assembling the Olympic Cottage Tent is not a job for Gramma and boys. At least not with the directions that are included. The directions basically say ... Color coded for your convenience. However, they don't tell you what color goes where. We managed to figure out that the two long sections are obvious the top support boles for the roof, but didn't realize, until we couldn't get it to look like the tent, that we had them backwards. Yes, they are different. But not so different you will notice it.

After about an hour a group of camper neighbors came and offered to help. With the 4 of them and the 5 of us, we had a tent erected in about 15 minutes! We managed to get the Olympic Cottage Deluxe Cabin tent up just in time for a very good thunder storm. Snug inside, we stayed very dry. I did notice that the rain shield (roof) was catching and holding water on one side. It was raining extremely hard, and because I was concerned that it would snap the poles I had to push up on the roof to empty the water. I am afraid, if I were asleep or gone, the tent poles on the right front would have certainly collapsed. We did have water seepage in the closets, but on the fair side, we have not treated the tent with waterproofing spray and it was really raining hard.

Over all, we loved the tent. We thought it was very spacious and love the way it looks. Now that we know how to assemble it will be a snap to put it together. It will take 2 people, better with 4 because you will have to assemble the complete frame, attach the tent and lift and hold to put the leg poles on. This is just a little cumbersome.