If you’re heading into heavy winds and rainy nights, you’re best looking for something else. The easy and simplicity of set up also makes the Coleman Sundome a smart choice for family camping trips. Not only does it cut down set up time and leave more time for enjoying your trip, teaching kids to set this tent up is made easy thanks to the design. Another selling point of the Skydome tent is the 20% more headroom, because these pole clips at the top of the tent pull the tent body upward and outward. It definitely feels a little bit roomier, but whether it’s actually 20% more headroom, I’m not really sure.
The sundome 4 person tent from Coleman is an excellent tent for beginners thanks to its low-cost and easy setup design. Being so reasonably priced means that the tent is also a good choice for more experienced campers looking for a new tent that won’t break the bank. The 4-person version of the coleman sundome tent is affordable and easy to set up, making it a fantastic option for new campers. The 4-Person Sundome® Dark Room™ Dome Camping Tent blocks 90% of sunlight (vs. a comparable Coleman® tent) so you can put the kids to bed early or sleep in past sunrise. It also reduces heat inside the tent for more comfortable rest at any time. Enjoy superior weather protection thanks to an included rainfly and the tent’s WeatherTec™ system, which uses welded corners and inverted seams to keep water from getting in.
The rainfly only extends about halfway down on all sides, leaving the lower portion of the tent body exposed, and you won’t find any sealed seams to help keep water out. While the tarp-like material on the bathtub floor didn’t allow water to soak through, the rest of the tent’s construction was a major let-down. We experienced one moderately rainy night in the Sundome and awoke to find a number of puddles on the inside of the tent floor. Furthermore, the walls had soaked through and wetted out.
The Sundome is a well though out tent with some very nice features, but it also a few shortcomings. After seeing how it performed over a few days and nights, these are my conclusions. In addition to the various capacities, Coleman also makes the unique and rather intriguing Dark Room Sundome. Built using the same structure coleman screen tent as the standard model (it’s only offered in 4P and 6P sizes), the design utilizes a special fabric on the tent body and rainfly that blocks a claimed 90% of light. For one, it has serious potential appeal among late sleepers or parents that are hoping to enjoy an uninterrupted cup of coffee in the morning.
The two main body poles are 8.5mm fiberglass the same size Coleman uses on their Sundome 2 and Sundome 3. On the Sundome 6 they use an 11mm fiberglass pole which is the right choice for that size tent. At the least with fiberglass poles on this Sundome 4 they should have used a 9.5mm pole for strength.
A 4-Person Sundome has 9 by 7 feet, while a 4-Person Skydome has 8 by 7 feet. Then, you’d have to clip all the pole clips onto the poles, and there are 14 of them around the tent. So, all these features don’t exactly speed up the process at all. Even after we figured in the size of the air mattress, we still had plenty of room to store our gear off to the sides plus the little bed for our dog Lily. I ordered it with the free shipping and the total cost was a steal, coming in at just under $70.00 (price may vary). The tent took less than a week to get here and I was more than eager to set it up once it arrived.