Fairy Princess Play Tent Review

I was sent a very nice e-mail from Ben at Garden Games offering me a choice of products to review so I chose a Fairy Princess Play Tent , which you can now see on this their new website along with many other play houses and climbing frames

Garden Games say about themselves

The Story of Big Game Hunters:

Welcome to Big Game Hunters, we are passionate about outdoor family fun and are the market leaders in giant outdoor garden games. We began producing and selling outdoor garden games over 11 years ago with an aim of bringing families and friends together by having fun outside. Our unique and innovative products are a culmination of many years of research and development and market intelligence.

stock picture complete with mat underlay

The new Fairy Princess play tent by Garden Games. This beautiful pink princess tent will bring happy smiles to your little princess. The unit includes fabric windows and doors that role up with ties. The tent is a hexagonal turret shaped tent with a flag on the top. The tent slots together and is joined with connectors for easy installation.
Product Specifications

• Dimensions ( 146 (l) x 172 (w) x 120(h) cm)
• Suitable for ages 1and above.
• Underlay.
• Flag Included. 

It comes with assembly instructions, which were very easy to follow, just had to sort the poles into lengths and start assembling, and it really was quite simple the plastic pieces round the bottom have 2 screw holes in as you don't screw the poles to the uprights, this is to allow for ease of leaving the base in the garden but bringing the rest of the tent in if you so wish. The material is shower proof though its not recommended you leave out permanently.

The only piece when assembling that could have caused problems was the plastic pieces that make the top rim, these were four way and you had to ensure you assembled with the two straight pieces facing correctly to allow assembly of the top hexagonal. Also feel it may have been easier to built the roof section by screwing all six pieces into the top connector and then inserting into the sides.

The holes on the wood are not pre-drilled so you do not spend valuable time looking for small holes to put the screws into, you make your own as you go. I assembled it with a power screwdriver for ease but a manual one would have done the same job. The instructions say 1 person 15 minutes, and this was very realistic, though I did ask for help to get the cover on as somebody was there to help but would have managed had there not been.

the window

This product is well finished, I could not find any rough bits on the wood that would cause splinters. The ribbons that tie up the windows and doors are very short lengths and there is no risk with them at all. The house had one small flaw in the material at the front above the door but nothing too noticeable but not sure if this may prove to be a weak point in the weeks/months/years to come.  The material is sturdy, well made, beautifully finished and printed. The velcro and ties seem to be very well attached and it looks like it will take plenty of abuse. I had a bog standard plastic one years ago for daughter No2 and it got torn on Christmas morning by her climbing through the window, this will certainly fair better.

the front door

The description also mentions "underlay"  which had I been buying this product I would have expected the pink mat that the girls are on in the stock picture to be part of the contents of the box, it is not there is no underlay included in any respect. So because of this I have marked my experience of the product down to 8 out of 10, it would have been a 10 out of 10 otherwise.

This product was given to me for the purposes of this review but this post is an honest reflection of my findings.