Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent Review (Bought & Tested!)

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I found the Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent to be one of the best bang-for-your-buck tents on the market. Not only is it highly inexpensive, it’s super comfy for a family of 3-4, and performed decently well in all of my testing as well.

In this article, I go through everything you might possibly need to know about this Sundome 6-Person Tent, so do read on to find out more!

RELATED ARTICLES: (1) Best 6-Person Tents, (2) Best Coleman Tents, (3) Budget V.S. Expensive Tents (Coleman V.S. The North Face), (4) Best Tents Under $100, (5) Best Family Camping Tents

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Check out the Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent:

In this section, we’ll briefly go over the following:

• Unboxing
• In the Box
• Specifications

Unboxing

I bought this Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent directly from Amazon, and here’s what the outer packaging looks like:

Also, here’s what it looks like out of the box:

In the Box

Inside the package, I got the tent body, the rainfly, a foot mat, 3 poles in a carry case, 14 stakes in another carry case, and the carry bag. Here’s what they look like:

Specifications

Here’s all the data (including my personal measurements) that I gathered on this Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent:

• Peak height: 74.5 inches
• Length: 9 feet 8 inches
• Width: 9 feet 7 inches
• Base Area: 92.6 square feet
• Floor material: Polyethylene
• Bathtub flooring: Yes, ~8 inches
• Tent body material: Polyester
• Rainfly material: Polyester
• Poles material: Fiberglass
• Number of poles: 3
• Mesh: Regular
• Packed size: 27 by 12 by 9.5 inches
• Weight: 16.0 lbs
• Number of guylines: 6
• Number of stakes: 14
• Number of doors: 1
• Hinged door: No
• Number of windows: 2
• Number of vents: 3
• Number of pockets: 2
• Number of lantern loops: 1
• E-port: Yes, 1
• Black-out: No

I also did some testing on my own, and came up with this data:

• Set up timing (1 person): 11.5 minutes
• Take down timing (1 person): 10 minutes
• Number of single sleeping pads: 6
• Number of queen-sized mattresses: 2

I put my Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent through these 7 tests:

1. Ease of use: Set up, take down
2. Spaciousness: Height, base area, mattress sizing
3. Comfort and features: Door, windows, storage
4. Ventilation: Hot day ventilation, rainy day ventilation
5. Weather protection: Heavy rain test
6. Quality: Material, mesh, seams, stitching, zippers, poles
7. Portability: Weight and packed size

Set Up

All Poles

Before setting up this tent, here’s what all the poles of the Sundome 6-Person Tent look like:

The pole on the left and the pole in the middle are exactly the same, and are for the main body of the tent. The pole on the right is for the rainfly.

Set Up Instructions

To set up this Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent, first grab the 2 fiberglass poles for the tent body (left and middle in the picture above), and insert them into the 2 green pole sleeves at the center of the tent.

This will form an X shape across the tent, which looks like this:

After that, go to 1 corner of the tent, and insert the end of that pole into the pin at the corner.

Then, go to the other end of that same pole, prop the tent up using the pole sleeve, feed as much pole as possible through the sleeve, until you can secure the other end of that same pole into the pin at the corner as well.

Do the same with the other pole, by securing one end into the pin first, then the other end. When you’re done with both poles, adjust the pole sleeves.

Then, attach all the 8 pole clips around the tent body, which help to pull the tent body outwards for more livable space.

Next, grab the last fiberglass pole, which has black tips at both ends of the pole.

This is to be inserted right down the center of the rainfly, to be secured with these small pockets at each end, as well as 2 Velcro strips in between.

Then, grab the rainfly by the rainfly pole, and drape it over the tent. Position the rainfly pole with one end over the door at the front of the tent, like so:

After that, secure the rainfly using the 4 S-hooks of the rainfly to the 4 rings at the corners of the tent.

There are also a few Velcro attachments along each pole to better align the rainfly; I believe it’s 8 Velcro strips altogether around the entire tent.

After that, stake the tent down with 4 stakes at the 4 corners, and also 1 more stake under the door, so 5 stakes in total for the tent body. Also, use another 6 stakes to guy out the entire tent with the 6 pre-attached guylines.

And finally, go to the back of the tent, and stake down the ground vent.

The last 2 stakes are actually for the foot mat, which I don’t normally use, but you can if you want to.

Set Up Timing

Altogether, it took me about 11.5 minutes to set up the entire Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent on my own, so this is the 1-person timing.

Take Down

Take Down Timing

Taking down the Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent is just the opposite of the set-up, and it took me about 10 minutes for the entire take down and pack up.

More Info

For more details on the set up, take down, and pack up, as well as tips on how I set this up on my own (I’m 5’3”, by the way), you can check out this video on my YouTube channel.

If you’re finding the set up and pack away timings to be too long and tedious, check out how this Sundome tent compares against Coleman’s quick set-up tents:

• Coleman Pop Up Tent V.S. Sundome Tent (I Tested Both Tents!)
• Coleman Sundome Tent V.S. Instant Tent (I Tested Both!)
• Coleman Sundome Tent V.S. Skydome Tent (I Tested Both!)

Height

The peak height in this Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent is about 74.5 inches, and I can stand upright no problem, with plenty of headroom left above me. (Just bear in mind that I’m not very tall though, my height is about 5’3″.)

I’m also able to stand upright on thick air mattresses, and even bounce around on them, still with headroom left.

But this is a dome-shaped tent, so the peak height is only at the center. When I take 2 steps back, my head would touch the top of the tent. The rest of the tent slopes downwards too.

Base Area

The length inside this Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent is about 9 feet and 8 inches, and the width is about 9 feet and 7 inches, so quite a few inches smaller than the marketed dimensions of 10 by 10 feet.

Mattress Sizing

Single Pads

Despite the smaller than marketed dimensions, I could still easily fit 6 regular sleeping pads inside the tent, and here’s what having 6 pads looks like.

You do have to sleep shoulder to shoulder, but there’s still a small space leftover to fit a little bit of camping gear, near the door of the tent.

I think it’s a little bit of a tight fit though, especially if you have to sleep at the sides of the tent, because my head touches the wall of the tent when I sit up, which is annoyingly tight.

Queen Beds

I think having 4 people on 2 queen-sized camping mattresses would be a much more comfortable fit, and here’s what the Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent looks like with these 2 queen beds.

There’s also quite a bit of leftover room for storing gear, at the foot of each mattress, which is always very nice to have.

One of my mattresses is actually 4 inches shorter in width than a true Queen, which is why it fit nicely into the tent. Otherwise, the length of the tent is actually a few inches shy of being able to fit 2 Queen beds. Having both these beds together is quite a snug fit.

If you’re thinking of buying a smaller version of this Sundome tent, the biggest difference you’ll find is in the above peak height and base area. For a complete review of all the differences, check out this blog post here: Coleman Sundome Tent 6-Person V.S. 4-Person V.S. 2-Person (Tested!)

Windows

There are 2 windows in this Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent, 1 on each length of the tent.

Each window has 2 white zippers, a bug net to prevent larger bugs from getting in, and also a window latch to hold the fabric when the window is open.

Back Window

The window at the back measures about 42 inches in length, 25 inches in width, and looks like this:

Notice that it has 3 more latches at the top of the window. I think this is for having more ventilation while keeping your privacy at the same time.

I don’t usually use the 3 latches, because I find them quite loose. Plus, it takes more time to latch the window up, and I think it’s a lot quicker to just use the zippers.

Front Window

The window at the front measures about 41 inches in length, 26 inches in width, so about the same size as the back window, and this front window is part of the single door in the Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent.

Door

The door measures about 54 inches in length, and 42 inches in width, so decently big.

It also measures about 56 inches from the ground to the top of the door, and I’m about 5’3″, so I had to duck when getting in and out of the tent through this door.

This door comes with 2 latches by the side to tie the door fabric up to keep it open, and it also comes with 2 black zippers to zip it open and shut.

Storage

Pockets

For storage, this Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent has 2 pockets inside the tent, each measuring about 9 by 7 inches.

Loops

There’s also 1 lantern loop at the very top of the tent for some lighting at night.

E-Port

There’s also 1 e-port at the bottom of the tent with a zippered closure.

Rain Test

It didn’t rain while I was using the Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent (at least, I didn’t experience anything more than a light shower), so I had to make do with a water hose. I concentrated the heavy rainfall on the 2 walls of the tent that were closest to me, like so:

Back Wall Rain Test

First, I thoroughly rain tested the back wall of the Sundome 6-Person Tent, which looked like this:

I wanted to see if the water would drip onto the mesh of the window, and it did.

In the picture below, the mesh right at the bottom of the window is slightly glistening with water. But thankfully, most of the heavy rain falls to the sides of the tent, and not on the window.

After about 30 minutes of this heavy rain, I stopped the test to check in on the tent. I noticed that there was a little bit of leaking into the tent through the corner.

Also, I noticed that the bathtub flooring seam was starting to feel very slightly damp. If you look carefully in the picture below, you can see water inside the seam.

So, I decided to continue the rain test for another 5 minutes, and this was when I noticed the first few drops of water dripping into the tent from the bathtub flooring seam. (In the picture below, the drops of water are to the left of my hand.)

So, this Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent could last about 30-35 minutes under heavy rain before the first few drops of water entered the tent.

Side Wall Rain Test

On this wall here, I wanted to see if the rainfly could protect the mesh wall (which is underneath the rainfly) from getting wet.

And it did. Even after 35 minutes of heavy pouring rain, the mesh wall was still dry, and even the bathtub flooring seam was dry.

Do you know why one of the walls leaked while the other didn’t? Well, scroll up and take a look at the length of the rainfly on both walls of the tent.

• The side wall with the white-colored part of the rainfly has a lot more rainfly protection.
• The back wall with the green-colored part of the rainfly has much less rainfly protection.

More rainfly protection means that less water flows over the inner walls of the tent, less water comes in contact with the seams, and there’s less leaking.

Check out this Sundome 6-Person Tent rain test video that I posted to my YouTube channel:

Rainfly Shading

The rainfly of this Coleman Sundome Tent protects only the door, and nothing else outside the tent. So, even your footwear outside the tent will get wet in light rain.

Ventilation

Rainy Day Ventilation

For rainy day ventilation, with the rainfly in place over the 2 mesh walls (and guyed out as well), these become like vents, spanning both entire widths of the Sundome Tent.

Each of these vents measures about 14 inches in width from the outside. I liked that these mesh walls were well protected by the rainfly, and no rain got into my tent.

Also, I could crack the windows open a bit if the wind isn’t too heavy.

On top of that, I also had a little bit of ventilation from this ground vent right here.

It’s the smallest vent in this Sundome Tent, measuring just 35 by 9 inches from the inside, and about 7 inches in width from the outside. It’s been factory taped from the inside, and no water got into my tent through this vent as well.

Hot Day Ventilation

On a hot day, you can take the rainfly off from the outside for even more ventilation, because instead of 2 vents, you now get 2 mesh walls. Just bear in mind that these mesh walls can’t be zipped up. Also, there won’t be as much privacy when the rainfly is off.

Quality

Materials

The flooring of this Sundome 6-Person Tent is made of polyethylene, and the bathtub feature extends up to about 8 inches.

Both the tent body and rainfly are made of polyester (between 68D to 75D), like all my other Coleman tents.

Even though I put the rainfly, the flooring, and and the tent fabric through 35 minutes of heavy pouring rain, they stayed completely dry during my rain test.

Seam Taping

Except for the ground vent inside the tent and the rainfly outside the tent, the rest of the seams inside the tent have not been factory taped.

However, those with less rainfly protection have been inverted, like this green tent body to bathtub flooring seam:

Seams that have more rainfly protection, like the window seam, the door seam, and the mesh wall seam, have not been inverted.

Stitching

The seams themselves are pretty good quality, double-stitched, and consistent, and I found only 1 little loose thread at the lantern loop, and a little bit of mesh poking out from behind one of the window seams. These weren’t big issues to me because they’re easily fixable.

Mesh

The mesh is just regular mesh, not no-see-um mesh, and it’s decent quality.

Zippers

The zippers are also decent quality, and all of them are catch-free. I love that they’re color-coded, black for the door, and white for the windows. Also, I didn’t have snagging issues on the windows, and the doors didn’t snag as well.

However, just bear in mind that the design of the door rain cover will sometimes get in the way of the door zippers. So, I just learned to hold the rain cover away when zipping the door up, and it won’t snag at all.

Poles

All the poles are made of fiberglass though I do wish they were color-coded. Also, I liked that the pole sleeves are short and very snag free, and I had no issues putting up this entire tent on my own.

Portability

Packed Size

This Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent has a packed size of 27 by 12 by 9.5 inches. Here’s what it looks like beside a Coleman 2-Person Sundome Tent and a 32-ounce Nalgene bottle:

Weight

The Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent weighs about 16.0 lbs for everything (including stakes, guylines and the foot mat).

Pros

For pros, I found the set up pretty easy, taking me just about 11 minutes on my own, even though I’m not tall.

The take down and pack up was easy as well, and I didn’t even have to rip off this strip at the bottom of the bag to expand the bag.

I also really liked the 6-foot peak height, with plenty of headroom. I’m able to stand upright, stretch my arms out, walk around the tent, stand up on my pads and mattresses, even jump around, and basically just got a lot of livable space for a dome tent.

Another pro is that this Sundome Tent is really inexpensive. I paid barely over a hundred bucks for mine.

On top of that, this Sundome Tent also has a decent amount of ventilation and rain protection.

Cons

As for cons, I guess I do wish that they taped the bathtub flooring seam instead of making it just inverted, so it’ll last longer under heavy rain.

Also, for a 6-person tent, there’s only 2 pockets and 1 lantern loop.

And this is not really a con, but honestly I much prefer the Dark Room version of this tent. On hot scorching summer days, this regular Sundome tent won’t protect you from the sun as much as the Dark Room Sundome Tent.

So, this is my recommendation to you. Check out the price difference between this Regular Sundome tent, and the Dark Room Sundome Tent. You might be surprised by what you find. I actually paid about the same price for this tent, as well my Dark Room Tent.

On top of that, the Dark Room Tent packs down to about the same size, and weighs only about half a pound more.

Sundome Tent	Weight	Packed Size
Regular Sundome 6P Tent	16.0 lbs	27 x 12 x 9.5 inches
Dark Room Sundome 6P Tent	16.4 lbs	26 x 12 x 9 inches

I highly, highly, highly recommend the Dark Room Sundome Tent, because it not only is a lot darker in the day and also at night, but it’s also a lot cooler inside the tent, especially during the day, which makes it perfect for hot summer days.

But wait, before you buy either Sundome tent, I compared this Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent against more than 10 other Coleman tents in this blog post, so I highly recommend that you check this out: I Bought & Tested the 14 Best Coleman Tents!

Thinking of upgrading to an Elite Sundome Tent? Well, first check out this blog post detailing all the differences: Coleman Elite Sundome Tent V.S. Regular Sundome Tent (13 Differences!)

Alternatively, if the Coleman brand doesn’t quite suit you, check out this post where I spent over $2,000 buying and 6 months testing the best 6-person tents on the market.

Or, you can check out how this Sundome compares against the best budget family tents out there. Is it indeed the best?

Or if you’re looking to see what a budget-friendly Coleman tent would give you compared to a much more expensive premium tent like The North Face Wawona, check out this link right here.

Or, check out the Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent: