I Tested the Core 10-Person Straight Wall Cabin Tent (Review)

This page contains affiliate links, and that means that I may earn a commission if you buy something, at no extra cost to you. You can find my full disclosure policy here.

The Core Straight Wall Cabin Tent is an incredibly spacious tent. Its 10-person version has an impressive peak height of 90 inches, and I couldn’t even reach the top of the tent! (I’m 5’3″, ,by the way.)

Another great thing about the Core Cabin Tent is that there are no obvious flaws. It’s a pretty great all-rounder tent. But if I were to be nitpicky, I could point out a few minor flaws. What are these? Read on to find out!

If you enjoyed the video, please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel right here:

Check out the Core Cabin Tent:

RELATED: (1) Best 10-Person Tents, (2) Best Cabin Tents, (3) Best Family Car Camping Tents

Here’s what we’ll discuss here:

• Unboxing
• In the Box
• Specifications

Unboxing

I bought the Core Straight Wall Cabin Tent (10-Person version) at full price from Amazon, and here’s what the packaging looked like:

In the Box

Inside the Core Tent package, I got the stuff sack, the tent body, the rainfly, and poles inside a carry bag.

I also got a gear loft, room divider, 2 tent floor repair patches, 2 clear repair patches, and 20 steel stakes.

Specifications

Here’s all the data (including my personal measurements) that I gathered on the Core 10-Person Straight Wall Cabin Tent:

• Peak height: 90 inches
• Lowest height: 65 inches
• Length: 13 feet 7 inches
• Width: 10 feet
• Base area: 135.8 square feet
• Floor material: Polyethylene
• Bathtub flooring: No
• Tent body material: 68D Polyester
• Rainfly material: 68D Polyester
• Carry bag material: 210D Polyester
• Poles material: Fiberglass x3 (roof), Steel x6 (walls)
• Weight: 30.5 pounds
• Packed size: 29 x 16 x 12 inches
• Number of guylines: 8
• Number of stakes: 20 (steel)
• Number of windows: 4
• Number of doors: 2
• Number of ground vents: 2
• Number of pockets: 2
• Number of gear lofts: 1
• Number of lantern loops: 1
• Room divider: Yes (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 (2 people): 11 minutes
• Set up timing (1 person): 22 minutes
• Take down timing (2 people): 7 minutes
• Take down timing (1 person): 13 minutes
• Number of single sleeping pads: 10
• Number of queen-sized mattresses: 4

I go through all the above specifications in the sections below, in more detail, if you’re interested.

I put the Core 10-Person Straight Wall Cabin Tent through these 7 tests:

1. Ease of Use
2. Spaciousness
3. Comfort & Features
4. Ventilation
5. Rain Protection
6. Quality
7. Portability

Here’s how the Core Cabin Tent performed.

Ease of Use

For ease of use, I looked at how easily I could put up, as well as take down and pack up, this Core 10-Person Tent. I did this on my own, so 1 person, and also I tested this with 2 people as well.

Ease of Set Up

There are 3 fiberglass poles for the roof, 6 steel poles for the walls, 8 pre-attached guylines, and 20 stakes.

To set up this Core 10-Person Tent, first unpack the tent and insert the 3 fiberglass roof poles through the pole sleeves on the roof of the tent.

2 of them are black in color, and these are the longer poles that are to be inserted diagonally across the roof. The 2 diagonal pole sleeves are also black in color. The last fiberglass pole is gray in color, which is the shorter pole to be inserted through the gray-colored pole sleeve down the middle of the roof.

Then, connect the fiberglass roof poles to the ribbed ends of the pole joints, which is the side with these protrusions inside the joint. The other side of the joint doesn’t have these protrusions.

There will be 6 of these for the 6 ends of the fiberglass poles.

Tip: I find that it’s much easier to secure the 3 fiberglass roof poles into the pole joints when you get someone else to go inside the tent, especially for the 2 diagonal poles and the 4 corner joints.

When everything has been secured in the pole joints, the roof of the tent should be propped up like this.

Next, attach the 6 steel wall poles (the end without the orange tip to the pole joints, and the other end with the orange tip to the pin from the pin and ring system).

Also, attach the pole clips at the same time.

Tip: The 2 middle steel poles have these “D” rings for attaching the rainfly. The 4 corner steel poles do not have these “D” rings.

Next, place the rainfly on the top, secure it to the 6 steel wall poles.

Finally, stake out the entire tent. 6 stakes are for the tent body, 2 for the 2 ground vents, 4 for the 2 doors, and 8 are for the guylines. (So, 20 stakes in total.)

It’ll take about ~11 minutes to set the entire Core 10-Person Straight Wall Cabin Tent with 2 people. It usually takes double the time for 1-person, so ~22 minutes if nothing goes wrong, but honestly I found it quite difficult to get the roof to prop up properly, and also I’m not tall enough to get the rainfly up on my own. (I’m 5’3″.)

Ease of Take Down

Taking down the Core 10-Person Tent and then packing it up takes about ~7 minutes with 2 people, and about ~13 minutes on my own, excluding washing and drying, of course.

If you want more detailed instructions on how to set up, take down, and pack up this Core 10-Person Cabin Tent, check out this video that I uploaded, right here:

Spaciousness

Peak Height

This Core 10-Person Straight Wall Cabin Tent has a peak height of 90 inches, and because I’m only 5’3″, I can’t reach the top of the tent, like so:

The lowest height in the tent, which is at the four corners, is about 65 inches. This is slightly taller than my height, so I could stand up everywhere inside the Core 10-Person Straight Wall Cabin Tent.

Dimensions

The length of the Core tent is about 13 feet and 7 inches, while the width is about 10 feet, so slightly smaller than the marketed dimensions.

Also, there’s no vestibule, so if you leave your shoes out, it will get wet if it rains.

Mattress Sizing

This Core 10-Person Straight Wall Cabin Tent can accommodate 10 single sleeping pads or sleeping bags, and here’s what having 10 pads in this 10-person tent looks like.

To accommodate 10 people in this tent, it’s almost shoulder-to-shoulder sleeping, although there’s some space down the middle for just a tiny bit of camping gear.

This Core 10-Person Tent can also fit 4 queen-sized camping mattresses, and here’s what the tent looks like with these 4 mattresses.

The mattresses that I used in this video are slightly smaller than queen size, but almost queen sized (give or take a few inches). Even so, these 4 mattresses take up the entire tent, and there’s hardly any space leftover for camping gear.

Comfort & Features

Windows

This Core 10-Person Tent has 4 identical windows, each measuring about 45 inches in length by 25 and a half inches in width.

This is the longest length and the longest width of each window. There’s 1 window on each wall of the tent.

Each window has 2 zippers, which are a little bit noisy, but are pretty much snag-free.

If there’s no rain, you can unzip the windows for more ventilation, and there’s a bug net to prevent larger bugs from getting in. The holes are quite large, so I don’t think this is no-see-um mesh.

You can use the small latch (attached to the window fabric) to tie the fabric of the windows up, or you can just stuff the window fabric in here (without tying the fabric up).

Doors

This Core 10-Person Tent has 2 doors, both are D-shaped doors, with one at the front length, and the other at the back length of the tent.

Each door measures about 53 by 38 inches in dimensions, although it’s about 60 inches from the floor to the top of the door, so almost full-sized, but I do need to duck a little when entering.

Here’s what the door looks like in comparison to my size.

The door does have a bug net, but it’s only for half the door.

If there are no bugs though, I like to unzip the entire door and leave it open by rolling it up and clipping it to the side right here like this.

The door has 2 zippers for the bug net, and 2 for the door itself. The door can be zipped up from both the inside and outside. The door zipper would sometimes snag from the outside because of this rain cover, but it usually doesn’t snag from the inside.

Room Divider

This Core 10-Person Tent comes with a room divider, so you can split the tent into 2 rooms. Each “room” can fit 2 queen-sized beds, and each room will also have its own door, along with 2 windows.

The divider has a zip in the middle so that you can access either room, and you can also pull back the sides of the divider for easier access. You can also fit just 1 or 2 queen-sized beds in one “room”, and use the other as a living room, or something.

The divider is not completely opaque, and you can actually see quite a bit through the divider, but it does cover almost the full length of the tent, except maybe a little gap at the bottom.

Storage

There’s only 2 pockets in the entire tent, measuring 10 by 19 inches for the bigger one, and 14 and a half by 7 inches for the smaller one.

It also comes with a gear loft for more storage space, but it’s not the biggest and I’m not tall enough to attach it without some help, but if you’re slightly taller you should be able to attach it no problem.

The gear loft comes with a loop in the middle of the loft so that you can hang the divider at the same time as the gear loft.

There’s also 1 lantern loop at the very top of the tent for some lighting at night. I can’t reach this either, but you should be fine if you’re a little taller.

Other Features

This Core Tent also has 1 e-port at the middle of the tent, with a Velcro closure.

There’s no dark room technology though, and it’s quite bright throughout the day, but I really like the colors of this Core 10-Person tent. It also looks really nice at night.

Ventilation

Ceiling Mesh

For ventilation, this Core 10-Person Tent has a lot of mesh on the roof of the tent.

The rainfly is removable from the outside, and you can stargaze when it’s not raining. I really enjoy lying down in the tent and watching it turn dark during sunset.

Window + Door Mesh

Apart from the roof though, I would say that there’s not a lot of mesh from the 4 windows and 2 doors, because they’re not very big.

Vents

There are no roof vents, but there are 2 ground vents for additional ventilation. Each ground vent measures about 32 by 9 inches.

Rainy Day Options

When it’s raining, air can flow in through the 2 ground vents and be pushed out through the ceiling mesh.

But apart from this, there’s not a lot of ventilation. All the windows and doors have to be closed, because otherwise, the rain would drip right into the tent.

As you can see here, when it’s raining, quite a bit of rain will drip onto the mesh, so it’s best to keep the windows fully closed, especially in moderate to heavy rain.

So thankfully, at least there are 2 ground vents for some ventilation.

Weather Protection

For weather resistance, I looked at rain and wind protection.

Rain Protection

It did not rain while I was using this tent, so I had to make do with a water hose, and it looked like this.

I think I’ll consider this to be moderate (maybe even heavy) rainfall. I did this rain test for an hour, and concentrated the rainfall on the left width of the Core 10-Person Cabin Tent.

After about 55 minutes, I noticed a little bit of leaking through this seam here, which connects the orange part of the main body of the tent to the flooring, because it hasn’t been seam taped or sealed.

At this timing, I also noticed that the orange fabric near the ground vent felt a bit damp.

For more info on this, you can check out the full rain test video right here:

Wind Protection

I don’t think this Core 10-Person Straight Wall Tent will do very well against strong winds. This is a cabin tent with almost vertical sidewalls, so the shape isn’t aerodynamic at all.

The pole structure is very simple, there are only 8 guylines in total, and the stakes aren’t your super high-quality stakes.

Quality

For quality, I looked at the flooring, tent body, stitching, zippers, mesh, poles, stakes, guylines, and carry bag.

Flooring

The flooring is made of polyethylene and does not have a bathtub feature.

Tent Body

The material of the tent is made of 68D polyester.

I found a bunch of loose threads on the floor when I first got into the tent, and excess material on some parts.

Stitching

I found some pretty large holes where the guylines are stitched to the main tent body, but at least they had been seam taped.

Zippers

The zippers worked fine for the windows, but snagged occasionally on the door (pictured earlier).

There was also quite a bit of leaking through both the zippers and the zip of one particular door in moderate rain.

Mesh

The mesh looks decent quality, but the holes are pretty big, and don’t feel really smooth and silky, so I’m pretty sure it’s not no-see-um mesh, though it’ll keep the bigger bugs out.

Poles

The 3 roof poles are made of fiberglass, which are a bit more flexible. I wouldn’t recommend putting this 10-person tent up on your own though, because it’s quite difficult to get the roof to prop up by yourself (pictured earlier).

The 6 wall poles are made of steel, but one of these steel poles came with a slight chip, so I had to file it down to put the pole together.

Stakes

The 20 steel stakes that came with the tent are just your standard tent stakes.

Guylines

I had no issues with the guylines, though it would be nice if they were reflective at night. They don’t seem to be.

Carry Bag

The carry bag is made of 210D polyester, and feels to be good quality. It was pretty easy getting the tent, poles and all other accessories back into the carry bag.

Portability

This Core 10-Person Tent has a packed size of 29 by 16 by 12 inches. For a size comparison, here’s what it looks like beside a Coleman 2-Person Sundome Tent, as well as a 32-ounce Nalgene bottle.

The Core 10-Person Straight Wall Cabin Tent weighs about 30 and a half pounds for everything.

Pros

For pros, I found the Core Tent to be super spacious. It has an impressive peak height of 90 inches, although this also means that if you’re not tall like me, you won’t be able to install the gear loft or put up a lantern without some help.

Of all my other 10-person tents, this Core tent has the highest peak height.

I also tested it through 1 hour of light rain, and this Core tent did well with no leaks at all.

Plus, it has really nice vibrant colors, which look great not only in the day, but also at night. Definitely one of my nicer looking tents for sure.

Cons

As for cons, I didn’t like that I could see quite a bit through the divider, and there’s hardly any privacy even with the divider up.

Also, I wish they made the windows a little bit bigger for more ventilation during hot days. Right now, they’re not small, but not big either.

Overall, I feel that this Core 10-Person Tent is a pretty decent tent. It did spectacularly in terms of spaciousness, and did average in the rest of my tests, like ease of use, comfort, features, ventilation, rain protection, and quality.

I think it’ll be a great tent for you if you love the spaciousness, peak height, and the colors of this Core Tent.

How does this Core 10-Person Cabin Tent compare to other similar tents though? Well, here’s a blog post where I bought, tested and compared 6 of the best 10-person tents.

And here’s another post where I bought and tested the 7 best cabin tents, if that’s more your speed.

Alternatively, here’s another one where I bought and tested the 9 best family camping tents in the market.

Or, check out the Core Tent: