This is our first post on this MB. We bought a Diablo 600 XP yesterday following a disastrous experience with a tent we bought from eBay!!
We came on here to check out people's experiences with the Diablo, but also the Sun valley 8 and the Vango Vancouver when we were in 3 minds last week about which one to go for. Everyone seems so friendly and full of advice, which I'm sure we will be grateful for in the coming months as we are both camping novices.
We liked the space offered by the Diablo and the porch way. Plus as we were useless at putting the last tent up, we are relieved to find we can download the assembly instructions onto our PSP and take that with us the first couple of times!
From the many reviews we have read about the Diablo 600 XP we are more than happy with our new purchase and can't wait to try it out next weekend.
We live in West Yorkshire and are looking to camp next year fairly close to home to start with, probably in North Yorkshire. We will be with baby though come the camping season (well in 7 weeks actually!!) so feel this will be enough travelling for us to start with. Does anyone else have experience of camping with a baby?
Anyway, we wanted to know whether the Vango canopy would attach to the doorway in the living area? Probably a silly question, but like we said, we are novices!!
Hello and welcome to the site,congratulations on your vango youve got a cracking tent there.there are lots on here who are camping with baaies so no doubt you will have loads of replys.most will mention good insulation between you and the ground ,also good quality sleeping bags too.best of luck
Don't have a Diablo or a baby (now) but welcome to UKcampsite. This is a very addictive site and I should be doing the housework but I'm on here instead.
We bought a Diablo 900 and tried it for the 1st time a couple of weeks ago. We were complete newbies too and OH was a bit worried when we were allocated a pitch in the centre of the field!
It was cool though. The Diablo was really easy to put up, although we did have a dry run with the inner tent in our garden first.
We enjoyed it so much that the day after we came home we were out looking for a smaller tent to use for weekends, the Diablo is HUGE!
We bought the extra canopy but I'm not sure it's necessary, having said that, we had a completely dry week so things might be different if the weather was bad. The canopy attached to the front of the tent but while we were away we kept talking about attaching it to the back. We didn't get a chance to try it though due to the way we had pitched.
I can't really say much about camping with a baby, ours are 3 & 4, and they really loved it. They keep asking when we can go on another adventure.
Anyway, congratulations on buying a Diablo, I'm sure you'll love it, and good luck with your 1st trip, I hope it's as successful as our was.
That's so funny teamdiablo that you had to pitch in the middle of the field- did you feel like you were on stage!!!! I'm having a vision of everyone gathering round and staring!
We really loved the diablo when we were shopping but we went for the colorado on price in the end which we are really happy with too.
And welcome to Helen John and Baby too!! Good luck with everything in the next couple of months and well done for wanting to camp with baby-something I wasn't brave enough to do and have waited until my youngest turned 2!!!! How sad am I!!
------------- "There are only 2 lasting things we can hope to give our children, one of these is roots, the other wings"
we have a diablo 900 xp and love it, yes its a huge tent (we are a family of 6 and my hubby is 6"2 and fits in it easily) but you have to have room to 'live' and if you are camping for a week or more you have to have room to move around each other and all the equipment. we also have the canopy, we use it to cook in if the campsite allows large pitches (takes up little space to take with you), if it's alowed it's excellent for taking bad weather off the front of the tent abd even better still, although more expence!! is the diablo windbreaks. they are high enough to to take the wnd over your tent and not into it, the down side is more guy ropes but your tent stays still in a storm!!
oh and the baby bit....i took mine from being a few weeks old, eldest one (now 21 ) was put in 'buggy muff' of his pram or slept in his padded all in one pram suite, the other 3 were/are put in folded down sleeping bags
haven't tried fixing the canopy to the rear door but I think it might work. If we'd had more room behind our tent then we would have given it a go.
I've read a couple of threads on here where people have attached the Vango canopy to other makes of tent, so I reckon it's worth a try.
If the Diablo wasn't so humungous I'd put it up in the garden and try!
Bottle, we were in the middle of the field with a row of conifers behind us. The other people already on the site didn't actually get up and gather round, but they we're all watching over the rims of their glasses of wine!
My wife was worried that we would look like newbies because we didn't know what we were doing, I pointed out that we probably looked like newbies as all of our stuff still had tags!
We had a fantastic time though and the children keep asking when they can go on another adventure. I'm seriously thinking of booking Ruda in Devon for easter. It might be a bit cold and it'll probably rain but I don't care, the last trip made me feel sooooo much better. I haven't felt so well, or positive, in yonks.
Just checking out your gallery and the tent looks great, I have a question about your trailer. We have the exact same on Erde 122 and we have been struggling to find room even with a trailer and we we thinking about extending the height of it somehow, you seem to have made your sides taller, did you do this yourselves or buy the bits to extend it.
you can't buy extra solid sides for our trailer, but there are a number of options out there, from about £75 upwards.
i played with the idea for a while and opted for a more perminant and robust method.
the sides are made from alluminium sheets and bent accordingly. they are then fastened via bolts to corner and side braces. with the sides now doubled in height i increased the load space capacity by 85%. the way i did it, i also still have use of the drop down tailgate and tipping facility.
cost will vary for the materials. i was lucky and got the sides made for me buy my neighbour, free !!!!
go to your local metal benders and speak with them.
if you want more informed details, internal pics etc, pm me your email address and i shall get round to it.
A day of all things motorhome and campervan. The show is held both in the main indoor arena and across the grounds. Catering, hot drinks and food options are available. Easy access to the site and free parking included. Win one of five pairs of day tickets
Topic: Introduction and Vango Canopy!
