Customer Reviews

Texsport Hilo Hut Privacy Shelter

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I bought this Hilo Hut last fall, set it up in the garage for practice and the poles shredded overnight. I contacted Texsport to get some new poles from them and they never responded.

I also had a problem with the zipper, it was missing a tooth or two down low. I put on some duct tape to stop the zipper from going down all the way and getting jammed.

This thing deserves less than 1 star, unfortunately you cannot submit a review without a star rating. How about minus 1?

Bottom line, Amazon has a few other small privacy tents to choose from. You should try your luck with them. The price may look right on this one but be warned you'll get a low quality product, with no customer service from the manufacturer.

I looked at several similar products and their reviews. This product and a couple of similar ones all, almost uniformly, got pretty bad reviews. This one, however, had a couple that said "if you have experience setting up tents with fiberglass tent poles then this isn't so bad." I have a lot of that type of experience, so I decided to give this a try.

Bad decision. First, the instructions that came with it implied that there were to be 2 set of poles, connected by elastic shock cords (pretty standard in my experience with tents). However, there were 5 sets! No mention of which ones to use and the structure clearly looked like it needed just two sets.

Then it became obvious that the desin of the structure needed the two sets of poles to virtually bend at an incredibly tight, steep angle (you can see that in the picture of the structure which peakes at the top...the two fiberglass poles go from one corner over to the opposite, diagonal corner). The poles are simply not capable of making that type of bend without shattering...which is exactly what mine did...consistent with what most of the unfavorable evaluations said, too.

So I tried some combinations of the other 3 poles that came with it to see if I could at least rig some sort of "make-do" solutions. Nothing that I tried worked...at all. I broke two of the other pole assembly and the 5th one was too short to work at all.

This product is truly, in my opinion given my experience with it, a piece of junk. Do not buy this. That Amazon would offer such a poor quality product is beyond me since normally they deal with high quality, excelent products.

I guess I should have given all those negative reviews much more credence. My bad!

After spending over 30 minutes trying to set it up, my husband and I gave up and shipped this unit back. We're intelligent people and this design is most difficult to assemble correctly. Also, one rod started to crack from pressure, so it's of very low quality in my opinion. Bought the Outback Porta-privy instead for just about $20 more and couldn't be happier. It pops up in less than 3 minutes, can get it folded up and back in storage bag in about 5 minutes. No poles, no ropes/guides and no problems! Plus its olive green color blends nicely into a campsite. Do yourself a favor and skip this Texsport Hilo Hut.

There was no loop or hook in the roof from which to hang a shower or light, so I had to sew in a loop myself. Also, the door would not unzip all the way open. I had to rip out part of the zipper and re-sew it to make the door work properly. Unless you are handy with a sewing machine and don't mind re-making the tent, I'd avoid this one.

First, the package contained different pieces than what were listed in the instructions for putting the tent together. Obviously, putting the tent together then became very challenging. We did make it work, but it wasn't right. The zipper was already pulled apart in a section when we first used it. This was pretty much a piece of junk and waste of money - I could have made a tarp work just as well.

Don't waste your money! The one I bought arrived broken. Contacted seller, no reply! Voiced my concern to Amazon, no reply! I figured buying on Amazon was pretty safe, but when I read some of the reviews (after my purchase) I realized that maybe Amazon is not as careful as I thought with the vendors they allow to sell on their site.Texsport Hilo Hut Privacy Shelter

The tent works for what it was made. I had an issue with one of the poles cracking and splitting. I used duct tape and the problem was solved.

This is very difficult to set up - the poles are flimsy and I returned it after one use.

Texsport Hilo Hut Privacy ShelterI set the shelter up in my living room a few days b4 I left to go camping and was surprised that there was no ring or attachment to hook my solar shower inside. I thought since I already had my own solar shower all I needed was the shelter part. I ended up having to try to rig up something with PVC pipe connections but not strong enough to hold bag. So it ended up to be an expensive ordeal!

Bought this a year ago for camping, and finally used it because we had women come with us camping this time. First, the instructions were horrible. Second, one of the rods at the top of the tent snapped, basically making the entire shelter useless as there was nothing to apply pressure keeping the shelter upright. Don't do it. Save yourself the headache. I have been going camping for years, have several tents, etc, and with a little more care in the manufacturing process, they could have made this a much better product.