Wenzel Kodiak 9 Person Cabin Tent Review

The Review

Camping is an enjoyable activity that many families and friends participate in on a regular basis. Preparation for a camping trip includes many details, one of which being to ensure that you have a proper tent to keep you dry and provide shelter. Weather and how your group prepare for it plays an important role in determining the success of your trip. To that end, campers must ensure that their tent will fill the role that they need it to, whether that is performing well in driving winds and rain, keeping the tent cool during high temperatures, or just providing enough room to keep everyone comfortable.

Cabin tents, like the Wenzel Kodiak 9 person tent, are designed with straight wall sides to provide more interior surface area and roomier interiors than other types of tents. This often makes these styles of tents very popular for large families or groups of campers. Wenzel is a brand that is known for providing campers with affordable products without sacrificing quality. Read our review below to see how well the Wenzel Kodiak cabin tent performs and if it will meet your group’s camping needs to make your trip as much fun as possible.

Affordable and Plenty of Room

The most attractive feature of this Wenzel cabin tent is, without a doubt, the price. This is an extremely affordable tent that has ample amounts of room to accommodate several campers. While the quality of the tent could definitely be better (more below), when the tent is this affordable, how much do buyers really care? Campers can get this tent for basically the same price as one night in a hotel. Granted, some of the features and accessories could be done better, but the cost savings and number of uses you get out of the tent may make up for it. In addition to the cost, another excellent aspect of the tent is how roomy the interior is. Although most cabin tents offer spacious interiors, the Wenzel stands out and almost feels like you are camping in a room in your home. The interior can easily accommodate 2 queen sized mattresses and still leave plenty of space for campers to move around. Furthermore, the ceiling is exceptionally tall (7.2’). Unlike other tents, unless you are a professional basketball player, there will be no stooping or hunching while you are in the tent. The spacious interior is a breath of fresh air if you are tired of the cramped feeling that often accompanies dome tents and their like.

Convenient and Safe Features

Camping with a large family can sometimes be a challenge due to the limitations of some tents. The Wenzel Kodiak offers various features that are helpful in this regard. For example, the tent has two storage pockets for keeping your gear. Additionally, the storage cubbies use mesh windows to promote safety. One of the best features of this tent is the room divider. Unlike other tents that can make the divider feel as if it was an afterthought, this one is surprisingly helpful. It easily creates sections of the tents to better reduce square footage and heat the parts of the tent you want heated. This is a necessity on cold nights as the mesh roof lets most of the heat out. Although attaching the rainfly can help, it isn’t as foolproof as one would hope.

Fair Weather Camping and Ventilation

The Wenzel cabin tent is best used in fair weather conditions as it provides great ventilation for hot days. The entire roof is made of mesh to allow the air to move through the top of the tent and keep the air cool inside. While this is a problem during cold weather camping, it is excellent at other times. In addition to the mesh roof, the large side windows point out at an angle to allow rain and moisture to run off. The front window is made of mesh screen material and also does an excellent job at allowing air ventilation. In addition to the ventilation, the design is very stylish and just plain looks good. A light tan color with wide windows give an inviting appearance and you can rest assured that you will be the best-looking camping tent in the area. Moreover, the light color does a good job at reducing heat unlike some of the darker tents.

Problem Areas

The affordability of this tent is very good, which leads to the question, “What’s the catch?”. Well, quite a few actually. First, if you expect to be camping in bad weather, be prepared for a soggy trip. While that may be somewhat of an exaggeration, other tents do much better in driving rain. The seams’ weatherproofing is underwhelming as rain seeps in if you don’t take the extra precaution of doing some weatherproofing of your own. The tent does fine in the morning dew or a light drizzle, but strong rain and wind could be a problem. Another drawback is that the tent can be difficult to set up and take down. The tent uses 3 poles on the front and back to support the tent. Unfortunately, getting the poles in the perfect position is very difficult, which can lead to the tent sagging. This leads to water accumulation which can bring the tent down in bad weather. During assembly, you must pay extra attention and try to get the materials as tight as possible to allow for water runoff. Finally, the mesh roof allows heat to escape during cold weather. While this is a good thing for warm camping trips, it makes it very difficult to keep the interior warm if the weather is cold or chilly.

Final Verdict

Overall, this tent is a good option if you are on a budget and don’t plan on using the tent during very poor weather. As one of our best cabin tents for rain, it didn’t really measure up to some of the other tents that perform well in bad weather. Due to quality concerns, the tent may not last as long as one would expect from a higher-grade product. The spacious interior, various features, and exceptional affordability ensure that the Wenzel Kodiak can function as an excellent alternative for beginner campers or those who just go intermittent trips with family and friends. For more experienced campers, who expect to camp in rugged conditions, it may be better to look for higher quality tents such as the Coleman Prairie Breeze cabin tent. If you’re interested in learning more, hop over to Amazon to find out more about the Wenzel Kodiak 9 person cabin tent.