Hi we are looking for a tent and came across De Waard. In their store in heerde i fell in Love with the stormvogel. On the other Hand the bosuil is a bit roomier in my opinion (but it doenst Look sexy)

Would you recomment the Stormvogel? Cant find many postings regarding that tent.

Gas anymore made experiences with the stormvogel and would Share them.

All in all our favourite configuration of the tent is ~3000€ - that is an Investment to think about twice.

Thank you

Hendrik

We have a Roerdomp. The old model stormvogel is comparable with the roerdomp only the model is a bit different. The new model stormvogel has a little bit more space and I like the model of the varioluifel more.

We are a family of 5. Normally we use a sleeping tent next to the Roerdomp for the oldest 2 kids and sleep with 3 in the Roerdomp. With 4 people in the Roerdomp also fits well, with 5 people 1 has to sleep in the living compartment. As you are with 3, I think the size is perfect for you.

We are very content with the Roerdomp so I think the Stormvogel would be a very good choice for your family. Enough space, but not as large as the Albatros. Our first De Waard was an Albatros but for us this was a bit to much, although there are a lot of families very content with their Albatros.

I have no experience with the Bosuil, have seen it in the showroom but I prefer the sotrmvogel for the looks and the varioluifel.

Hi Hendrik (seems you have a typical 'dutch' name?!) and welkcome,

The choice for a De Waad model depends heavily on family size, camping preferences and other constrains (like car size). You have to realise that your choice now affects your way of camping for many years to come. Don't go over one night ice as we say here

We used a (older version of the current) Stormvogel for a couple of years with our family of 4. But, for the kids we had a smaller Dwergstern beside the Stormvogel. We were very happy with our Stormvogel, but finally sold it and moved on to a smaller 'family' tent and still with the Dwergstern beside it. Here's the Stormvogel with side awnings and varioluifel:



About camping preferences: are you going to use it for summer holiday only and choose to stay on one campsite for the entire holiday? Or do you want to use it for weekends, or prefer to pitch it only for a couple of nights in summer holiday and then move on to the next spot?
If the family expands, realise that a larger tent like Stormvogel or Bosuil takes quite some space in a car. We used to have a luggage trailer behind our car for all the gear and luggage. But that slowes you down a bit on covering larger distances and is more costly when taking ferries for exemple. With 2 smaller tents and some smart thinking on gear like chairs, we now manage to get all stuff in car + roof box.

An alternative to look at might be the more compact Goudplevier, that will comfortably accommodate 2 adults + 1 kid. It also can be expanded with side awnings and varioluifel.

Feel free to comment and share your thoughts

Thank you for your replies. You are definitely right by saying that a de waard will affect the way we will spend our future holidays:

My preference is to spend a long summer trip with the tent in e.g. Spiekeroog (germany) or in the netherlands or even in denmark or sweden. But a trip in late spring or early autumn would be fine for me too - is that a problem with the tent?
When we do our about 4 weeks long summer holiday i normally would spend that on maybe two or three different campsites - you mention that because of the time you need to set the tent up?

We own a Golf Variant (current model) and could get a roofbox too - would you assume that car to be too small?

The thing is I like the look of De Waard and the quality they offer - I already have two other tents (MSR / Wechsel) but we will need one that is bigger and delivers stand-height.

If your car and roofbox are enough also depends on what else you want to bring with you. With a baby you can fill your whole car with babystuff if you want . But we would manage with your car a roofbox and only 1 child. With our 3 children we need a trailer (or a large 4wd/bus). We normally stay 3-6 nights at 1 campsite. The trailer makes us moving slower on traveldays and I would prefer to travel without the trailer, but we can't just leave one child behind and we also want a little bit of comfort.

It takes a bit longer to pitch a larger tent. But more importantly, taking a larger tent wet at home, means you have to have more space at home to dry the tent. That could possibly be a hurdle to take it out for just a weekend camping.

The Goudplevier lacks a "second" room ("Living room") - therefore its not suitable for us. Although i liked the inner and the overall look very much. The Albatros is definitely too big...

So lets say the Stormvogel is the right tent for us. How long will it take me to set it up with all the additions (varioluifel, sidescreens)? Can you fully close the tent by attaching the varioluifel to the ground? (like on the photos of the Albatros on De Waards webpage.

Since I dont like used items that much - especially in that price region would you just buy it in Heerde oder would you wait for some kind of discount event? (if these things exist for De Waard)

As far as I know you can only get their tents directly from them, right?

thank you

Re the Goudplevier: our experience with for example the Stormvogel was that we didn't use the living space IN the tent. We always lived outside, under the varioluifel

Pichting a Stormvogel depends heavily on your experience and whether you have to do it on your own, or have your partner assisting. Assuming that you have to do it on your own and being a rookie , count on at least one hour pitch the tent, including awnings and varioluifel.
But remember, pitching a tent is part of your holiday

If the varioluifel of the Stormvogel can enclose the whole front side, I don't know for sure. You better ask in Heerde to be sure.
Heerde is for now the only store to buy a new De Waard tent. I'm not sure if there will be a discount event soon. They used to have some discount offers in the past, usually in the autumn, connected to their autumn show.

I saw your remark on used items, but in Holland there is quite a market place for pre owned De Waard tents. This might for example be not a bad deal: https://link.marktplaats.nl/m1378317281.

Our experiences are a bit different then Tally-Ho

We do use the living space. In Schotland we used it when the midgets arrived. Also the children use it for playing, specially the girls use it for playing with their dolls. We also use it as store for the bags and food. And when we stay only for 1 or 2 nights we use it for sleeping.

But that is how we do it, how you do it is up to you! I also don't know if we would choose a tent with living space when we would not have 3 children. We wanted the possibility to sleep with 5 people in the tent so we don't have to pitch 2 tents when we stay only 1 or 2 nights, so we need the space of the Roerdomp. With 3 or 4 people, it is also possible to sleep in a smaller tent, and we now use the licing space because we have it, but we don't really need it.

For pitching, the time needed depends on your experience, if you have to do it alone or with your partner and the surface (rocks take a lot more time then soft grassy grounds). Realise pitching is only a part of the time needed, the rest of you luggage also take time, like the beds and when you use cupboard that will also take time (we don't use them for that reason). Also the preparation helps, how do you pack your car (if you have to unpack your whole car before you can get to your tent and if you have everything loose in the car, it takes more time then when you have everything in handy boxes or bags and the tent is easy to reach)

I also think we will need the extra "room" to protect ourselves from insects or just to let the baby lie on the ground while not being in the sleeping area.
We would definitly go with the innertent too to avoid being stung by moskitos or so.

I think for us the Stormvogel is the tent to choose - we will doublecheck that on next saturday again and maybe will just buy one there. Maybe we are lucky and there are some kind of "discounts" on that special day.

The only thing I need to know is if you can close the "front" on the stormvogel like you can with the albatros.

Thank you all for your advices till now