I am surprised at how many good reviews that this playset receives. In the beginning, the playset seemed fine. The materials are thinner than some of the more expensive units that you can purchase. That, however is not the biggest problem. Within 4 months, this playset started to show a lot of wear. We have not even had this a year and the wood is flaking and falling apart. I would not recommend this to anyone. Wished we would have spent more money and purchased a better quality product.

Our neighbors have this brand but a different set so I was confident in the durability. I have a 3 and 7 year old so it was important for a wide range of ages to play for several years. There is lots of coverage on the assembly issues in the reviews (so just to reiterate) - very poor directions (especially at the base where the boards need to be inside the posts and not outside the posts as the pictures appear). From what my husband said, there were little to no instructions on spacing boards and just overall lack of direction in the instructions. There are also lots of comments on how sturdy it is so I don't need to cover that. So, as a mom, here are the things that I don't care for that this manufacture should fix. I thought I had done enough research, but I don't recall these areas of concern noted in other reviews but maybe I missed them. Because of all the coverage of the positives, I feel I need to note the following negatives. These are important to note as I would have likely purchased another set if I had known the following: First, the slide - why is it not molded plastic? Why is it a flimsy plastic sheet thread into two side pieces? I will be surprised if this lasts. More importantly the way the slide sits at the top of the platform it is very easy for little fingers to get caught between the slide edge and the wood posts as they steady themselves to sit down. My husband is looking for bolts to fasten the top sides to the post to prevent. Even the cheap sets have molded plastic slides so I don't know what the deal is with this one. I see us having to replace it with one from Lowe's. My second biggest issue is the spacing of the swings - very inadequate. When all 3 swinging items were in use there were a lot of near misses, so if any child isn't swinging perfectly straight then you will have a collision. The manufacturer needs to increase the beam length and space these out more. I passed over other sets because of this issue in those reviews. Third, I know monkey bars come with their own set of risks but my older daughter really wanted them. I passed up other sets because there was no place for the child to go at the end of the bars and this one allowed them to swing into the clubhouse instead of having to drop down or turn around and go back. However, seeing how the child has to maneuver to get into the clubhouse at the end, I see greater issues with falling because they have to get their legs up so high. Also consider the proximity of the monkey bar opening to the slide area and the increased fall risk for younger kids. When there are several kids on it and lots of them moving around very quickly, it would be so easy to misstep and fall out that opening as they wait in line to go down the slide. We will be modifying or removing the bars. Some of the kids in the neighborhood also have said the bars are just too far apart. The set is sturdy and is not as big as I expected (which worked in our favor with a smaller yard). It has a lot of options that others do not have which was one reason we bought it. The crow's nest has very high railings so I am very happy about that. The hole to get onto the crow's nest is quite small. I am not sure if a larger child could comfortably fit out it. As another reviewer mentioned, it is odd to have to walk in the sand to get to the lower clubhouse area and other side of the picnic bench. Somehow I wish they could have flipped the areas on the bottom part. Our delivery range was a 10 day period. We received it a day after the range, so it was a hard wait. I called SAMS customer service and they seemed happy help track it down, but never called me back. In the end I called the final carrier and begged to have it delivered since it would be a Friday and we needed the weekend to put it together. Otherwise I think it would have been several days late. They were then several hours past the end of the delivery range. At about 7 pm on a Friday night we figured we were just not going to see it until Monday, but it did come. We did have all our pieces so that was a good start. The instructions were not in box that was labeled to contain them so we printed the 117 pages from the internet so we could start sorting, but then we found them in the hardware box. So, look around before you do the same. In the end, I have mixed feelings about whether or not to recommend this set. Since it is not an overwhelming "yes", I have said "no" as I want to caution the buyers on the above points. This had such a high rating that I had very high expectations. Consider the above carefully until the manufacturer changes the slide and the swing spacing, especially.

All I have to say is that my wife and I spent 18 total hours on installing this set and after about half way through, the main wooden beam split right down the middle, keeping us from continuing. We had several other pieces of wood that seemed pretty dry and also cracked when a screw was put through it. There were several places where holes didn't line up and there were even some beams where you could tell the holes were drilled in the wrong spot so they just put an "X" on those and drilled other ones. Overall, I am extremely disappointed with this purchase and would not recommend this to anyone. We are still waiting to find out what is going to happen with what we have done so far.

This was a great swing set for the price and the quality was alot more than my husband and I expected. We bought the set for our 4 year old daughter for Christmas and it took my husband, father in law and 2 other individuals 3 days to put this thing together. Three of those individuals can build just about anything but it was very time consuming, It helps if you seperate and inventory all of your pieces first. We seperated all of the pieces into piles and used a piece of chalk to write on the ground so we could easily get to the pieces. Overall it is a great set for the price but my only complaint is that they could have made the side that the swings attach to a little longer due to the swings being so close.

Well it is a fort. We did get it finished. The directions are the worst I have ever seen. There is nothing to say which end of post are up or down. The illustrations are not clear to show boards go inside or outside of the rails,etc.etc. It was just re do after re do. I even had 3 boards that had to be trimmed so they would fit. When we put the roof on one side it was fine. The other side has a 5" space between roof and side wall. Just crazy.... After it was shipped I could track it until it reached main dock. Then no more tracking. It took 5 days till someone contacted me to set up a day for delivery.

My order of the Skyfort ll Cedar Swing Set/Play Set with Slide arrived on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday I applied water sealant to ALL wooden pieces and sorted by the alpha of each part number. Saturday had 2 men help get through step 4. No building happened on Sunday. Then I was on my own through for the rest and still had 3 young children in tow throughout almost entire build. Set was completely put together by Wednesday. Part H2 and the swing beam gave me some trouble and thankfully I called someone in to help me align it because once I got it to where it should have aligned the little cut out notch would fit the beam in it. Could have used a little more direction as to where pieces went on the structure, Step 7(example place wall boards on "interior side" of structure#. But overall I would highly recommend this set and company to anyone. However do yourself a favor and have help and get a babysitter during build:-) I could have gotten more help but the kids and I weren't willing to wait a week, so Mamita got cranking to it while daddy was working all day. Oh ya but 1 BIG complaint I have is for the screws #PWF 10x1/2#provided for green triangles like step 34 are AWFUL and just strip out. Just terrible!

Researched/Viewed many playset before purchasing the Skyfort...i chose it for the great look & quality & price, consumer reviews, has many activities and kids love it. I had Sam's installation service handle the insatll....for me it was the only way to go...do it yourself if you are very-very handy and have 2-3 days where you don't have anything else to do :) The install was worth the price.

First, I couldn't find a better price than on Sam's Club or if there was a slightly better price they charged $400-600 for shipping. I got free delivery through Sam's Club. Second, it does take a while to assemble. Most of the reviews I read stated it took over the time stated in the directions. The directions state it will take 2 people 24-36 hours to assemble. I did it by myself in 36 hours (about three 12hr days). My full time job is a desk job, but I do some light woodworking/DIY projects as an occasional hobby. I did not find assembly hard, just time time consuming. There are a lot of screws and bolts! Handling some of the pieces myself was awkward and help would have been nice for attaching larger pieces. Also, MAKE SURE your yard is level where you want to build, otherwise it will slow you down and give you difficulties. For safety's sake, you want the area to be level. I eneded up digging out part of my yard after the fact, which only adds more time to assembly. Third, the directions are ok, but read a step or two ahead to make sure you have the board's orientation correct - some have holes that are closer to one side than the other that you don't want to have to go back and remove later just to turn it around. This happened to me 2 or 3 times. When using your electric drill or screw driver be sure not to over torque the bolts and screws. The quality is decent, but you can crack the wood if over-tightened. Quick note on quality: it's chinese cedar. The parts that need to be thicker are and I had no issues. Also, keep in mind that this is natural wood - there will be imperfections and some slight cracking that won't affect the product overall. If you want flawless, buy plastic. One final piece of advice, take the time to lay out all the pieces on your lawn prior to assembly. This will save you so much time as there are a lot of pieces. The wood was sorted by letter and number, so when the directions called for a piece it was easy to find. I also took all the nuts and bolts out of their plasctic bags and put them in red plastic cups for easier use - just make sure to label the cups with the contents using a permament marker. This will make grabbing screws and washers a lot easier than digging in a plasctic bag.

What a great swing set. We decided to redo out backyard by extending it so we bought this for my daughter whose 1 1/2 and she loves it. It did take about 34 hrs to build but well worth it. The wood isnt as think as the ones that sell for $3K + but my husband and I are able to stand in the little house together with no concern. We were missing some pieces but had them to the house within 4 days of calling. We made a few changes to how they wanted thing set up. We moved the stairs to the front, the rockwall to the back and the window to the front so it looks like the picture. We absolutly love our backyard now. I have to say for the price you cant find anythign better.

I had shopped around for a long time - this swing set was well worth the price! Me & my husband put it together (him more than me!) Took us a good solid 2 weekends. Directions weren't the best to follow, but came out great! Make sure you count ALL the parts in the boxes prior to starting - the company was great sending replacements. My son, who is 4 yrs old, LOVES IT!