I purchased the Skyfort II swing set from Sam's Club. I decided to do the DIY install, after all said and done I would probably pay someone to just install it. Be prepared to have lots of numbered boards with many bags of screws. With the help of my Father in law I was able to get it done in a few weekends. I found out to have a 3rd person read ahead in the instructions and get the boards/screws out that are needed for the next steps was much help with the flow of installation. What slowed me up was the fact there were a few boards damaged once I opened the packages. The great thing was I contacted Backyard Discovery (who were great to deal with!) and the were able to get me replacement pieces sent out at no charge. The main reason I gave this set a Good overall rating as opposed to an Excellent is because of the quality of the actual boards and the coating on them from the factory. When I contacted Backyard Discovery about the broken boards they told me to make sure to put an oil base stain over the whole swing set to make it last longer and not rot. If I hadn't of called them I probably wouldn't have ever known to do that, even though I think after the fact I looked in the instruction booklet and there was a small area that mentioned to stain the boards. All in all it is a very nice looking swing set and my kids love it.

We just assembled this thing last week. Here is my experience and my recommendations. After ordering this Playset, I printed off a set of instructions. It gave me a chance to get familiar with the parts and assembly sequence. It also gave me dimensions that I needed to make sure ground was leveled. I bought better wood screws with torx head. I believe I went with 2", 1-1/4", and 2-1/2 inch screws. I should have got a box or 2 of 1-1/8" because there were many of those and I had to use their phillips head they provided, which was a pain. So, when the playset arrives in 4 large boxes, I recommend going through each box, one at a time and checking off the inventory sheet that is provided in each box. Lay everything out. There are stamps on each board and they are faint. If one is too faint, use the directions that show the piece and re-label it at this point. Put all the stamps in the same direction. This helps later when searching for the board you need. In my case, the boards that I laid vertical, I had stamps at top. If boards were placed horizontal, the stamps were to the left. There were some boards marked the same, but in different boxes. So keep that in mind. After you inventory each box, you can put all like boards together to save time and floor space. Like other reviews on here, it is absolutely necessary to sort out the hardware before you begin. The instructions are set up in steps. Starts out with sub assemblies, such as the slide, rock wall, etc. All together their are about 140 steps or so. Each step states what hardware is needed to complete the step. So buy large baggies and put hardware in there for each step, and clip the bag to each step. This is time consuming but will save you time, I promise you. Once my adult son and I started, it took us about 14 hours the first day. We stopped twice to eat. The second day, we spent 16 hours on it, taking only 1 break. The last day took about 3 hours attaching the sub assemblies onto the fort. The instructions were pretty good. The only problem was an occasional board that was hard to tell which way was to be orientated. But for the most part, we had zero trouble. Just takes time and patience. I recommend using a couple of cordless drivers for screws. Do not use an impact wrench.. we destroyed a few pieces of hardware with one. Also, there are 3 or 4 places to put spindles that need to be spaced apart. Make spacers before you begin. It helps. There are places you need to drill holes. Almost every hole we drilled through the board (mostly 7/16") blew out and splintered on the back side. So have some sandpaper and stain so you can make it not look so bad. Overall this was a good bonding experience for my son and I, and his daughter absolutely loved the playset. I believe it was worth it. As a side note, we had a party with about 30 people and many children. I bought a bunch of fireworks and the kids watched from the playset. It was great to see them have such a fun time.

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] I bought this a year ago and my children still haven’t gotten bored of it!! It’s great for my almost 2 year old (with supervision of course) my 4 and 5 year old and the love it! The swings are replaceable and I was able to switch the big swing out for my toddler swing!

We bought this almost a year ago and my kids love it!! They play for hours on it and love to have lunch in the picnic table. My hubby and I are pretty handy so we were able to get it done in a day and a half. I expect that we will get more than our moneys worth out of this.

We bought this swing set about a month ago. The grandkids have used it every day—even before going to school in the morning. They enjoy playing in the fort, having snacks at the picnic table, and all of the fun activities they can do with the various accessories (e.g. climbing wall, glider, swings, monkey bars).

When we were looking for a playset for our 4 year old and 1 year old, one of the most important things we took into consideration was how long they would get use out of it. There are many sets out there by big name brands that have tons of features, more than this one even, but the overall "size" of the set is small as far as deck height etc., so it would be outgrown fast. This set is HUGE, as an adult I feel perfectly comfortable playing right along side the kids, and my husband who is 6'4 can even stand up straight inside the upper deck. I have no doubt that they will still be using this playset well into their teens. We purchased an infant/toddler swing off Amazon to switch out with one of the swings until our littlest is old enough to use it. Prior to purchasing/building, I was careful to read through all the reviews to take note of tips and tricks, and there were some I found super helpful and some that were a little over the top. Because we live in an area that gets a decent amount of snow and rain, I did take the time to seal/stain each board prior to building. There is a LOT of pieces so if you do this, give yourself a couple days, it took a long time. I felt that sealing prior to building was best because all the inside edges touching each other that wouldn't be able to get to after building would be covered, and I didn't have to work around any of the hardware. We did not organize everything by letter/number when we laid it outside to stain it, and because we were working towards a deadline to get it done prior to a party, we did not end up taking the time to move them around and do that before starting the build process. I believe that was a mistake and it would've saved us a ton of time during the actual build if we had laid out the boards in order so I highly recommend doing that. On the other hand, I personally disagree with the people who spent hours organizing the hardware into baggies by step. The hardware is very clearly labeled and easy to sift through since it doesn't take up a big area like the boards. We just made sure to use tape to close the bag back off after taking what we needed so there wasn't the risk of them spilling and getting mixed up. I thing the time spent doing that would be better spend just getting started building. We worked in a pair with one completing a step while the other pulled the hardware and boards for the next step and that seemed to work very well. I honestly think any additional people would've just gotten in the way. We were able to easily get through it with the instructions that I printed off this page, and didn't need to download the video ap. The most important thing is to pay double and triple attention to which way you orient the boards when building, so that the pilot holes are in the right spot for preceding steps. I thought we were being really diligent about this, but there were still a few times we had to go back and turn boards around from previous steps. Not a huge deal, but slightly annoying so avoid it as much as possible lol Overall we are super pleased with the set, and found it pretty straightforward to build. All of the wood and hardware was clearly marked and good quality, we weren't missing anything. As long as you pay attention to detail and follow step by step there's really no way to mess it up. It took us a whole week M-F working a couple hours after work each night to stain the boards, then the weekend Saturday and Sunday working all day (about 12 hours each day) to build and were able to finish up Monday after work. So if you don't count the stain/seal time, it took us as a pair just over 24 hours to build.

Great swing set very sturdy. It took my husband two eight hour days to put it up by himself without any help. We did need to purchase some screws and a couple of extra bolts that were missing... Not a big deal. Five bucks total at our local hardware store. My son and his friends absolutely love it and it looks great in our yard. People think we spent a lot more on it than we did.

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] We replaced a smaller swing set with this and are thrilled with it! Our granddaughters love it! It was not difficult to put together as it has thorough instructions. The variety of swings, the slide, the climbing wall and so much more makes it to be so fun for the grands. We love that the slide is one piece. We are very pleased with it and can't wait to have years of memories made on it!

Great swingset. A lot of pieces and parts to put together and very time consuming. Make sure to pre drill holes so wood doesn't split and pay attention to the already pre drilled holes on boards as you assemble, the directions don't point this out very well and if you get a board backwards you will have to take it back apart and flip the board the correct way. All and all its a great value and seems like it will last!

The project is fairly easy to assemble however the plans are difficult to follow. It has many steps where you need to orient boards a certain way but the instructions are unclear on this. Then several steps later you find you put the board on the wrong way and either have to dissamble everything or drill new holes. Also the instructions do not mention squaring or leveling anyplace.