I researched for about 3 months on hundreds of different playsets and never found one that would meet our budget and still be a big playset. Then I came across this playset. I read all the reviews and only found maybe 1 or 2 bad reviews and those were only minor things. This is a very good playset for a good price. Yea, it's not a rainbow playset but those things are just rediculousy expensive. I am not going to lie, the directions are horrible. But if you have any wood working skills or mechanical skills then you will be ok. It took us about 18-20 hours to put together. I do wish that some of the boards were a little more stronger, but for my 6 year old and all her friends it will be just fine. All the neighborhood kids love it and I am very pleased with this playset. I would definetly buy another one if we ever had to. The only major problem that we had was one of the main floor boards was too small. I called the 800 number and they shipped me another one within 2 days with no questions asked.

It took us two full days to put a Thompsons Water Seal on every board. Then it took three more days to build the playground. Follow the instructions carefully and you will have no issues. Keep your lists from each box and keep all those boards in the boxes because it makes it easier to find specific boards. So far it has been great. The kids love it! Just another incentive to enjoy time outside in the fresh air.

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!

I am an engineer and must say I am hard to please, but after putting the SkyFort together I can honestly say it is very sturdy. Some of the pieces were damaged when I received it and I was short some hardware, however customer service replaced them no questions asked and free of charge. My kids jumped on it as soon as I was finished and love all the features (there are many I might add for the cost). I have three girls and they have enough room to play on it without getting in each others way. I recommend opening ALL 4 boxes and sorting the pieces of lumber from A to R and then numerically. This will help you later when you are searching for a specific piece of lumber. Then get a long table from SAMS and layout all the bags of harware (all 41 bags). Use the material list and number each type of screw/bolt from 1 to 41 and use that as a guide when reading through the directions. If you are tackling this project by yourself like I did....alot about 5 hours for every 20 steps (101 steps total). It took me about 5 hours of prep time and 25 hours to assemble by myself. If you dont feel like doing a big project, you can contract the assembly out to SAMS CLUB for about 600 dollars. I am glad I did it myself because one of my little girls came up to me during the assembly and said that I was the best Daddy ever and then she hugged me and called me Mr. Wonderful. That was worth more to me than 600 dollars.

We love it n so does our 2 yr old grand daughter, the instructions were easy to understand, it took about 24-30 hrs all together to put up. We were a little overwhelmed when we opened the boxes and saw all the pieces but once we started it was all good. We kept all pieces in its own boxes with the inserted piece list and as we did a step we just looked at the sheets and knew which box the pieces were in and gathered them as needed. My husband did most of the work himself n I helped. We had no missing parts!! My granddaughter loves it n I like the fact that I can play on it to, the clubhouse is tall inside, where I can stand up. Being she is just 2, my husband did build two gates, one for the rock wall and one for the monkey bars, until she is old enough to play on them, just so she doesn't fall out the openings. Great Investment!!

We are very happy with the purchase of this playground. My husband was able to build it in less than 2 days with some help. Our kids and their friends are having a blast playing and the little table is so fun for outdoor meals! A few of the boards did split slightly when putting it together, but overall it’s really good quality and should provide fun for years to come :)

After I received a quote of $2800 to build the playset I wanted from a local Deck company I decided to look elsewhere. I found this one that had everything I wanted and perhaps more importantly that my wife wanted. With some promises from my brother, father, and brother-in-law to help me build it, I thought it was worth a shot. When we opened the box, it was a little overwhelming with all of the screws, bolts, washers, and boards. I think the key is ORGANIZATION. Sorting the boards by the letter was a huge help and laying out the different bags of screws on an open table was equally important. Not all of the pre-drilled holes seemed to line up exactly right, but for the most part I would rate the instructions and precut wood at 8 out of 10. The manual said that it would require two moderately skilled workers 20-24 hours to complete. I found that to be pretty close to a minimum requirement-- as our schedules allowed and my help came and went- it took us 3 weekends to complete- some 4 hour days, some 7-8 hour days. It was a lot of work. After completion, it stands very sturdy. I would rate the overall quality at 9.5/10. If you have the (free) help needed to build this, it would be hard to beat the price. I would give the value of this product a 10 out of 10. Best of all, my two children, 4 years old and 18 months old, LOVE IT. They have played on it every day until there is not a bit of daylight left. Their smiles make all the work a distant memory!

We are very pleased with this playset. We looked at Rainbow playsets and some of their competitors and just couldn't spend the money - 2-3 times the price for a similar design. Though the wood for the Skyfort II is not as heavy duty as the higher end playsets from Rainbow, etc., it is still good quality and certainly strong enough for little ones. I routinely get in the clubhouse with our 1 and 4 year old - its a little cramped and I have to be careful on the step ladder but it supports me with no problem (6'2" 180lbs). The crows nest is a great addition that not many playsets have - its a tight fit but I can even get up in there and stand without any concern for my weight. After considering a $600-800 set up cost if we hired it out, my wife and I put the entire playset together ourselves (plus we have a ~10 degree slope in our backyard and most companies wouldn't build it for us unless we had level ground... we just put 4x4s under the back corners and leveled it from there and it worked great). We build some of the separate parts (slide, monkey bars, ladder, and rock wall) in the garage and then spent an entire weekend building the playset. I would guess it took us 20-25 hours total... maybe a little longer. We certainly recommend going through all the wood and at least checking over the hardware - we weren't short any pieces and had tons of extra hardware but we did get a few replacements shipped as a couple of boards had small cracks. Customer service via the 800 number was great - they shipped out all needed parts via FedEx in 2-3 days at no charge and no questions asked. Since our kids are so young, we initially blocked off the monkey bars with a gate but then I decided to purchase a second slide for about $100 delivered and installed it in the place of the monkey bars (Leisure Time told me not to do this - presumably for safety/balance or design so I ordered it as a 'replacement') but its worked great and now we don't have to worry about the gate falling out. Plus we can reinstall the monkey bars when they are old enough. A few recommendations - lay out all the pieces before starting the build... this took a long while in our garage... maybe 3-4 hours but it did help during the build. We built the crows nest in our garage and not on top of the swingset as the directions say... it was heavy to lift up but I can't imagine building that whole thing on top of the swing bar. We thought the directions were surprisingly good but do pay attention to which direction the boards should go as a connector may be needed 2-3 steps later that you put on backwards... once you start building, you will see what I mean. Not a huge deal to backtrack but a little annoying. We also only have one cordless drill and there are a lot of connectors so we had the battery die a couple of time so we had to break to recharge... having a corded drill or second battery could have helped. The only real negative is that the wood is a little soft and the finish comes off too easily. I actually sent for replacement ladder steps as that seems to be the place where the finish has already come off from climbing. I tried to get the right stain to do touch-ups but the kind and color that the company tells you simply doesn't match. I figured its a minor issue considering the considerable cost savings but it is my one gripe - not sure why they can get you a small can or at least a tell you a color that actually matched. I sprayed it with two coats of water protector after the build was done (I know others say the sprayed every board before the build... I know after is much faster though likely not as thorough). As some reviews say, the swings are closer together than the pictures show but still fine to use all three at the same time at least when they are smaller. One more thing - we already had a sand box so didn't need the one included. In lieu of purchasing the extra wood to build a floor over the sandbox (an extra kit $100 you can get for the set), we got rubber mulch and used that... its great so the kids don't have to worry about falling/tripping over the empty box but we don't have to have more sand over everything. We also bought a ships wheel and music set (drums) on Amazon to add a couple of things and those have worked out well. Overall, we would highly recommend and would buy again. It was actually pretty fun to build with only a little arguing :) but I think it will be a good set for years to come.

Bought this set at the store. No big deal getting it home in a regular pickup truck. Was happy to see that each board was marked with an ink stamp. Some of the markings were hard to read because they were very light and ran together. Was also happy to see that all of the hardwear (nuts,bolts,screws) were in seperate bags and each bag was marked. You should lay everythink out before you start building. I did not lay it all out and it caused me some minor delays. It took me 40.5 hrs to put together. Had help on the main club house part and a little help putting the swing and monkey bar pieces together. Must get yard level before you start and make sure you square the 1st few steps. I was short four bolts but local hardwear store had them. One reason I was short is that they give you handles for the climbing wall (also it shows handles in picture) but no where in the plans do they tell you to put them on. The plans are pretty good but you must read them carefully and it helps to look a few steps ahead as you go along. For instance the picture shows a window on the front top of the club house, but the window is actually on the back of the club house. Page 7 of the plans has it the right way. Only hardwear problem is the misc parts page on page 19 shows you to get 16 of the "y30-40g" brackets. You get 16 brackets but they are the wrong ones. I even looked at the set at the local Sams Club and it has the wrong ones also. You can use these but be carefull when you install the monkey bars to the club house. They will not fit in the opening easly if you don't have the brackets turned right. They should be 2 inch by 2 inch but mine were 2 inch by 2 and a half inch. Also makes a difference when you install the crows nest. Like I said, they do work just make sure they are turned the right way. I did have one problem with the main floor in the club house. The boards are all marked but some of them are hard to read. The plans show you use 16 floor boards but they don't tell you that one of the 16 is half the width and the plans don't show it either. I ended up just spacing the boards out so they would fit and it worked fine. The only good thing was that the board I had over I used as a brace for the monkey bar ladder. The two rail boards were warped so the ladder steps were falling out. I used a large wood clamp and pulled the rails together and then screwed two braces on the back side of the rails, it works just fine. It took a long time to put together but was worth the price for what you get. Very well made and very sturdy. Helps to have two people with one of them being good at reading and following directions. Helps to have two cordless drills. I would recommend buying this. My kids love it!

Me and some of my buddies assembled it and it is now complete. It took us longer than I expected but it was challenging. We had to re-do many things because the instructions, pictures and got ya's are not documented. For instance we put a couple brackets on backwards which caused the beams to be not square. Nowhere was it documented in any special hints section. I would highly recommend this to everyone but I'd love to fill out suggestions for improvements in the assembly instructions for others. It is now ready for the grandchildren for years of enjoyment. Let's see how it stands up over time-It should I made sure it is level. I highly recommend to others.