We bought the Backyard Discovery Skyfort II for our Grandchildren. We purchased in at Sam's Club in Florida and delivered to my son's new house in North Carolina. Our visit was planned for this past weekend, driving there on Saturday and returning Monday, with the weekend to set up swing set. First, I did (or thought so) carefully research size of boxes to ensure it would fit in our truck. When my husband went to pick it up, yes the boxes all fit perfectly in bed of truck under our Tonto cover but somehow the slide was never mentioned anywhere for pick up size dimensions. (This was pretty much our only hiccup). After securing slide to top with ratchet straps, we made our way to NC arriving around 3:30 Saturday afternoon. Weather was great so we proceeded to unload. My daughter in law had googled and researched everything she could find about assembly and was ready. Research said it would take anywhere up to 60 hours to complete. We were able to complete project with 5 adults (2 of which were very handy with building and tools and at least 3 people working at a time) in about 16 hours. It went extremely smoothly thanks to organizing everything ahead of building and having a system that sort of evolved but worked splendidly. First in a large area, we separated wood into piles based on letter (leave lots of room especially for "M" and "H") and actually used alphabet wall hangings for identification. After separating by letter, we organized each pile into numerical order. On afternoon of day 1, after organizing wood, we decided to start with building the first main pieces - rock wall, ladder, gable windows, monkey bars and swing brace. It did not take long to figure out that the hardware also needed to be organized. So best advice I can give is to save plastic containers and separate all the hardware into them. keep all bolts together, screws together, etc and label containers with sharpie with size and last two letters of part number. They also go in order so very easy to go find 2 of bolt #19, etc. The minutes you take to organize will save you hours during the construction! My daughter in law and I collected the pieces needed, my college age daughter read out instructions while my son and husband built. FOLLOW DIRECTIONS, GO IN ORDER!!!!! While they were working on one page, we would take picture of next page on our phones and one of us would collect wood and other would collect hardware. This kept everything flowing smoothly. Day 1, we worked about 4 hours and that was organizing and completing the extra sections. Day 2 we began building the actual fort following same process. We worked from 9:30 am until 9:30 pm stopping for a couple hours each at lunch and dinner so about 8 hours total. Not everyone was working all the time, there were children to watch and food to prepare but always at least 3 people were busy. We were able to finish everything except the roof on the club house. Day 3, my son had to go to work so we were short a person but by this time we were down to big sections and had a routine. We were able to complete roof and attach all the major sections. I know I said go in order but we actually skipped the railing on the crows nest while we completed the other major things for 2 reasons. We had to leave after lunch and knew that was something my daughter in law could finish without us, also it allowed the girls to start swinging and using slide while we worked. However we were able to finish by lunch time with everything, so we worked about 4 hours day 3 - and back home in Florida by 10pm. It was a lot of work but we had a great time and definitely allows for family bonding!

At first it seemed overwhelming to build, but once we got all the parts seperated out into their respective piles/buckets, it was pretty straightforward. My father-in-law helped throughout the project. He was the hunter/gatherer for each step and assisted in holding/lifting. Using 5 gallon buckets we placed the hardware and lumber for each step as we went along so there was no break in building. It took us about 2 days working on it for about 8 hours and about 5 hours on the third day. The beginning steps were completed in the garage on day 1 after an evening of sorting the parts the night before. We built the 2 fort walls in the garage also and then started fresh the next day by putting them up. 2nd full day we completed the main fort up to the roof rafters. Day three consisted of finishing the roof panels, crows nest area, and attaching swings, monkey bars etc. Not a bad build overall, but do look carefully the orientation of the pre-drilled holes. We found a few boards upside down or turned incorrectly. We decided to just redrill the holes instead of disassemble and fix the orientation. Helpful tools to speed up the build, impact driver, buckets to place small parts in while outside, pizza for those hungry moments.

The Skyfort arrived one day later than the estimated delivery date because of a holiday. We were prepared for a 3-4 hour sorting project which actually took us 3 1/2 hours for two people. All of the parts were there. Day one of construction went well even with our 18 month old Twins helpings us. Day two presented a few problems because the directions were not perfectly clear. We had to dis-assemble some steps and re-install them differently because we mis-understood the directions. No big deal, just some lost time and repeated steps. At the end of day two, we had the main structure complete plus the slide and it's lookin' GOOD! Next weekend we should be able to complete the construction project.

Spent over $1,400 to get cheap wood that had splits chips came in a total of four different boxes pieces in different boxes product should have been labeled better and steps should have been in boxes like box one should have had the first half of the step box to should have had the second half but instead you had to go through each box find what you needed for a ladder or what you needed for the swing. Would return it but that means I'd have to take it apart and pay for shipping to send it back.

I love the design of this set. My 7 year old requested monkey bars and I wanted something slightly bigger so that he could fit it and our 2 year old could also play and grow into. I love the design but I would have rather paid more money for better quality wood. The wood is very hollow, splits very easily and is already chipping in a ton of the planks and we JUST finished putting it together today. Probably could have taken 1-2 days but we had thunder storms the last 3 days so we had to keep stopping. Some of the screws also came with the middle still in the hole that I tried to dig out with another screw but couldn’t get it out so we couldn’t even use the screws because the screw driver wouldn’t go into it. A couple bolts also broke and had to get more at the local hardware store. All in all, it’s ok but again would rather pay more money for better quality wood to last longer, not sure how long this wood will hold up but hopefully awhile because my kids already love it.

Incredible value. We searched everywhere and found this to put all other options to shame. Solid cedar was a big deal for us and hard to find. Rainbow has solid redwood, but at three times the price or more. Assembly is complex, but generally easy to follow. Make sure you have a couple nice drill/drivers and the rubber mallet. And buy a 7/16 drill bit and predrill every lag bolt with a 1/8 bit. Allow about three days work. Kids love it, and it looks great in the yard. We definitely feel it was money well spent. Matt

We bought this Skyfort 2 at Sams Club this summer when it was on sale and I think it was a great bargain It did take awhile to put together but we expected that It was built at our son s and his wife s house for their 2 daughters 1 is 5 and the other is under 1 so it will be in use for years to come I went over a couple days each week for 2 wks and they would work at it some evenings after work We unpacked the boxes and organized the pieces by letter and number onto a big tarp I strongly reccomend doing that because there is alot of pieces also the same with the hardware All the pieces were there and all were marked and in good condition same with hardware the directions were very good except some of the pictures i had trouble with the orientation meaning what side am i looking at it from But overall a very well put together package It seems certainly strong enough for these kids to play on for years to come and the cedar wood looks nice

This is the cheapest wood I have ever seen. When you knock on it, it sounds hollow. It’s almost like styrofoam. Definitely not cedar as advertised, maybe dipped in cedar liquid to smell like cedar. I can’t believe I paid over $2000 for this. First time my three year old played on it he was breaking boards. I will have to replace parts of it by the end of the year guaranteed. Please save yourself the disappointment and buy something else. The built app is excellent and easy to use.

This is a great swing set my grandaughter loves it .It was a present for her third birthday. I researched alot of playground sets before deciding on this one. It was a good choice. Although it was a job to assemble it turned out to be well worth the effort. It took me three full weekends to put it together with some help from my wife and friends. We laid all the pieces out and put the matching pieces together. This took time but made it easier to find materials. We purchased the steering wheel and the dagon slide cover. I used 12 -18 inches of pea gravel for the safe zone fall protection and enclosed it with landscaping timbers.It does a good job as well as looking great. The finished project looks wonderful.

We love our swing set. We have had it for 2 years and use it daily. Rain, snow or shine. Although we have had nothing but trouble with the slide. Our slide came in 3 pieces. 2 side rails and a flat part that slides into the sides and screws together. I have a 2 and 3 year old. On the first little bump they get a tiny bit of air and when they come down on the second bump it pulls the flat surface away from the side. Such a pain because then we have to screw it back together. But the worst part is their cloths always gets stuck between. And once their arm was wedged between it. Thank god they had a jacket on. My husband has since added a wood support underneath that looks awful but keeps it from pulling apart now. I see now the company no longer sells this slide with this swing set. Because it’s junk! I reached out to the company and they willingly will send us a new flat surface and screws. Great, thanks. But it’s not fixing the problem. Just very unhappy with the product and customer service. When you spend that much money, you expect more.