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!

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.

This is a very nice pay set. My 2 1/2 and 5 year old love it! Some reviews say it is cheap and poor quality. I do not agree with that. After we placed our order it took about two weeks before it was delivered. It comes freight, on a pallet, with 4 large/long boxes. The weight is around 900lbs. The freight company was great and placed it in my garage. I paid for assembly and the company called right as it was delivered. Two weeks later the guy was out and it took him 2 1/2 days to assemble. Well worth the price! TONS of small pieces and bolts, etc... They assembly guy was great and knew exactly what he was doing! I would really recommend this play set for smaller children!

We opted for the cheaper version by picking this up in the store. We had read all of the reviewes and pre-read the instructions before even buying it. Took about 4.5 hours to lay out all the boards for inventory. At night I would build later sections such as Monkey bars, ladder, and rock wall in the garage. This made construction go much faster. After the sorting was all done it took me about 28 hours to build it myself. I recommend you put down four to six cement pavers for the main structure and pre-level them all to each other. That as well as leveling all the boards as you go through will prevent you from having boards that don't line up well down the road. Always pay attention to the pictures. Look at the positioning of piece S2 to realize how S1 boards need to be installed as the instructions do not cover that. Also I recommend not building the small roof and trying to install it as a whole. You may also want to get an attachment for your drill to attach socket wrench bits to it to make putting all of the lag screws in go much faster. I did that half way through and it made a huge difference in time. As for the play set its sturdy and holds up well. My daughter loves it and we have spent more time outside now that its built then ever before.

Either everyone else bought a different product or the one I bought came from a different manufacturer. The instructions are worthless, ie, asking to drill the wrong size holes (too small), noting to use the wrong size screws (too short), noting incorrect quantities (listing more pieces needed than it came with), etc etc etc. I'm a contractor and hold a masters degree and the instructions could have made it any more difficult. I would have organized the shipping better, labeled the items differently (used more letters for grouping and organizing) and machine drilled more holes (in lieu of asking the customer to do it). I hope seeing my son smile once I go buy extra screws and reinforce the structure will make up any regrets I may have for my purchase.

I’m sorry, but this swing set is just not well made. They engineered it specifically for kids of a very young age and weight. The boards and wood that it is constructed out of don’t even seem to be normal size pieces. It has been almost exactly one year and board are coming lose, cracking and warping. The it already looks like it is 10 years old. I regret this purchase. Please do some research before you shell out good money for this. At this point it doesn’t even seem safe for the kids to play on anymore.

This is an excellent playset, able to entertain as many as ten to twelve children at once! I just hosted a May Day party and the kids loved it. It is very solid and well designed. My only complaints: the swings are mounted a bit too close together and the telescope is very poor (it is poorly made, has no magnification, and breaks easily). A few comments about assembly: I purchased the Skyfort II from Sam's Club online and it was delivered in four 200lb boxes one week later. First step: take inventory of all contents and make sure you have EVERYTHING before you start building (in my case, everything was). As you take inventory, arrange all the parts and hardware, systematically and in a covered area, to make it easy to find the parts you will need for each step. Time for inventory - 6 hours. Following the advice of other posts, I weather-treated each wooden piece with a satin-finish polyurathane (2 gallons, $50 each) to extend the life of the playset. This took about 20 hours to complete, but when my kids are done playing with the Skyfort ten years from now it should still have pretty good resale value. Assembly took about 30 hours by myself. I already had all the right tools and have assembled a lot of furniture in the past, so I ran into very few problems. Follow the directions very closely, doing each page in order, and double-check your parts before completing the build on each page. Make sure you always use the right parts for each step of the assembly!!! If you don't, you will find yourself without the right part when you need it. Tip #1 - Keep all the hardware in the plastic bags they come in. Each bag is clearly marked with part numbers that correlate with the instructions on each page. Tip #2 - Once you have completed Step 4 of the Fort assembly, move the fort frame to its permanent location (which should already be prepped) and make sure that every part of the core frame is straight, level and at right angles before proceeding. Tip #3 - For the porch roof assembly, do steps 1, 3 and 4, and leave step 2 for when you actually install the porch roof later in the build. You'll have a easier time with the installation. Tip #4 - For Do-It-Yourselfers like me: invest in six to eight Irwin Quick-Grips. There are MANY situations when you will want to simply hold two boards together in one or two (or five) other places while you screw or bolt another section. The Quick-Grips will act as your helper and save a lot of awkward situations! The key to a successful build is to BE PATIENT and think carefully about each step before you do it, and I think you will be surprised how well the whole Skyfort comes together.

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 am a contractor and put this together in 24 hours by myself and my wife finding pieces for me on a part time bassis. It would be a big job for the do-it-yourselfer, you might want to hire it done, for the stores $400 offer. This comes in 4 large crate type boxes. One of the boxes is extremely heavy and take two good size men to move it. You will want the boxes close to the assembly point, as you will make a million trips to them. Finding the pieces is a challenge in itself. Numbers are faint and similar to each other, ie N8, M8, HK4, KH4, ect. You may need 6 - B8, there may be 2 in one boxe 2 in another box, 1 in each one of the other boxes. There is a packing list in each box, but you spent a lot of time trying to find the pieces. 20 plus bags of screws, bolts nuts, washers, with similair sizes, 14x1-1/8, 14x1-1/2, 18x1-1/4, 18x1-5/8, plus multiple size washers, bolts & screws. Plus there is only one extra of each. Except screws, which I was short 50 14x1-1/8 and 2" bolts I was short 10. The instruction are all just black & white copy drawings and very little actual instruction. Hard to make out placement of boards. Plus they kept showing the project from different sides, with no indication which side you are looking at. Many boards have to be put on in a certain rotation and that is not spelled out. You find out in a later step that your holes do not line up. Then you have to remove the board and reattachit, or if you have too many things already attached, you may have to drill new bolt holes, then you loose your predrilled screw hole indentions. This is the main area that could be improved. All for all it seems to be a nice play set and alot of thought has gone into it. The main fort is over 6' tall on the inside and at 250# supported me well, even the crows nest look out platform. The value is good for what you are getting. But the aggravation of looking for poorly marked parts and the vagness of the instructions, can make you hot under the collars. I am glad it is done.

The quality of this was actually better than we anticipated. Directions could have been a little clearer in many places but we got thru them. (Looking ahead in the directions helps at times.) Delivery was prompt - ordered Sunday evening & it was delivered Friday morning. We highly recommend you take the time to organize all the pieces & lay them out in the order they'll be used. That saved us a lot of time when we started assembling the set. Even doing that it still took us about 20 hours to put it together.