The Regatta Kivu 4 man tent is a compact, yet surprisingly spacious tent that is ideal for couples, smaller families or festival goers alike. It also has a budget-friendly price tag, so you would not have to dig deep into your pocket if you just wanted something to pitch in the garden for the summer.
Regatta Kivu 4 Man Tent Review – At a Glance
The Regatta Kivu 4 is a 4-man tent with a roomy central compartment and two bedrooms on either side.
It is packed with practical features such as darkened bedrooms for a good night’s sleep and colour-coded poles for a quick and easy pitch time.
Where the Regatta Kivu 4 really shines is its great all-round weather protection. It protects you not just from rainwater by having great quality polyester flysheet with 3000mm HH waterproof rating and a sewn in PE groundsheet, but it also has multiple air vents to allow for a steady cross-breeze in warmer climate.
Why you will love it:
- 4 man + capacity in two bedrooms, with a central compartment
- Darkened bedrooms
- Great weather protection
- Easy transport and pitching
Where to buy the Regatta Kivu 4
The Regatta Kivu 4 is available through various retailers. I recommend the official Regatta website, or if you’d like to get one slightly cheaper than the official retail price, head to Amazon.
What I liked the most about the Regatta Kivu 4
Size
While the Regatta Kivu 4 claims to be a 4-man tent, I can see it used by 8 children easily thanks to its spacious bedrooms. The bedrooms face each other, and they are 215 by 147 cms each (84″ x 54.5″), so 3-4 kids under 150 cms can easily sleep in it sideways, and there’s still some room left.
With adult occupancy, the 54.5 inch width for 2 people is more than generous and is well above the average space per head. You can easily fit in a normal double mattress (not queen size, the normal double!), and you’d still have some space for personal belongings on the side.
Related post: Best Camping Mattress 2021
The footprint of the tent is 10.5 square metres (113 sq ft). The only downside is the limited size of the enclosed living room, which is only 3.8 sqm / 41 sqft, but it is still large enough to have a couple of chairs in, and it provides ample space to store your camping gear.
Regatta Kivu 4 floorplan – the bedrooms are wider and longer than most, plenty of space for 2 or more people. Click on the image for more pictures
The internal height of the living room is 190 cms / 6.2 ft, so most people will be able to fully stand up and still have some headroom.
There is one door on the side, and there are no windows, so the Regatta Kivu 4 can feel a bit dark (especially with the dark green fabric).
I’ve already mentioned the spaciousness of the bedrooms and the somewhat limited size of the living room.
Darkened bedroom in the Regatta Kivu 4 – click on the image for more pictures
You’ll be pleased to hear that the bedrooms are darkened, which means that the breathable fabric of the bedrooms have a darker color. This helps relaxation by reducing the light getting in to the tent in the morning, and helps with regulating the temperature inside as well.
There is only one lantern hanging point in the living room, so make sure you get the best camping lantern to light up the tent.
Related post: Best Camping Lanterns
Easy Pitching
The Regatta Kivu 4 is very easy to pitch. Yes, you need to fiddle a little bit with the fibreglass poles, but they are color-coded so it’s easy to find the correct sleeve for each. You only have four poles anyways, two longer one and two smaller one.
The Kivu 4 is also an ‘outer-first’, meaning that the flysheet, the outer shell is pitched first, protecting the interiors from rain for example, straight away. The entire process of pitching does not take longer than 15-20 minutes.
The bedrooms are detachable, but you don’t actually need to detach them in order to pack the tent away. It means, that next time you just pitch it and move into the bedrooms instantly. Alternatively, if you’d like to, you can easily free up storage space by using 1 bedroom only.
Easy to detach the bedrooms of the Regatta Kivu 4
Exceptional Weather Protection
I mean, really really outstanding, not just ‘for the price’.
Firstly, the groundsheet is sewn in and it’s made of waterproof PE (poly-ethylene).
Secondly, the flysheet is a 70D polyester with a waterproof coating, that has 3000mm HH waterproof rating. This is very good…in laymans terms it means that every square cm of the fabric can withstand 3 metres of water column, without letting a tiniest drop of water through.
The Regatta Kivu 4 has a polyester flysheet with 3000mm HH waterproof coating. Water will simply run down, keeping you dry inside.
Prectically it means that water won’t come through even if a branch rubs against the flysheet, or you forget about your backpack and it presses against the flysheet from the inside. I would not try it in winter because polyester is not a great insulator, but I am pretty sure that it would not leak even if it was covered by a layer of snow.
As I said, polyester does not have great thermal properties, so the only issue you might come across is condensation, which is very typical of all polyester tents. What you can do is make good use of the air vents – there are plenty of them. If you’d like more, especially if you plan to camp in cooler weather, this Kampa camping heater is more than recommended to fight cold and condensation.
If you are not sure what do the acronyms mean and what tent fabrics are the best, I recommend this explainer post: Tent materials, fabrics, specifications and all the acronyms. FAQ.
Easy To Transport
The Regatta Kivu 4 weighs only 10.9 kg / 24 lbs, so it is not too heavy (however there are tents that weigh less). Considering that 4-6 or even 8 persons can sleep inside, the outstanding weather protection and the quality of the materials, the weight is easy to forgive.
The bag is expandable, so no more torn bag and swear words when tring to squeeze the tent back into it.
Verdict
The Regatta Kivu 4 man tent is a compact, yet surprisingly spacious tent that is ideal for couples or smaller families for a quick weekend getaway. It would also make an ideal festival tent for a smaller group of people. The effective weather protection ensures that you won’t wake up soaking wet, and the darkened bedroom will help you feel relaxed after a good night’s sleep.
It also has a budget-friendly price tag, so you would not have to dig deep into your pocket if you just wanted something to pitch in the garden for the summer.
The only downside may be the weight of the Regatta Kivu 4, so it would not make a great backpacker tent.
Alternatives
This segment of the market is quite saturated and there a lot of brilliant 4-man tents. I collected the ones I recommend in this post – Best 4-Person Tents Reviewed for 2021 – but you’ll see the very few tents can meet the Regatta Kivu 4 for space vs. weather protection vs. price tag.
You can also consider the ever popular Eurohike Rydal 500 (reviewed here), the Sendero 4 or Sendero 6 (reviewed here) or the Vango Icarus 500 (reviewed here), however those are slighly bigger tunnel tents.
If you don’t insist on having fibreglass poles, you’ll find great alternatives among the cheaper 4-5 person air tents. I’ve collected them in these posts: Air Tents for 4 Review (Mid-range) & Cheap 4/5-person air tents for family camping.