Don't get an Intex or Sun -n- Shade. You'll be disappointed. That's actually how I ended up with an AG Esther Williams pool this year. I bought my little boy a $200 Intex at Wally World. It was up 2 days and it collapsed and sent 3000 gallons into the back yard. I'll add that the well pump ran almost 7 hours to fill it too. Needless wear and tear on everything frankly. If you want to keep the costs down and don't want a full blown AG pool, I have some friends that are having good luck with the "portable" type pools. They are a metal frame "basket" type with 35mil liner. They don't have to be dead nuts level either. You can have them 4" off and they'll still hold up. You can put real filters on them too at any point.

Check out this link. http://www.arthurspools.com/pools/legacy.htm
The Legacy was nicer looking of the brands and is what I seriously considered just before we decided to get the EW AG. The kicker for us was that some stores said you could leave them up for winter, other said take them down. I didn't want to mess with it every year. To a certain degree I regret not trying one out cuz it's less money and after all...yer just trying to get wet right? However, the wife didn't want to risk the money over the winter and I didn't want to tear anything down. That should hold up for year though if you do.

gpshemi