Okay, so, yeah, I was a bit frustrated after ordering too. I initially received just the base (""box 2 of 2"") but after chatting online with amazon, a second order was placed and 1 weeks later I received both boxes: one containing the optical tube and the 2nd with (another) base. I returned the unopened box via UPS (no cost to me). A bit of a hassle, but it worked out in the end. Shipped quickly each time. (Not sure what happened to Sarah (see her review), I guess I got lucky.Anyway, this is a fantastic scope. I have an Orion XT8 dob, which I love, but decided to jump into a larger aperture, and WOW what a difference. With the Z12, you can see bright deep sky objects (Messiers, etc.) without averted vision. You can see a bit of color on the ring nebula. I even captured images of the ring nebula and several globulars with my cell phone through the eyepiece! (Not fabulous astrophotography, but ""mine"" anyway.). There is a noticeable improvement in light capture and detail in the deep sky objects, planets, and the moon. Dim galaxies are still dim, but much better detail of spiral arms, etc.It is heavy, admittedly, but fairly easy to carry the tube and base separately. I like the tube design over the truss tube design because despite its weight, it can still be a ""grab and go scope"" with short den-to-deck set-up time. Also, it maintains it's collimation fairly well, and easy to collimate with a laser collimator.It is the same scope, apparently, as available on Orion (and others), but Orion's price jumped to $999 in the past month (I assume due to the tariffs) and the shipping was very delayed. Orion's customer service is stellar (excuse the pun), but in this case I got it faster and cheaper.. and Amazon did provide immediate help and solved the shipment errors quickly.for me, anyway..Sooooooo�..not sure what to say about the shipping issues, but once I got it, I LOVE IT!