True to advertising my mattress arrived in a box; however, in the grand scheme of things I probably shouldn't have left my mattress in the box for several months. Thankfully this didn't cause any major issues with the mattress. When I was ready to use the mattress it was easy to get onto my bed frame. Probably due to leaving it in the box so long it was already full size and didn't need to inflate though. Since getting it over a year ago it has remained supportive, comfortable and had no issues. I'm so glad I managed to get a big discount on this (due to the black Friday sales) as it's an excellent quality mattress.