Not My Daughter's Idea Of Fun (Tomy Cinderella Aquadraw)

Member Name: arleek

Product:	Tomy Cinderella Aquadraw
Date:	29/09/09 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: No Mess

Disadvantages: Expensive, irritating tune, wheel doesn't work very well

This was a Christmas gift for my daughter last Christmas, at the time she was nearly 2 so a bit young (in my opinion) for this, mainly because the age on the box says 3+, and she wasn't even 2 at the time.

Anyway, what you get is a large mat, two drawing tools (a pen and a wheel which when rolled produces a row of stars) which have to be filled with water before they'll work, and a Cinderella and Prince Charming(??) musical thing which plays a ridiculous tune and is meant to 'follow' your drawings on the mat.


The two drawing tools are easily filled; you just unscrew the base, top up with water and screw the lid back on. The pen starts working straight away, but the wheel takes ages for the water to come through and I find myself rolling it around the mat several times before it starts to work. This not only frustrates me, but it also frustrates my daughter because she doesn't understand why I am playing with her wheel, and why nothing is happening.

The mat is very large (105 x 90cm), so the only place your child can play with this is on the floor, which is ok I suppose, but my daughter usually likes sitting to a table when she is colouring. It is pale pink in colour with a pretty 'princess' type border. When you use the pen or the wheel, your scribblings come out in a dark pink colour. This is quite nice and the pen gives a lovely thick line, so it is easy for a young child to scribble with it. I've found the stars to be a bit hit and miss you have to press quite hard to get a good solid row of stars.

The first time I got this out for my daughter she was quite keen to get scribbling with the pen on the mat, but once she realised it was only one colour then she got bored quite quickly. So I got the Cinderella dancing model out which I thought might entertain her as she danced around the mat. But this annoyed her more than anything and the repetitive tune drove me insane, but it also irritated my daughter because she asked me to put it away!

Cinderella is meant to follow the rows of stars, but I've found she likes to go off track sometimes and can get lost and often not even find her way back. I did actually think this part of the toy was rubbish because first of all the tune is highly irritating, and second of all, the main point of the mat is for drawing, so who wants an annoying Cinderella model dancing all over their drawings!? Certainly not me, or my daughter.

Once you have finished using the mat, all you have to do is leave it to dry and your drawings will magically fade away. I found that the colour takes a while to fade so if your child is someone who likes to draw a lot, then they may get agitated waiting for the mat to clear before they can begin another creation. On the other hand, some children may get annoyed if their picture clears too quickly, it's a no win situation!

So on subsequent occasions when I have got this out for my daughter to have a go with; it has never been any more successful than that first time. She seems to think that it's not really for drawing with and soon gets bored. You see she is quite an excellent little artist for her age, she can draw many things, but she just doesn't seem to want to draw anything on this mat. The only thing she has attempted to do is colour in the entire mat, which requires me to refill the pen quite a few times before she has achieved her goal! And she also ends up asking me to finish off colouring in the mat which is not my idea of fun.

So although I think the idea behind the toy is a good one (i.e. no mess!!), it just doesn't keep my daughter entertained, and for the price (£29.35 on Amazon at the mo) I just don't think it's worth it.

Summary: Good idea, but that's about it