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Character Options Peppa Pig Grandad Dog's Garage Playset
by xmum2threex
The set
My little girl loves peppa pig and we have a number of the toys in our house. When Peppa pig first began releasing toys we found them to be terrible quality, but of late we have been rather impressed with the newer sets. This was something my little girl had asked Santa for as she already owns the granddad dog pickup ... truck and this garage is the matching accessory, but of course is sold separately. It retails at around £15 which for the size of the toy does seem a lot but my daughter was desperate for it so we decided we would get it for her. In the set you receive a plastic garage, some tyres, some petrol pumps and a garage sign.
The set is based on granddad Dog's garage from the TV show. It was easily recognisable to my daughter who was very excited to take it out of a set. She loves playing with her brothers cars so to have a garage of her very own was amazing. You do need to assemble this when you receive it which I thought was a bit daft. It is not large, and I don't personally understand why they could have not made it in one piece so it is more durable. Putting it together only takes a few minutes and all you have to do is slide a few pieces into place. I noticed straight away that parts of the garage are made out of cardboard rather than plastic which is misleading as the description online had said it was a plastic toy.
The set offers unique figurines in the form of course Granddad dog, but also George too. They are both wearing mechanics' out fits so fit the scene perfectly. They can be used with other peppa pig set, and are just standard figurines with moving hands and legs. The gas pumps are small piece of plastic and a little more durable that the rest of play set. They can be moved around wherever little one likes. The thing is they have small parts on them that are easily lost. You can remove the pumps to fill up cars as they come to the garage, but these are detachable and tiny so are easy lost. Also my children are unable to place them back their selves so mummy has to replace them every time they come away which is a lot.
In play
My little girl was excited to begin playing. All of the pieces are easily portable so she can move the garage wherever she likes. The pumps and the wheels can be placed on flat surfaces easily and they are perfect for small hands to move. The garage is just a bit of plastic that is open at the back for easy access, but it is brightly toy coloured and detailed to aid little ones imagination. In the advert it shows the pickup truck driving into the garage and parking. My little girl tried to do this but found there was minimal room for manoeuvre, so she just parks it outside now. As the pumps can be placed wherever it means they are more accessible and you can drive a car up next to them to fill the tank up. There isn't really any interactive feature other than the arms on the pump, and even with these it relies on little ones imagination to play.
The removable pump arms seem a good idea as it means little one can fill up the cars easily, but I do think they should be permanently attached to the pump itself as they are so easily lost. The thing with this set is everything seems so flimsy. The pieces of the pump to fill the cars are removable, but this means every time little one goes near them they just come off. Then as my children are unable to put them back on theme selves I need to help them. As parts of the set are made from cardboard it just isn't compatible with my children. At first this toy was played with many times, but as time went on and we had to remove the top of the garage because the cardboard is becoming warn it has received less use. The garage now sits in the toy box missing the roof, but the other accessories are put to good use. The tyres are often stacked up along with the pumps for when Granddad Dog is at work in his pickup truck so they are good value, but the main garage itself is terrible. The accessories are really the best part of the set as they are made with durable plastic and are easy for little hands to move. They have received a fair amount of use, but this is not worth the retail price.
Summary
We would not recommend this set in the slightest as it is just such poor quality. Cardboard no matter how strong it is will not last the use of my three children for anytime at all. The small pieces are a choking hazard and extremely annoying to have to put back on every two seconds. For the price you would pay for this you could purchase an all singing all dancing large play garage, and so you are just paying for the Peppa pig branding. At around £15 it is an overpriced piece of plastic (and cardboard) which will not last five minutes with any real play. It is very disappointing as the pickup truck is fantastic quality, so to make an accessory to this that is such poor quality is very annoying.
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Character Options Disney Cinderella Doll
by baby-cakes
My daughter is absolutely crazy about the Disney Princesses and last year we started her collection of the princess dolls. The first one she chose was her favourite Princess which is Cinderella.
Cinderella comes packaged in a clear fronted box with a picture scene behind her of a field with a beautiful castle in the ... background. At the bottom of the cover of the box you will see a cerise pink label with the name of the princess in various languages along with a picture of her also. All in all it is very attractively packaged doll and will catch the attention of any Disney Princess lover. On either side of the doll you will find the accessories that come supplied.
When opening the box you will find that Cinderella is secured in place with plastic ties, which prove almost impossible for a child to remove! After a few minutes trying to remove the ties without damaging the hair (there seems to be an art to this) the doll is ready to be played with.
The Cinderella doll's appearance is probably not a great likeness to the character but her features and beautiful blue gown do make the doll look more her than she actually does. The blonde hair is tied up into a bun with a blue headband in place, which can come off when removing the doll from the box if not careful! It doesn't bother my daughter at all that the doll doesn't really resemble Cinderella, to her she is Cinderella and that is all that matters really! My daughter loves how the doll has make up on and regularly tries to copy it so she looks the same.
The doll is not disimilar to a Barbie doll in that it is made out of plastic, has moveable arms and legs, and clothes that can be removed. The hair can be taken out of the style it is in if you wish and can be brushed but we have found that it very rarely ever looks nice again and can go quite scruffy looking, even after brushing. The legs do bend so the doll can be sat down when playing or left straight which is a good feature as some of the dolls we have don't move at all.
The accessories that come supplied with the Cinderella doll are a brush, comb, hair slide and ring. All of these come in a silver and blue colour which co-ordinate well with the doll. The accessories are quite small and the ring would fit a little girl up to the age of abour six I would guess, my daughter is four and it fits her finger with ease. The comb and brush are a great size for the dolls head but my daughter insists on trying to comb my hair with them which is not only time consuming but extremely painful!! The hair clip did break very soon after use so it does appear that the accessories are a little flimsy but I think had it just been used in the dolls hair it would have been ok.
To say my daughter plays with this doll daily is by no means an exaggeration and though her hair does look a little bit ragged now it is still in good condition and has witheld some pretty rough play. The clothes are very easy to get on and off, they fasten with velcro so a young child won't have many problems in doing this. The only problem we found with the Cinderella doll is that the shoes do not stay on the feet and after removing the ties (which I told her not to do) my daughter lost one of them on the very first day! The doll is easy to clean, I have regularly had to wipe extra make up off her face but this can be done with a damp cloth or even a baby wipe.
I can't recommend the Cinderella doll enough, it is a good quality doll and a complete must for any Disney Princess fan. You can find the doll on Amazon for around £15.00 which I think is a reasonable price to pay and we have more than had our moneys worth already!
Thank you for reading my review.
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Character Options Peppa Pig Kitchen Playset
by deedee610
THE SET CONTAINS: a cooker, sink, fridge, washing machine, table and chairs, Peppa and George, plus Grandma Pig.
AGE RANGE: 36 months - 6 years.
PRICE: £14.99 (but it's currently £5.98 on Amazon).
MY VIEW: My 2 year old daughter loves Peppa Pig and I've often been in Toys R Us and browsed the Character ... Options Peppa sets (there's a garage one, moon buggy, family car - many different sets to choose from). However, despite the choice on offer, I could never quite bring myself to buy one - they just looked so uninspiring. Tiny little pieces that just appeared very flimsy. Then, last week, my mum bought the kitchen set for my daughter, so I finally got the chance to see if the Character Options sets were as ho-hum as they looked on the shelf.
As is so often the case, it took an age to actually open the packing - the kitchen comes displayed in a box, held hard and fast with a hard plastic covering. After 5 long minutes spent wrestling with the box, I resorted to scissors (I honestly hate having to bring them out when my little one's about in case some freak accident occurs!). Finally, against the background noise of my toddler's constant whining, I managed to extract all the pieces. She fell on them enthusiastically enough - but if I made a vague representation of Peppa's head out of a mouldy old potato, she'd fall on that too. George had barely passed into her sticky, grasping hands, however, before my mum grabbed it back. "That's very small," she said. And it was - teeny tiny, with very flimsy movable limbs. My daughter isn't one for putting things in her mouth but I knew where my mother was coming from - it's what had put me off the Character Options sets in the first place. I appreciate that small hands don't necessarily need large figures to play with - but the small George is simply stingy. By the time a child is 3 (the recommended age for this toy), their hands are large enough to warrant a toy of some substance. The whole set, though, is just wishy washy. I had visions of all the bits (because none of them are what you could describe as satisfyingly substantial) getting lost underneath the sofa (or in that general vacuum from which toys never return) within a few hours.
Somewhat disgruntled at the confiscation of George, my little girl went to sit Peppa on the kitchen chair. Peppa is larger than George (although still not what you'd call bulky). The chair is very small. Peppa fell off the chair. The box-like appliances were equally underwhelming and her attention was soon diverted to more interesting things - and not because she's two (normally, Peppa will keep her engaged for a decent length of time).
In my view, all the parts in this set look like cheap, made-in-China tat (and, yes, I know lots of toys are made in China - which is fine when they're decent). If I had to equate them to anything, it would be the type of thing you'd find in a Happy Meal - although some of the toys in there have been better than this. Forget the fact it's a set, and just look at any one piece and it's honestly very poor - particularly when you're paying close to £15 for it (which is why, perhaps, Amazon has lowered their price so considerably).
CONCLUSION: An incredibly disappointing toy that could be so much better.
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