Get your skates on! (Martin Yaffe Dora the Explorer Quad Skates)

Member Name: i_am_joy

Product:	Martin Yaffe Dora the Explorer Quad Skates
Date:	28/09/09 (52 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very attractive design, fit a range of child's shoe sizes, allow smooth and fairly free skating

Disadvantages: The colours are a little garish in my opinion

When my friend arrived for a cuppa yesterday she'd brought her four year old along with her who happened to be wearing a pair of these lovely roller skates featuring Dora the Explorer, a character I'm familiar with due to my two year old granddaughter's love of Nick Jnr.

These skates are absolutely excellent and I cannot wait until my granddaughter is old enough for a pair as they not only look fantastic but appeared to be sturdy and comfortable while my friend's daughter was wearing them.

The design of them would please any young Dora fan I'm sure with one skate featuring Dora herself and the other showing Boots, her little monkey friend. The skates my friend's daughter look exactly the same as those pictured above and after looking online I can tell you there are no other colourways available so if garish orange and yellow doesn't appeal then you're a bit stuck!

These skates adjust to fit child's shoe sizes 8 - 13, the adjustor is located underneath the skate and is simple and fairly smooth to move along - unlike an awful pair of similar Teletubbies skates I recall my now thirteen year old granddaughter owning a number of years ago.

Unlike normal roller skates, your child will need to keep their shoes on while wearing these and they look to be extremely comfortable and allowed little Ruby to bend her ankles quite naturally despite the fact that they are built up at the back of the skate for safety reasons.

The wheels move a lot more smoothly than I was expecting them to, again I was thinking of the terribly unweildy Teletubbies skates where I remember my granddaughter was more walking than skating! They will only allow your child to skate forwards and the front wheels are lockable for safety but I must say they allowed Ruby far more skating freedom in my garden than I had expected them to. The stoppers at the front of the skates allowed her to stop when she wanted to, although her mum tells me it was a trial actually teaching her how to use this aspect as her favourite way to stop to start with was simply to drop down onto her bottom and lift her feet into the air!

I think these are fabulous first roller skates, although I'm not sure why the manufacturer has seen fit to call them Quad Skates as surely all roller skates have four wheels! You can buy a pair from www.amazon.co.uk for £12.75, which is a bargain in my opinion considering the fact that when my friend bought these for Ruby she paid almost £20 for them. I'm not so sure that £20 is such good value for money however as not all children will get enough use out of them to justify spending such a large amount of money on them.

Summary: A lovely first pair of skates for your little one.