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Playmobil 4858 Pool Water Slide
by KLockwood75
One of the gifts that my son received for his recent birthday was the Playmobil Pool with Water Slide. This was a set that he had been eyeing up for a long time, his cousin already owns it (and loves it) and we had a constant shouting of 'I want that' from both my son and his little sister every time it was advertised on the television. ... So, when he unwrapped the big box, he was very excited and wanted it set up straight away. Unfortunately for him, and luckily for us, we were on our way out for a birthday tea and he had to wait until later - which gave my husband the time, and space, to build it unhindered by little 'helping' hands and the endless 'is it finished yet', 'can I play with it yet' questions.
* Construction *
Like all Playmobil sets, the Pool with Water Slide takes a bit of putting together. There are several main pieces - the pool itself, a paddling pool attachment, the water slide and ladder, decking - and these slot together fairly easily. The fiddly part is the little details such as the climbing plants on the stone wall behind the waterfall and the greenery in the 'sun-bathing area'. I love the attention to detail in Playmobil sets and this one is no exception. Fortunately the set comes with very clear step-by-step instructions, similar to those that accompany Lego models, and it only took my husband about 15-20 minutes to complete the construction phase.
* Contents *
Once put together, this is a really lovely set. The swimming pool is large enough for a multitude of Playmobil people to splash around and has steps leading down to a mosaic tiled floor. At the rear of the pool is a plastic waterfall on a stone-effect wall. A red ladder leads up behind this wall to a bright yellow water-slide. The bit of the set that my children seem to like best at the moment is the shower, which really works by using water pumped out of the pool. There is also a paddling pool for the baby to play in, a grassy area for picnics and sunbathing and a decked area. This set contains six people - two adults, three children and a baby. All of these people are dressed in their swimwear ready for a day at the pool. They also all come with plastic pool shoes in different colours. Other accessories included in the set are a reclining lounger, a big sun umbrella, bottles of suncream and shampoo, a book (for the rare moments where the Mummy gets to laze around on the sun-lounger), beach ball, two floating toys and a fabric towel.
* Playability *
So far, this is a set which is loved by both my children. I think that the 'reality' of the set really appeals to them, particularly my two year old daughter, as swimming pools and holidays is something that they can really relate to and have a shared experience of. It is lovely to watch them sat on the kitchen floor together, with a towel underneath the water-filled pool, chattering away as they make the people slide down the slide, play with the water floating toys or head off to the shower clutching the bottle of shampoo. I feel that it would integrate well with other sets in the Playmobil range as well. My niece has the Harbour Café which I think would work perfectly as a poolside snack bar, and my son has the catamaran which he makes sail up to the 'island' (the towel we use to put the pool on is green) and the people get off with their picnic hamper for a day at the pool. The Beach Holiday set, Camper Van and Holiday Home would obviously all work well too. Overall though, this is a set which appears to have a great amount of playability all on its own. I love the fact that is a set that mirrors 'real life' as I believe that enhances my childrens' ability to play together and encourages more imaginative play. My son is very into the emergency services, knights and pirate sets but this is one that appeals to both boys and girls and they will play happily together with it. Of course, like most toys, it has a few downsides - I am constantly paranoid about the tiny accessories being sucked up by the hoover, and it takes a while to dry everything out properly after a play session, but these are minor irritations which do not detract from the quality of the set.
* Cost *
The RRP for this set is £27.50 but you should be able to get it cheaper, or on a multi-buy deal, by shopping around. I feel that this represents good value for money as you do get a lot with this set, whereas some other sets seem to be much more limited in their content.
* Final Thoughts *
I would definitely recommend this set for all existing Playmobil fans, or even as a starter set for a child that is just getting into the idea of Playmobil. The 'small world' element of the set is fantastic for encouraging imaginative play, the little pieces assist in the development of manual dexterity and, most important of all, children have fun playing with it. The recommended age range for this product is 4+ which I would suggest is about right - my daughter is 32 months and she can play with it confidently, but she is very dextrous and has passed the 'putting things in mouth' stage. The other recommendation I would make is that you get a tiny box to keep all the accessories in (we are using one of the tiny food pots from IKEA) as it is very difficult to keep track of 5 pairs of beach shoes and the other miniature items). Overall though, this is a brilliant product and probably my favourite of all the sets that my son has.
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Playmobil 4240 Pyramid
by historywitch
We've had this Playmobil pyramid for about two years, it was bought for a five year old and cost around £59 (it is currently available on Amazon for around that price). It is recommended for children over the age of four and is a large toy which is the centre of the Playmobil Egyptian range. Many additional Egyptian playsets can be ... bought to complement the pyramid - robbers, camels, chariots, soldiers, a sphinx etc.
I mentioned it was a large toy and it is. Its base is 52 cm x 52 cm and it is 35 cm tall. Whilst it is possible to disassemble and store the toy, it really isn't ideal (see below) so you need to make sure that you have somewhere to store the thing. We have a small house and it doesn't get played with as much as it could simply because the only space we could find for it was relatively high up.
Like most Playmobil toys the assembly of this toy is down to you. You get the plastic pieces and the stickers and you are expected to put it together. This is fine for some of the smaller ones but this thing is massive and has lots of intricate bits. It took me about three hours to put it together and there was an awful lot of swearing whilst it went on. The base is four pieces that fit together like a jigsaw, then you have to put the interior together. Hah.
The interior is complicated. The entrance is a rotating 'concealed' door at the front of the tomb, which works on a cog and ratchet system. Could I get the thing to work....could I <insert expletive here>. Two years on and the door still does not rotate as it should and it's a source of irritation every time I look at the bloody thing. The swinging staircase and various scorpion filled traps were much more successful (and I happily imagined the designer of this pyramid falling into them). In several places in the pyramid there are little blue buttons and switches which make the various bits work - traps, sliding walls and hidden passages etc. Almost all of these worked beautifully, but there was one wall that definitely looked like it should slide or tilt or move or dance or something, but despite all my dedicated reading of the (really unhelpful) instructions I couldn't get that bit to work either. Neither could my husband, or my mother or my brother so I do feel a little vindicated there.
The pyramid comes with A LOT of very teeny tiny little bits, perfect to be swallowed, appropriated by other Playmobil sets, vacuumed up and generally lost. You get the priests, the canopic jars on their little stretcher thing and a sarcophagus with a mummy inside (and a skeleton inside the mummy in a Russian doll kind of thing). There is a treasure chest full of little tiny 'gems', lots of sceptres and bracelets, headdresses and a number of tiny little plastic scorpions for the traps. Two years later we have two figures, a skeleton and a few lonely looking stones left which is a bit of a shame.
There was also a little issue with the decoration on the three sides of the pyramid. Essentially you get three flat pieces which semi-lean, semi-slot into the sides of the thing. To decorate the sides they had the brilliant idea to put a pharaoh carving thing. Nice. Then they decided to break the pharaoh figure into seven or eight little panels all stacked delicately on top of each other. The idea is that you press an 'amulet key' at the bottom and the bottom panel pops out to make a secret passage into the pyramid. Oh that's fabulous. What fun. Except every time you want to move the pyramid.... they fall off. Everytime you knock the pyramid.....they fall off. Everytime you fart..... well, you get the idea. We have seven left and I still occasionally find them in other playsets, in shoes, under her bed etc etc. On top of these fiddly bits you have another three pieces of the exterior wall that come off so you can see inside some of the inner chambers. Sadly as they don't clip on to the large side pieces (more pieces that just lean) they also fall off regularly and we have lost one of those too.
By this point you might be getting the idea that I am not so fond of this toy and you would be right. But I am not the owner - what does she think? Well initially she loved it and played with it a lot. But when it moved up to create some floorspace she pretty much forgot about it even though it was in plain sight all the time. The traps etc are nice but you have to pick all the bits up after each time you sacrifice a tomb robber and all those scorpions get a bit irritating after the third or fourth time. She liked playing with the figures a lot, so they got requested regularly and sparked some really interesting conversations and ideas, but being separated from the main set did mean that they didn't always go back altogether. Her brother who is now three was introduced to it again recently and whilst he happily played with it for half an hour with his sister, when I got it down for him he got frustrated with how long it took me to set up all the traps etc each time. He ended up wandering off after about ten minutes of chuckling every time the robber hit the floor covered in scorpions and hasn't asked for it since.
For a patient older child (say seven or eight) without younger siblings and with plenty of floor space, this would be a more successful toy I suspect - especially if you manage to crack the code and get the thing together and working 100%. We have a small house, an inquisitive baby/toddler and other toys that appealed much more. We also didn't invest in any more of the Egyptian playsets either which might have made this more fun.
As far as I can tell (I have an ancient history degree) it is relatively historically accurate and would be excellent for a child who is very interested in the Egyptians. If it was me however I'd opt for one of the smaller playsets first, they are much easier to store and cheaper to buy in the first place. Perhaps my feelings would be different had I managed to get the two fiddly bits working, but I suspect not, its still from my perspective a deeply annoying toy.
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