Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have two preschool aged girls. This is their favorite thing to play with outside. We’ve had this for a couple years. Here are some notes I’ve taken on it overall: 1 It has held up very well overall, but I also care for it well. It gets emptied after very use and put into the garage at night and during the winter. 2. My littlest one was able to play with it by about 6 or 7 months old, as soon as she could pull herself up on her feet. Being able to splash her hands in the water and grab her toys was great to her at that age. Once they could reach (between 1.5 yr and 2 yr old), they enjoyed dropping balls down the center tube. 3. Putting it together was pretty easy. It took a little over 15 minutes or so. But this does not come back apart easily and doesn’t collapse or anything for storage. 4. My girls at age 4 still love playing with this, both just for splashing and moving balls around or for pretend mixing and cooking, etc. It’s also nice to use for creative activities such as ice cube experiments and colored water mixing. 5. I wish the bottom didn’t have the texture it does because if it gets grimey, that means I’ve got to get all around the bumps when cleaning. However, overall it cleans fairly easily. 6. The balls it comes with are mostly junk. They are squirty so you have to watch out for mildew buildup. I feel like that was an unnecessary feature. Regardless, some of them are really stiff and very difficult to squeeze (even for me) to fill up while others are easily squeezed. These differences really confused and irritated my kids. 7. The crank on the side that holds balls or, if spun hard enough, splashes water out, is fun and attractive to the kids. The piece that looks like a sideways water wheel doesn’t seem to do much and I felt could have been made into a more useful or creative feature. 8. The center tube is big enough for the balls to get down but not much wider. I’ve had the girls drop random stuff in (rocks, animal squirters, etc.) and get stuck multiple times. I’ve been able to get everything back out with my little hands and some hard work. You can unscrew it to open the thing, but it isn’t just an easy task to get at the middle of the tube if objects are stuck. 9. For the price, you can’t ask for more. Overall we’ve gotten our money’s worth times ten. I’ve liked this enough to purchase it as a gift for others. Would definitely buy this all over again. Beware I have noticed this cheaper ($35ish) on other sites but occasionally amazon lowers the price too. 10. It does leak some water from the center but water is going everywhere with kids playing so I haven’t found this to be a big deal. 11. My kids have hung on and pulled on the center tube while trying to reach up high. It hasn’t broken or cracked but I could see if the kid was really rough with it there might be a problem. I’ve included pictures of my 7 month old and an 18 month old next to it for size comparisons.