Customer Reviews

Barbie In A Mermaid Tale Swim 'N Dance Mermaid Barbie Doll

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

My 4-year old daughter was so excited when she received this doll for her birthday. After winding it up only two times, the tail fin completely fell apart into a bunch of pieces. Needless to say, I am returning it tomorrow. It is very poorly made and a big disappointment, especially to an excited 4-year-old.

We have both of these. The doll comes with two 'flowers' that keep her upright when in water and a windy hair piece to play with her hair.

To use the doll, you wind up the tail fin and then let it go. The 'motor' (a rubber band?) turns the fins. The problem is that the elasticity of the drive means that when you let the fin go after winding it, it goes very fast and then stops. I think this would have been much better if the fin always turned at about the same even speed. As it is, you spin the tail forever for about half a second of frantic jerky motion of the fins in the water. Whether standing upright (won't work in a bathrub) or 'swimming' under the water, neither works smoothly or easily. It's just a quick jerk couple of spins and that's it. The motor just spins too fast and the water pressure isn't enough to slow it down.

The doll is quite large and doesn't fit into a bathtub well. I think she is far better suited to a poll where she has room to move around. Even then, she doesn't really 'swim' and my 7 year old quickly lost interest in winding up the tail only to have it spin wildly for half a second and then peter out. The doll just jerked more than swam.

The tail fins are made of thin vinyl type of material and if left into a bent position too long, keeps that position permanently. Then she no longer swims at all.

In all, we've already lost the two flower pieces, the tails are all bent from bathtub play, and my 7 year old long ago stopped trying to wind her up. Which makes a big waste of money in having that motor in thre in the first place. She definitely does not live up to the hype of the commercial.

My 4 year old daughter was so excited when she saw this doll on TV. Its commercial makes the doll appear a lot more fun that it really is. On the Christmas list the doll went, and when I received the doll in the mail, I was very disappointed over the huge price markup for an otherwise unremarkable toy. The price should have been half of what Mattel and Amazon charge. Basically, it's a typical Barbie with a somewhat moveable tail. Forget about the "Dance" part this doll will only swim after the tail is manually wound up. The doll is somewhat long, so I imagine, you'd need something larger than a bathtub to really enjoy it. I don't know why it's called "swim 'n dance". My daughter received this toy today at a brunch with Santa and although she was glad to get something from her list, I could tell she was disappointed because she expected something much more fun and interactive. As a parent, I am doubly disappointed because of her and the money I "threw away" when I bought this toy. If you can, avoid this toy at all costs.

12/16/2010 Update: My daughter used in the bathtub a couple of times and here are my comments:
*The doll doesn't really do much other than spinning horizontally in one place, there is no forward movement.
*The commercial shows the doll spinning vertically - doesn't work. Even if it did, you'd have to use it in the pool to see it. The doll is so huge that you'd have to fill the tub almost all the way just to cover the width of the tail fin. Standing up, the doll would be sticking about water.

End conclusion: huge waste of money.

Just what everyone else said. It's unbelievable how stupid a concept it is. It twirls once or twice fast if you wind the tail up enough.

First of all I read the box so I new there were two ways to use the doll and that if you bend the fin up you can wind it easily without it spinning until you release it. My daughter took her in the bath and wound it up and all it did was spin in place. DD was disappointing so I tried the other way which was to bend the doll into a sitting position, then wind it up and let the fin go once she is under water. It worked great! She swims all over our tub! Our's has not broken, her fins are not bent and she is loads of fun! Also, I got it for $10.00 at Walmart so it was totally worth it. We have a pool and can't wait for summer to let her go all over! My DD is 6 and takes care of her doll, I don't see how the fins were getting bent up from playing in the tub with it unless the kids are not using the doll properly. Also, my DD has not tired of winding up the doll, she doesn't even want to let others do it.

Piece of junk.After 3 months of limited use the tail has fallen off into pieces and the flowers for her hands broke.

I bought this for my 3 year old daughter for some bathtub fun. While she loved her"look" her performance comes up quite short. She makes no forward motion, just spins in an awkward motion!
Good thing she doesn't have high expectations yet!

apparently the fins fall off this doll, making it into something of mermaid club... my daughter was playing with it and swung it to point at me with it. before we knew it, the broken fin part (or club) slammed right into my nose - gashing my face. this is a defective and dangerous toy. i know others who have it and all of them complain about the fin falling off.

After no more than an hour of play, the tail fell off the mermaid. The tail has a dreadful weak point where the it swivels around the joint. From what I can tell, there is no way to fix this. On another note, this is a toy that way over delivers. My daughter was more than a little disappointed that it didn't in fact bob around in the water with its own tail thrusts.... The classic Barbie is both iconic and delivers just what it promises. Give this one a miss.

Got 2 of these, one for each of my daughters for Christmas. They really love them. They did complain the first few times that the dolls don't really swim but for a couple seconds, but they still love to play with them. They have pretty much forgotten about all their other bath toys now!