Customer Reviews

Gears! Gears! Gears! Dizzy Fun Land Motorized Set

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

 

 

We purchased this for our 4 year old son, and have been very happy with the gear set. We have not had any of the problems mention in previous reviews about the structures not holding together. While I agree that this is not a toy a 4 year-old could complete on their own, it creates an excellent opportunity for a parent and child to work together on a project. My husband and son have spent many afternoons together constructing different designs using this gear set and the large bucket of gears (sold separately).
With so many video games and "solo" play type-toys on the market, I am glad to see that they are still making toys that a parent and child can do together.

My son received this for Christmas when he was only 3, a bit too young for this set. It's complicated to put together and does fall apart easily, especially when little hands won't leave it alone. Now, my son is almost 5 and he is building all the things in the instruction booklet by himself, he LOVES this set, always has but hasn't been able to do it himself until now. The other things you can build seem to stay together better and he has gotten many hours of fun out of this set. I'd say don't get this until your child is at least 5 but a pretty good toy and great for learning to build and being creative with. He also builds his own creations.

My son got this for his 4th birthday. While the pieces snap together fairly easily, it is complicated - no way a 4 yr. old could do it. Even following the instructions step-by-step, I found the process confusing and time-consuming. Once I got it put together, it was fine as long as no one touched it or turned the motor on. It is not the most stable toy when assembled, so it seems to fall apart easily - at which point, it wasn't always immediately obvious how to put it back together without consulting the directions. When the motor is running, it's worse. The horses on the carousel are supposed to go up and down. In our case, just one horse not working properly causes the whole system to break apart - the gears jam and the pieces start to topple over - the carousel pops out of place, bringing the ferris wheel and roller coaster with it. I was shocked to see how expensive this item was - especially after the 1st few catastrophes the 1st week, my son rarely plays with it now. Definitely not worth it! The gear thing is cool, physics-wise, but I'm sticking with the simpler horizontal versions!

My 5-year-old son adores putting things together and taking them apart again. He's certainly more gifted in the latter skill, and I have the inoperable alarm clocks, dismantled scooter and non-working bicycle to prove it.

That said, I gave him this set for Christmas to foster his love of mechanical exploration. When I did, I had no idea that I'd be making a committment to playing with him <em>every single time</em> (Every. Single. Time.) he brought this set out.

There are too many pieces for children to sort before assembling -- so many, in fact, that younger kids may be overwhelmed and give up (and so might their parents). Assembling the pieces is not easy for small hands, which means a parent must help with that, too. In addition, putting the pieces together so they resemble the picture is a <em>major</em> task which means... yep, you guessed it: the parent is doing that as well.

Ultimately, to play with this toy a child must find a parent willing to spend 15-20 minutes assembling it while simultaneously trying to keep the child from wandering off to a more accessible, engaging toy in the meantime. Assuming you've got the patience, skills and time for that, your kid might enjoy playing with it once it's all ready to go. Of course, you'd better not stray too far because you'll have to put this thing back together over and over again when the pieces fall apart.

Frankly, my son got tired of it before I did and went off to figure out how to take apart the PS/2 console. Now the only one in the family interested in playing with it is our cat, and even he doesn't seem to be having much fun.

This set is as fun as it sounds. Great for my pre-school room and older children can make more challenging designs. Inventive and fun.

I thought this was a great idea for my son(4) who is very mechanically inclined. I knew that he would need adult help so we worked on the Dizzy Fun Land gears together. We still have not got the whole thing assembled in fact we haven't played with it since Christmas. A couple of the main parts to the Ferris Wheel won't stay in place. They constantly pop off and ruin the work you just put into it! Overall I don't think this toy was worth the money.

I needed to coach my 5-year-old daughter through the entire contruction of this amusement park and, while I don't think she'll be able to replicate it on her own, she did learn to follow the printed instructions (kind of - they are quite complicated). The Ferris Wheel pops out constantly which is frustrating. She is having fun playing pretend with it. This is a nice toy for parents to spend time with their children with but it is probably not a "child can build on their own" toy.

We bought this for my 4 yr old for Christmas, because he love rollercoasters. There are not a lot of rollercoaster toys out there especially for his age. He was so excited to get it. I spent about 30 min putting this together. The pieces kept popping off. If one piece doesn't work the whole thing doesn't work! Also, the roller coaster track did not touch the ground at the end of putting it all together. I seemed like the track was not long enough. I got frustraed with the ferris wheel popping off the sides and decided to return in! We got two other rollercoaster sets recently that my 4 yr old loves and they work for about the same amount! Although it will be many years before he can put them together.

I read all the reviews before I purchased this for my 5 year old so I'll try to address the complaints of the other reviewers. First of all my husband could not believe the box said the toy was for 4+ kids. I think it would take at least a 10 year old to be able to assemble the toy by themselves. And only a 10 year old that was good at Legos or following Ikea assembly instructions would be able to put the toy together. So parent participation is definitely required when assembling the toy. Now that said, it was easy enough for my 5 year old to put the pieces together if I gave him the piece he needed and told him where it went. Overall, assembly was easy fairly easy, again you have to be familiar with following Lego or Ikea instructions and if you aren't then I would say assembly of the toy would be a bit more difficult for you. Now the complaint about the carousel falling off is valid. But it only happened when my son would run the gears nonstop. If you pulse the gears and let it run for only a few seconds at a time then the carousel was fine. But try telling a toddler to "pulse" the gears right?! The roller coaster is also a disappointment because the coaster tumbles down the track rather than sliding down the track as if it doesn't fit on the track. But in the end, after it was all assembled and my 5 year old had played with it for a bit, he said "this is so cool". Hence the high rating. Would I recommend the toy to others? It depends on the aptitude of the person I'm recommending it to. If it's a parent that is willing to sit and play with their child for at least an hour then I would recommend this toy, but if it's a parent that doesn't have that kind of time to play with their kids then they will only find this toy an aggravation.

My son (about to turn 4 yrs) loves the Gears, Gears, Gears line of toys. He can't construct this set by himself as it was designed; but he enjoys creating more basic structures. He likes the fact that this set has cars in it (the bumper cars). The problem we encountered with this set is the rollercoaster does not work. The rollercoaster car is too wide for the track - or the track is too narrow. I called the manufacturer and they shipped a new car to me. New one didn't fit. The manufacturer said it would send new track if the new car didn't fit. But I gave up before exercising that option because I had also received a replacement set from Amazon due to one of the gears being defective. The car/rollercoaster in that set had the same problem. So, I had tried three cars and two sets of tracks - no combination worked. I chalked it up to cheap flimsy plastic and moved on. My son seems to care less about the rollercoaster part anyway. One day, if my son gets interested in having a rollercoaster car that works, my husband will try to remove the wheels, grind on the axels, and replace the wheels (thereby narrowing the car).