Customer Reviews

Hot Wheels Sharkbite Bay Play Set

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

The quality of hot wheels toys has deteriorated so much since I was a child. While I haven't been impressed by a single track or playset that I have purchased for my son this one is hands down the WORST so far. The ramp is so flimsy that even the car it came with can not go down such a shallow ramp and make it past the shark's head. We figured out how to get the shark's mouth to stay open, but the phrases from the shark are so annoying that I'd rather have not figured it out at all. Yes, my son is playing with it at the moment, but I don't see him choosing to play with this toy much after tonight. He chose this toy for his birthday based on the commercial he saw on TV. Every 2-3 minutes I have to "fix" something on the toy. Next time he wants car tracks I will not be purchasing from Hot Wheels again. If I could give this toy ZERO stars I would have.

I bought this for my 4 year old son, and as others have said, the commercials make this toy to be a lot more than it is. However, once we figured out the playsets features and its limitations my son loves it. The number one drawback is the sharks head. It took me probably about an hour to figure it out so that the mouth would close properly when the car goes through it on the track. Also, don't expect the car to shoot into the shark's mouth from the launcher. It is not supposed to.

This is probably not Hot Wheels best designed playset, but my son has really enjoyed since we figured out how it works which is why I have reviewed this as well as I have.

My 3 year old son was really excited about this toy. I helped him try to figure it out. I am a mechanical engineer and have trouble trying to get this to work properly. I usually don't write reviews unless a product is really good or really bad. Although the toy looks like fun and cool to my 3 year old, i can just see the frustration in his face when he cant get certain pieces to work. Here is what I have noticed:

-Elevator is flimsy and difficult to go up and down

-The spinning disk is difficult to turn

-The launcher doesn't shoot cars into the sharks mouth. One reviewer said it wasn't supposed to. Then what is its point?

-I cant figure out what the wave thing at the bottom does.

-Not easy to setup the shark's mouth properly

-Not easy to fold up

Basically this toy sucks! It should have never passed design quality control.

I am 31 and used to love Hot Wheels when I was a kid. Since then, it seems the quality has changed quite a bit. Just disappointing.

I read one of the previous reviews and the guy was dead on; Hot Wheels/Mattel should be ashamed of themselves. I grew up with Hot Wheels and Sizzlers, and have fond memories of the joy that all those orange tracks and cars brought me. I love to see my boy enjoying the same toys that I loved as a kid. That is what makes it so hard to admit that this thing is garbage. The very premise of a shark biting a car is utterly ridiculous. Now being ridiculous is never a reason to give a toy a bad rating, but this just plays into little boy fantasy too much. I could just see the pathetic marketing team sitting around looking for ways to hook innocent kids. My boy is only 4 and already is shark crazy. Anything with the hint of a shark "hooks" his attention. He got hooked on this thing. Upon taking it out of the box, I could feel sharp edges on, of all things, the handle. The quality of this product is lacking. Sharp edges, poor fitting parts a mechanism that doesn't work more than half the time are good enough reasons not to buy. Add to that the play of the toy is droning for even a kid with a dim spark of imagination and intelligence. To top it off the fact that Mattel is simply tricking kids to beg for this thing is unconscionable.

What a waste.. this toy is flimsy and the car won't even go down the track.. the elevator is hard to go up.

I am very disappointed in this toy..and the only thing my 3 and 5 year will play with from it is the little car it comes with.. the rest went in the trash after 1 day.

To be fair, we didn't buy this from Amazon - just as well, we returned it within an hour. My 4 year old chose this as a reward for not sucking his thumb for one week, it was to be a very important toy! He put a lot of thought into this toy. Much to my chagrin, we spent about an hour in the toy section choosing it.

Anyhow, we got it home and I was frustrated within 20 minutes of trying to put it together. I then enlisted my husband who also became frustrated - we couldn't decide if it was broken or just crappy. Either way the only thing my son enjoyed about it was when the shark burped! Not worth the money!!

We took it back and 2 hours later he had carefully chosen another toy - sigh!!

Our son received this for his 5th birthday and while he was excited, I was less than impressed. The qaulity of the toy is poor. The track is flimsy and the parts continually break. But the worst part are the "phrases" the shark says, they are mostly unintelligible then he burps each time. Very, very annoying. This toy is a far cry from the Hot Wheels sets I had a kid.

My 3.5 year old son loves this play set. He played with it for several hours the first day that we got it. He has played with it for at least an hour each of the following days as well. We have several other Matchbox and Hot Wheels pop-up play sets that my son also loves to play with. I think that if your child loves other play sets, they will really like this one. This one has a lot of different things that they can do with the car.

My only complaint is that it is hard to prop open the shark's mouth, which you need to do each time the car is going to go down that particular ramp.

Got it for my 5 year old on Christmas (from Santa). Fell apart INSTANTLY. Track broke in 3 different places within the first hour. Shoddy plastic. Couldn't return it because it was from Santa. ;) When I emailed Hot Wheels/Mattel to complain, they didn't even bother to answer. Very disappointing. Don't Buy!

Most of the reviews on this seem to be negative, although I personally don't have much bad to say about it.

This is a pop-up/foldable set.

There's an elevator that brings a car up to the tallest ramp, which is a curved track which send the car into the shark's mouth that has a surf board hanging from it (you can fold the surf board and open the sharks mouth if a particular car is too light to effectively "break" the board the first time).

Upon exiting the sharks mouth the car is sent down another curved track into a pair of "doors". There's a second bit of track on the lower level, with a piece of track that my son calls "the bridge" (as it folds up) that allows a car to go from one side of the set to the other down a ramp onto a spinning circle the car exits and then can go through a "wave" (the only seemingly useless thing in the set) and get out on the other side.

There is also a "cage" that can carry at least one car, or imprison one also. :)

THE BEST PART is the car catapult/ejector - you place a car opposite of the shark and press a button and the car is thrown into the sharks mouth. This works exactly as directed for us.

Pros:

- It folds up very easily.

- The shark says many phrases. Each phrase is appropriate for the play involved - ie if the car breaks through the sharks mouth it says a phrase like "catch you next time" or if the car gets eaten it burps, etc.

- Car thrower works VERY well, throws cars into the sharks mouth!

- My three year old can open and put this away by himself.

- The spinning wheel of doom is very easily spun, the sticker of eels(?) makes it a little slippery for cars though.

- The cage/prison surprisingly adds a lot of imaginative play for my son.

Cons:

- You can't combine more track to the set to make it apart of a larger senario.

- The "wave" under the shark doesn't do much of anything, I assume it's supposed to throw cars off track - but doesn't.

- The elevator isn't the most durable thing. It hasn't been broke, but I can see it happening, although this wouldn't change the playability of the set.