Customer Reviews

Shining Stars by Russ Shining Stars Dragon

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

After purchasing the Shining Stars Dragon for a review on my website I was impressed with the quality of the toy itself. I have purchased many stuffed animals in my time and the quality of the Shining Stars toys are above average, although they are not perfect they are above average. The fur does not "tuft out" (come out in tufts when played with) like many stuffed toys do, the shedding of fur is minimal which is a definite plus as there is nothing worse than a bald stuffed animal! The only negative aspects of the construction of the toy for me were the presence of felt which in my opinion lowers the quality standard and the construction of the wings on the dragon. The dragon's "spines" and nostrils are both constructed out of the felt but since these aren't major aspects of the toy construction they don't worry me too much. The wing construction doesn't present a huge flaw, the stitching is the problem I have as it could and will be easily separated by a child trying to make the dragon "fly" but should the wings come unstitched that is no loss as they are still secured in a central location.
The website registration aspect of the toy is easy enough and the interactive backend of the "members only" section of the site is a fun process which can give minimal entertainment to a child as well as give them an opportunity to characterize their toy and give it a personality. While the star naming and star chart aspect of the Shining Stars may seem "cheesy" to an adult, I firmly believe it would be a fun and educational experience for a child.

Pros
Astrologically educational, Imaginative, Interactive and durable

Cons
Interactive website encourages sedentary activity.

I bought my teddy bear at Christmas Mouse, on discount, this August 2011. Now I know why. If you go to wwww.shiningstars.com, you are informed that Russ Berrie, licensor of the Shining Stars line, has filed for bankrupcy on April 26, 2011. You are also informed that the Shining Stars website is no longer maintained. If you are buying the toy just because it's cute, great. If you want the star registry print out, you won't be getting it.

Also, remember that the Star Registry is not really legitimate. Astronomers don't recognize the Star Registry. Hope this helps.

I paid almost $20 for this dragon and we cannot register a star. Apparently shiningstars.com has had an issue with this and they aren't fixing it. I emailed them TWICE and they will not respond. Thanks for disappointing my child!

My 7 year old nephew loves this toy. He carried it around with him and sleeps with it at night and talks to it. It's "fur" is fluffy and durable and sparkles like a star.
My nephew and I went to the website and assigned his dragon to the Draco constellation, named the star, and named his dragon; then we spent a good half hour or so enjoying the interactive website, where one can use points to "buy" a world for your shining stars pet to visit, and "buy" accessories for the world. We also had a laugh dressing up his virtual dragon as a pirate.
I think the best feature is the educational value of naming a star in a constellation you pick. He now notices the stars, and every night we go out and look at the various constellations and he asks, "Audra, where is my star at?" and I point out the general location. My other nieces and nephews can't wait for their turn to name a star in the sky after them!

We have been waiting over 2 months for username approval. No rejections or responses of any type from Shing Stars moderators. You need username approval to do certain things on the site (like have buddies, which is a "BIG" thing most of the kids want!)
The only way to contact them is through e-mail form on their site, 90% of the time you get a canned response. It took me 3 e-mails to even get a response from them (and guess what- they answer they gave implied it was a canned response or did not read the entire e-mail).
Stick with Web Kinz! At least there is plent of FAQ's on their site (something else Shining Stars has very little of)
It's not very compatiable with FireFox either.

We purchased a pair of these for my fiancee's twin nephews, and now realize we got a fantastic deal on them ($2.99 each at a local remaindered-goods reseller shop). Her nephews are still pre-school age, so we were looking at the purchase as primarily a matched set of attractive, adorable, soft and huggable stuffed animals for the boys. The name-a-star feature mentioned on the product tags seemed like a cool bonus, but not remotely the main reason we bought the two dragons. We were prepared to find that that feature no longer worked the way it had when the toys were manufactured, since a close look at the tags revealed the site was compatible with Windows 98/2000/XP but made no mention of Vista or Windows 7.

Like most people who will read this review, we tried the website, found that it was completely unavailable, and so searched for more information, discovering that the website worked intermittently and badly for some time before going completely down, as well as that many people couldn't get their "certificates" or star coordinates even when the site was up to some degree and customer service could be contacted. We would be furious if we had paid $15-35 for something that was supposed to have an online personalization and/or educational component.

According to this twenty-seven-year-old article in Time Magazine

the so-called "International Star Registry" was never anything more than a scam, and one that dates back to the 1970s. Even when the shiningstars website was up and working exactly as it was promoted to, no one else recognized the names they assigned to stars... certainly not any actual astronomers or other scientists, or even astrologers.

Definitely not worth more than US$5 each.

My daughter got this for Christmas last year (she was 3). We only set up the web account and named the star last month. I've read reviews saying to stick w/webkinz and based on my experience with my niece and nephews i agree that webkinz is a more sophisticated site. However, my daughter, who has since turned 4, really likes the website. She is learning good basic computer skills and mouse coordination. She thinks the games are fun and since she doesn't know how to read, the more advanced games and interaction with buddies that is on webkinz is beyond her anyway. I think shining stars is a great introduction to webkinz. I am sure by the time she is 6 we will have moved on from this, but in the meantime I think it's a great starter program.

This dragon is so cute and one of the sofest toys ever.He has little silver sparkles all in his fur and there is a shooting star on his left front foot.His scales are also soft and they are purple so if your child likes colors this stuffed dragon is a hit. I also like the naming of the star from the star directory its fun and teaches children about the sky and stars.I think this stuffed animal will be a good friend for my niece for a long tiime.

Ok, what can I say. I'm 30 years old and I still love the cute fluffy stuff. I absolutely love the dragon, in which I have named Azure, and my son was so excited to name a star with me for Christmas. The website was easily navigational, and the activities for my son very entertaining. I think my other dragons are jealous cause I have a new favorite among them. :D

My daughter loves her dragona dn it goes EVERYWHERE she does and so far ive washed it 4 times and its looked as new each time. Very durable toy- She even throws him around quite a bit