Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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220 of 240 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
BUYER BEWARE!!, June 14, 2004
Durability:1.0 out of 5 stars Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars Educational:3.0 out of 5 stars
What could have been the coolest toy of the summer is now the Edsel of toys. So you saw the commercial and knew your kids would love this. How can you go wrong! Puncture proof, made of nylon, comes with its own blower and sets up in less then two minutes! (...)! I'll buy that and my kids will have the coolest dad on the block. (flashback...think Steve Martin in Parenthood when his son is graduating college...)But no...(flashback...think Steve Martin in Parenthood when his son is in the Bell Tower...) What a piece of junk. Here is a day in the life of this product. Day One:
1200: Unboxed, unrolled and set up
1215: First kid down the slide. Smiles everywhere, kites flying, birds singing, it's a great day!
130: First leak. Seam busted at water inlet. No problem. Kids need a break. Repaired seam. Things are still good.
132: Seam busted again. Hmmm...Repaired seam with an old Navy trick. All you need is a vinyl patch, 6' of binding cord and 10 years in the US Navy. Worked!
225: Another seam busted. Repaired with same patching method. I am wondering...what is going on here...
320: Yet another seam busted. This time right next to the water inlet valve. Uh-oh... Cut the adapter off and reattached. Works!! Man, I did not realize that eight 6-10 year kids could do all of this...or could they...
445: Four steps on the climbing wall have ripped out. Nylon steps! Wholly smokes! All kids to the scales...I need to weigh you porkers. Hmmm...nope all average weight. 448: The pool area has a hole in it too! What is this thing made of! Cardboard!!!!
450: Deflate slide and dry out.
505: Contact Amazon for a RMA number to ship this very poorly designed product back. When I ordered this product there were no reviews. Now there are (at this writing) 33 and all of the reviews are negative. Save your money. It is a way cool toy, if only it would work...if only...
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31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fantastic way to enjoy a hot summer day, June 30, 2006
Durability:4.0 out of 5 stars Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars Educational:3.0 out of 5 stars
My wife and I were contemplating purchasing this slide for a couple of months. The high price had us concerned, plus we worried about durability since the early reviews were quite bad. The slide went on sale at Meijers for $249 so we jumped on the deal.
Initial setup was easy. 1)Stake the slide to ground like a tent in the four corners. 2) hook up the spray head to the top of the slide (velcro attachment). 3) attach the blower to the inlet and turn it on 4) attach the two water weights to the sides of the slide and turn it on 5) connect the water to the spray head.
The slide was an immediate hit. My two kids (ages 5 and 6) played on the slide for several hours before inviting some friends over. They ended up playing on the slide until about 7pm. It was an immediate neighborhood attraction.
The only issue is that the "receiving" pool at the bottom of the slide is just not long enough. As several people have mentioned, the kids hit the end wall with a pretty high force. Luckily, there have been no sprained ankles yet, but this is a concern. Especially if there is not a lot of water in the pool. It is possible for older kids (13 years) to fly out of the end of the slide, which could be dangerous, and it has happened once.
It is essential to enforce the following rules: 1) only one person at the top of the slide at any time. 2) no one goes down the slide until the person in the pool has exited. 3) everyone must exit to the left of the pool to avoid tripping over the power cable and blower inlet hose.
Taking down the slide can be a chore. First you must drain the pool by deflating the slide. I then turn the blower back on and let the slide dry out for 1 or 2 hours. Water will collect inside of the slide, so it is important to let the deflated slide dry out for several more hours.
Also, the slide is very heavy (80 lbs or so) after it has been used since it will be wet. there is simply no way to get the slide back into the nylon bag that came with it. I went out and purchased a 30 gallon storage container to store the slide in.
I hope I have not scared anyone away. This is a fantastic water slide, and will provide hours of enjoyment. It takes a bit of care and safety rules to fully enjoy it. I think the key to durability is not letting people abuse the slide, and making sure to dry it out before storing it. Also, keep a close eye on the older kids - they tend to experiment with it.
Finally, the material that the slide is made of is much better than I had envisioned. While not quite the same quality as a professional bouncer, it is close to that quality.
Update, 7/6/07:
After using the slide a total of about 10 times through August of 2006, the seams finally did start to come loose. This resulted in a "sagging" pool area, and generally weak structure since there was so much air escaping. some amount of air leakage is necessary, otherwise the slide would explode, but too much and you have a weak structure.
I did finally get through to ToyQuest customer service (after dozens of attempts) and spoke to a rep. who told me to send in the label from the old slide, and they would send me a new one, which they did. By this time it was early September, and we decided to keep the new slide dry until this year (2007). We have not yet tried the replacement slide, but we will do so as soon as the weather warms up.
The bottom line is, you need to be careful with this product. Kids like to jump off of the top and into the pool, or bounce off of the slide and into the pool. This is probably what caused the seams to fail. It is very hard to convince a bunch of 7 year olds that they need to just be calm and slide down with their feet in front of them. But that is what you must do to keep this slide from falling apart.
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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WOW! What a disappointment!!!!!!!!!!!!!, June 1, 2004
Durability:1.0 out of 5 stars Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars Educational:3.0 out of 5 stars
Well, we purchased this product because it looked like so much fun. After bringing it home and setting it up (which was extremely easy) and after 3 hours of my 7 year old (60 lbs.) enjoying herself, the climbing wall holes began to tear apart at the seams, causing the product to not hold much air which in my opinion poses a drowning risk. She had a really good time on it for the 3 hours, but for the amount of money we spent, the product should be more durable/reliable. I would suggest trying something else because my daughter was terribly discouraged by the faultiness of it.
It is basically usseless now. (...) You can not repair the seams... DON'T BUY ONE! You and your children will be very disappointed.
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