Aqua Sand Light-up Kingdom

The tank is very small, and the background scene is made of thin cardboard that easily falls off the tank. The tiny castle tips over often, and the turrets are not fully hollow. So, you can only put sand in a small portion at the top. There is not a lot of room to create designs, and the amount of sand and the tips provided do not lend themselves to any kind of controlled artistic experience. This will be very frustrating for most children (or adults). The scooper does not easily collect sand that floats on the top of the tank or lands in the wrong spot, and the two colors of sand provided (blue and yellow) mix together almost immediately and are worthless as separate colors. There is a safety issue with this toy as well, as the light up base is far from water tight and rests under the tank with the back portion of the electrical device exposed. Although it is very easy to imagine how it will get wet in that location, you are never supposed to get it wet. It would be much better to get monochromatic hydrophobic sand and work in larger tanks with better tools. This will just frustrate folks.

This is a good toy for a Grandma to give. My grand-daughter saw this on TV and immediately asked for it for Christmas. She had fun with it on Christmas Day and tried two more times to make the kingdom. I'm afraid we then threw it out instead of buying more sand. She played with it about 30 minutes each time.

Neat stuff, but play with somewhere that easily swept rather than have to use a vacuum. The product says 3 - 6 years; my grand-daughters are 8 & 9. They love it! I would hate to put this stuff in the hands of a 3 year-old without close attention. Pretty neat stuff & a big hit Christmas Day!

This light up kingdom is great. My son loves it!

Makes a mess

My daughter begged for this for Christmas. I read a lot of reviews on similiar aqua sand products/toys. I was left concerned about all the mess. She is 6 & it went better than expected. I set some basic rules for mess control, put her & the toy on a big flat plastic 39gallon trash bag. She also wore a old kitchen apron. The second day I didn't even use the bags. The sand slowly mixes the colors together inside the tank, so I will only let her do one color at a time in the future. It funnels back into the squirt bottles nicely with a little patience & help from the scooper. She liked the lights to add to the effect. I took a cute picture for her art photo memories. I think this is the only model/style with lights option & 3AAA batt's were not included. Overall it is a decent toy, but I could see her getting bored with it after a month. I will put it away & get it out from time to time. Blue & yellow come in the box, & I just ordered pink, orange, purple, & green. Like I said, I think I will only set out one color at time. The yellow & blue are mixed together back in one bottle together. It's still useable. If your kid keeps begging for it, just get it & have fun. It's not that bad. I'm thinking ages 4-8.

My 5-year old daughter was very excited to play with it, but I think it's a one-time thing. The castle tends to float up and tip over, destroyer her work. Also, while the sand is reusable, the blue and yellow are now totally mixed, so she can't make any colored patterns next time. The sand is pretty hard to work with and it tends to float on the surface and block any view of working from above.

This was given to my daughter as a Christmas gift. We tried it once and it is now out on the curb waiting for the garbage truck. The sand is cool in that it really doesn't get wet but I can't see how any child (or adult for that matter)could create what they show on the cover of the box. The castle didn't want to stay down in the tank even after getting some sand in it. The sand didn't come out of the bottles under water like I would have expected and then when you lift it out of the water, sand poured out everywhere. If you try to mix the colors like they advertise, you can forget using the individual colors again. They mix together when trying to slooooooowly scoop after tiny scoop get them back into the bottles. Total waste of her grandmother's money and a total waste of a morning.