Fisher-Price Cruise and Groove Ballapalooza

The Fisher-Price Cruise and Groove Ballapalooza, much like its name, takes up way too much space for what it is. This toy takes up more room than any other we own and there's no way to reduce its size for storage. Without changing much feature-wise, this toy could have easily been designed to take up half the space.

This toy does have some neat design elements. There is a ball-dropper at the top that you can push balls into and have them fall out onto a angled plastic 'trampoline' pad so that they bounce onto the top of the highest ramp. There is also a switch that registers falling balls to turn on lights and sound (3 C batteries required). The toy comes with plenty of balls (which are very hard plastic, so watch where your kids throw them) and the toy does look great when it is fully assembled. Also, assembly is not too bad, taking roughly 20-30 minutes for the average parent, less if there's help or a powered screwdriver.

My children are 8 months and 2 1/2 years old. They both enjoyed playing with the toy right away, but there interest quickly evaporated. Simply put, this toy doesn't do much. The ramps can only be constructed one way and while there are 2 ramps, the shorter path is completely lame. The higher ramp (with the trampoline) is just short enough for easy access to my older kid, but obviously too much for my little one to handle she mostly plays with the balls and ignores the monstrous Ballapalooza. The suggested age range of 6 months to 3 years doesn't make much sense to me. I feel that any kid over 2 years will quickly become bored and many kids under 1 year will not really be able to use this toy. So, I would suggest 12-24 months.

Overall, I was disappointed by this toy and so were my kids. It looks nice and is fun for a few days, but for its size and price, it should do more to keep kids entertained. It would have been easy for Fisher Price to include more ramps and do-hickeys that interact with the rolling balls. Instead the toy offers one mildly amusing ramp, one ramp that's a waste of space and some unrelated do-hickeys that don't really do much but take up a lot of extra space.

UPDATE (11/8/2012): After a little over one month, my children have played very little with this toy since I posted my review. I have kept the toy out in a prominent location because we have space and the toy really does look great, but they mostly ignore it. Every few days my toddler might pick up a ball and play with the Ballapalooza for all of one or two minutes. I will be taking the toy down to the basement shortly.

This toy is fun ~ very entertaining and educational.

Our grandson loves to run the balls down the chute to keep the music going ~

and crawl through the arms, and this toy is also styled to share.

The flashing lights on the post are red/green/yellow like a traffic light

and blink on/off to the beat of the music.

This activity center encourages various other action

that promote motor skills and coordination.

For children 6 mo to 3 yrs ~ plus.

There are 31 pieces to screw and/or snap together, 35 screws, and some stickers.

The pieces are notched all different ways, and numbered to aid in assembly.

I used a phillips bit, in my cordless drill ~ minimized the torque and went slow ~

the plastic is tough enough that all the screws snugged down to a stop

with-out striping out any holes.

I found it easier to use the butt end of the rubber coated handle of my hammer

to hit the snap joints together, instead of my hands.

The switch on the base has two levels of volume.

Ballapalooza uses three C batteries which aren't included.

This seems to be a rugged toy, and reminds me of the sort of toys

you might see in a Pediatric Doctors waiting room.

Up-date May 27, 2013. Our grandson still plays with this toy every time he's at out house.

He's forever inventing different ways of interacting with the Ballapalooza, running his little cars around the ramps, etc.

Perhaps he's not grown tired of it because it's not available to him everyday, but he's still loving this toy.

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Overall, I'm not super impressed with this toy! I've listed the pros and cons below, and although the list looks pretty equal, the pros are minor functions compared to the cons of a long time to assemble. I have a 3 year old and a 16 month old and they really don't seem to care for this toy, which was surprising, but it really doesn't do much other than the balls sliding down the ramps.

PROs

The post lights up and has fun music

It comes with LOTS of balls, so if you lose some you're not frantically looking for something to make the toy work again

It's fun colors

It has a 2 different music volumes so you can turn it down if you find the music annoying

CONs

It takes a LONG time to put together (took me more than 1 hour and I'm good with putting toys together!)

My kids were bored with it after 15 minutes

The toy itself is VERY large and takes up a lot of room (it's about 3 feet in diameter by the time it's all put together)

The balls only can take 2 different tracks, so the limited options, left my kids (3 and 16 months) bored quickly

The "door" they can crawl through doesn't move well and doesn't trigger any music or lights

The music and lights are not always triggered by the balls going through

It's too tall for my 16 month old to put the balls in the top part and The crawl through door is too small for my 3 year old to go through, so it seems like they weren't sure what age/ages they were really making this toy for

Read Best Reviews of Fisher-Price Cruise and Groove Ballapalooza Here

This was a toy for my 22 month old son, we wanted to give him something interactive to play with that would stimulate him to move and play. Out of the box this comes in dozens of pieces and should probably be put together ahead of time when your child is napping or busy, it took a little while to assemble and having a toddler run off with pieces sets you back really fast. After assembled and getting batteries installed this thing is nothing but fun. My son got the hang of it very quickly, you can add balls anywhere along the track but he does like to make them go from the tip top all the way to the bottom, we had extra balls from another toy and it is much more fun with the extra balls traveling the course. This is a very large toy, it works best if you have a playroom or space in a bedroom that is large enough to leave it up all the time, taking it down and moving it frequently is not really easy. Overall I would give this 5 stars and recommend it for anyone that wants to see their child have active play even indoors on a rainy day.

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Before I start my review I must say that usually Amazon would send a big box displaying what's inside so you can't hide it. This one came in an Amazon brown box so if you're thinking of getting this as a gift for your little one then you have no issues with packaging. Another thing you may need to do is stock up on your C batteries because this one takes 3 and they're not included. :)

Set up was not too difficult since all the parts were numbered and the directions were pretty simple to follow. It took my husband setting it up about an hour setting it up by himself. Once set up though it's a phenomenal toy. My 8 month old loves it. She has fun putting the balls in and watching them roll down. She's at the age where she pulls herself up and I'm not afraid of it tipping over with her because of the stability of the toy.

The music is more techno and fun and watching it light up amazes her. It does take up a bit of floor space so take that into consideration when buying. I definitely recommend this toy for those crawling and learning to stand.

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