I have officially entered “Birthday Season”. It seems that I have a different birthday party every weekend. So we headed off to Target, to get some birthday shopping done. With a toddler it can be pretty difficult to toy shop for others without a tantrum or two. Fortunately, Jasper had his own money today and was able to not only shop for a friend but also for himself. Jasper fell in love with a train set from B. Toys (Battat) and wasn’t leaving the store without it.
After what seemed to be a really long car ride we finally arrived “home”. I say “home” because technically it is home… for now. We are so fortunate to have such wonderful family and are currently living with my in-laws while our new home is being built. But I will write more about that in another post.
Anyhow, I grabbed some scissors (heavy duty) to open this extremely secured package. There was not a single item in this box that I could simply remove. ZIPTIES GALORE! As my toddler whined impatiently I managed to free train pieces one by one. We assembled the tracks only to find that we were missing one. STRIKE ONE, and a pretty big one! This train set’s tracks only make a 36” diameter circle and missing one piece makes it useless.
Well, now I knew that I would have to return to Target. Having to head back to Target wastes about an hour in driving alone! I handed my son the train pieces to play with while I looked everywhere to ensure that I didn’t misplace the piece of track. When turning on the train engine part I realized that it wasn’t working, WTF Battat… STRIKE TWO! Regardless, my son didn’t seem to mind, he happily played with it manually.
Later that day, we headed back to Target to return/exchange/negotiate. Since my son enjoyed it enough, I figured that I could exchange for a new and complete set, but negotiate for the original set at a reduced price. Having extra track pieces would mean that we can make a larger wavy oval instead of just the small circle. At Target the manager was very friendly and I was able to walk away with a new complete set and the other set at half off.
We brought the B. Toys Critter Express train set back home and were pleased to find the set was complete and the steam train engine was working properly. The train features a head-light, music and a steam function (more of a vapor). We filled the water tank and found that it leaks pretty badly. The steam is fun when it puffs up as the train engine toot-toots but it isn’t really worth the mess to me.
So the next day, today, shortly before planning to publish this review, the “working” train engine stopped working. STRIKE THREE! The train engine didn’t work for longer than a day. With that being said, my son still likes playing with the train manually. So we are probably going to keep it until it starts to collect dust.
In Conclusion
I will not be recommending this toy to anyone. Battat really should stop selling it, or at the very least simplify the product. A manual train without the “steam” function would still be a lot of fun for toddlers and kids and would surely be less of a disappointment. If The Critter Express had less of these non-functioning features I am sure Battat could even lower the price point a bit. To me that sounds like a win-win. In the meantime, save yourself some money and do not buy this toy it will disappoint you if you expect it to work as advertised on the package.
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What a frustrating experience. Thanks for sharing. I would be so annoyed if that happened to me! I appreciate your honest review.
Thanks a lot. We were getting ready to buy this at Target.