2-in-1 Tennis Court & Skate Spot
Feb 27, 2023 8:34:04 GMT -5
Post by bingandnelsonfan on Feb 27, 2023 8:34:04 GMT -5
Isabel and Nicki's 2-in-1 Tennis Court and Skate Spot
Price: $175.00
SKU#: HNR77
This set is a lot more impressive in person than it is in the photos. And it probably has a lot of play value for kids. Can’t imagine this won’t do well at Christmas time! This is a one-or-the-other set, the flooring printed to look like Skateboarding on one side, Tennis on the other. AG’s main stock photo for this item is deceptive and makes it look like you can have both things set up at once, with both dolls enjoying their own sports. That is not the case with this set. The thick, shiny “ground” flooring (think Blaire’s farm floor) is folded in half (foldable) and reversible, so you can only have one at a time (with flooring) set up like in AG’s photos. However, if you want just one or the other, you’ll probably be pretty happy with this.
SKATEBOARDING
The Skate Spot uses one side of the dual-purpose mat and has plastic ramps that sit on top. It has a sticker sheet to decorate the plastic pieces, a skateboard identical to the one in the Skateboarding Outfit set, a plastic helmet and plastic knee and elbow pads. The plastic used to make the skate-spot pieces are not a solid hard plastic but a stiffer soft-plastic rim. Nicer than you’d expect, actually, as long as you don’t let your little ones sit or stand on them. They’re a lot bigger than you think, too, and the contents of the set took up the better part of a 4×6′ (?) display top. Elizabeth agreed to pose for scale, because we were really impressed with the size of the actual play area. And you’d have this spread out even more in your house, I’m sure. The ramps are your typical thin plastic and fully movable for you to set up wherever you want. We couldn’t get even a glimpse of the tennis-court side of the floor, because it’s pretty stiff (think thinner than Scenes & Settings pages).
TENNIS
You get a plastic tennis ball machine (launcher) that shoots the six (seven, if you buy the outfit) plastic balls at the doll. It isn’t electric or battery-operated. See that round pink disc on the back of it? You turn that plastic piece and a spring winds inside. Once you’ve wound it enough, the balls start shooting out (quite quickly and far, according to a store staff member). Hopefully, it’ll last as long as a modern kid’s attention span. Very nice that it doesn’t need batteries or a wall outlet, though.
The tennis balls are made of a ping-pong-ball type of lightweight plastic. (They bear little resemblance to tennis balls, other than a non-descript molding, for those of you wanting to use them for display. And they’re definitely too large a scale for the 18″ dolls. I’m sure they have to be like that to work in the machine, but I just want you to know you’re not getting tennis balls like Molly had.) There’s a short plastic net that sits flat on the floor, and you really don’t even need the tennis-court flooring. The doll can hold a tennis racket that is identical (in a different colorway) to the one with the Tennis outfit (sold separately). The last thing to mention is a chunky plastic basket for holding the balls.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
This big set came with a lot of stickers to slap down where you will, but we don’t recommend using them. We arrived at the store one hour after opening on release day, and all the stickers were curled up at the edges and/or falling off. We tried to stick them back down, but they had a post-it kind of sticky on the back and didn’t stay down for more than a minute or two. Some of what you see is printed on the flooring, but a few things on the floor and everything on the plastic pieces are stickers.
If I were buying this set for my kids, I’d get a piece of tile or carpet that looked like asphalt and put it under the large skateboard pieces. That way, I could use the tennis-court side of the floor and set that up in a separate play area. Mom was really into buying press-n-stick tiles from Lowes to butt up to each other (without the adhesive paper removed, of course) to delineate certain play areas. Made everything more fun, especially Playmobil! I think she’d approve of a stack of carpet squares to put under the skateboard area. Actually, even as adults, we have a large stack of inexpensive 24″ carpets square from Menards that has colors ranging from gray to brown to orange to water blue. You’ve seen them many times in our Photo Stories. They can look like sand or dirt or paving or rugs or water . . . you name it.
When the photos were first leaked for this set, I figured $300 give or take. Having now seen it up close and in person, I think that at $175, it might be worth it for even just one of the sports. Knowing that the flooring is not really necessary (tennis moreso than skateboarding, but both still do-able without), you might be able to sell the other “sport” off and recoup a little of your money. Local would be better for the skateboarding portion, because those pieces are large in volume and shipping would be a killer. The tennis stuff would be easy enough to ship
Price: $175.00
SKU#: HNR77
This set is a lot more impressive in person than it is in the photos. And it probably has a lot of play value for kids. Can’t imagine this won’t do well at Christmas time! This is a one-or-the-other set, the flooring printed to look like Skateboarding on one side, Tennis on the other. AG’s main stock photo for this item is deceptive and makes it look like you can have both things set up at once, with both dolls enjoying their own sports. That is not the case with this set. The thick, shiny “ground” flooring (think Blaire’s farm floor) is folded in half (foldable) and reversible, so you can only have one at a time (with flooring) set up like in AG’s photos. However, if you want just one or the other, you’ll probably be pretty happy with this.
SKATEBOARDING
The Skate Spot uses one side of the dual-purpose mat and has plastic ramps that sit on top. It has a sticker sheet to decorate the plastic pieces, a skateboard identical to the one in the Skateboarding Outfit set, a plastic helmet and plastic knee and elbow pads. The plastic used to make the skate-spot pieces are not a solid hard plastic but a stiffer soft-plastic rim. Nicer than you’d expect, actually, as long as you don’t let your little ones sit or stand on them. They’re a lot bigger than you think, too, and the contents of the set took up the better part of a 4×6′ (?) display top. Elizabeth agreed to pose for scale, because we were really impressed with the size of the actual play area. And you’d have this spread out even more in your house, I’m sure. The ramps are your typical thin plastic and fully movable for you to set up wherever you want. We couldn’t get even a glimpse of the tennis-court side of the floor, because it’s pretty stiff (think thinner than Scenes & Settings pages).
TENNIS
You get a plastic tennis ball machine (launcher) that shoots the six (seven, if you buy the outfit) plastic balls at the doll. It isn’t electric or battery-operated. See that round pink disc on the back of it? You turn that plastic piece and a spring winds inside. Once you’ve wound it enough, the balls start shooting out (quite quickly and far, according to a store staff member). Hopefully, it’ll last as long as a modern kid’s attention span. Very nice that it doesn’t need batteries or a wall outlet, though.
The tennis balls are made of a ping-pong-ball type of lightweight plastic. (They bear little resemblance to tennis balls, other than a non-descript molding, for those of you wanting to use them for display. And they’re definitely too large a scale for the 18″ dolls. I’m sure they have to be like that to work in the machine, but I just want you to know you’re not getting tennis balls like Molly had.) There’s a short plastic net that sits flat on the floor, and you really don’t even need the tennis-court flooring. The doll can hold a tennis racket that is identical (in a different colorway) to the one with the Tennis outfit (sold separately). The last thing to mention is a chunky plastic basket for holding the balls.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
This big set came with a lot of stickers to slap down where you will, but we don’t recommend using them. We arrived at the store one hour after opening on release day, and all the stickers were curled up at the edges and/or falling off. We tried to stick them back down, but they had a post-it kind of sticky on the back and didn’t stay down for more than a minute or two. Some of what you see is printed on the flooring, but a few things on the floor and everything on the plastic pieces are stickers.
If I were buying this set for my kids, I’d get a piece of tile or carpet that looked like asphalt and put it under the large skateboard pieces. That way, I could use the tennis-court side of the floor and set that up in a separate play area. Mom was really into buying press-n-stick tiles from Lowes to butt up to each other (without the adhesive paper removed, of course) to delineate certain play areas. Made everything more fun, especially Playmobil! I think she’d approve of a stack of carpet squares to put under the skateboard area. Actually, even as adults, we have a large stack of inexpensive 24″ carpets square from Menards that has colors ranging from gray to brown to orange to water blue. You’ve seen them many times in our Photo Stories. They can look like sand or dirt or paving or rugs or water . . . you name it.
When the photos were first leaked for this set, I figured $300 give or take. Having now seen it up close and in person, I think that at $175, it might be worth it for even just one of the sports. Knowing that the flooring is not really necessary (tennis moreso than skateboarding, but both still do-able without), you might be able to sell the other “sport” off and recoup a little of your money. Local would be better for the skateboarding portion, because those pieces are large in volume and shipping would be a killer. The tennis stuff would be easy enough to ship