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.
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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program 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
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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program 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.
Honest reviews on Fisher-Price Cruise and Groove Ballapalooza
This is by far the best toy purchase I have made for my 27 month old son. I was looking for a toy he could stand and play at, that is at his height level, something that is going to keep him active and most of all something stable! He has delays and is not walking yet but can pull up to stand. This toy is by far his favorite!
I love this toy it lets my son and I have fun whilst doing important exercises to build his strength and balance. Our early intervention specialists also love using this toy when they come to our home.
We've had the Ballapalooza since Christmas and he is not bored of it at all. It is the only toy he continually plays with multiple times a day. The music is catchy and he loves dancing to it. It comes with 8 balls which is great since they get thrown everywhere and lost until we find them again.
The ballapallooza is a large toy but it doesn't seem to be to big that it bothers us in our not so large living room. It can also easily be moved from room to room if needed.
Since owning this toy I can see my sons balance and strength whilst standing improving! The Ballapalooza has made our play time together that much more enjoyable!!
From my video you can see that the ballapalooza is very stable and my 2 year old (25 pounds) can pull up to stand, with no problems of the toy tipping over.
Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Fisher-Price Cruise and Groove Ballapalooza
We got this as a gift for my one year old son. Thought he might like this since he loved playing with his ball popper. First thing you will have to deal with is assembling the toy. I figured it would all snap in easily like most kids toys but was surprised when I saw all the screws that came with it. So I broke out the screw driver and after 45 minutes had it together. It wasn't the easiest thing to assemble, but not too bad. The one problem I found with it is that since it takes so long to put together and is so large, its not a practical toy to have in a small spaces since you can not brake it down easily, and the snap in parts seem like they were not meant to be taken apart. So make sure you have enough room for the toy, its probably about 3 ft tall and 3 ft wide.Now after the time it took to put together I was hoping my son would love it, but after about 5 minutes he was done with it. The ball can roll down 2 ramps. One just takes a few twists down the center, the other bounces off a trampoline and then takes a few more twists. He seemed interested in the trampoline ramp and put the ball in that one a few times, but overall rather play with and throw the balls then anything else. It does also play music and light up when the ball hits a trigger on the ramp (which sometimes doesn't work because the plastic piece that suppose to press the trigger down doesn't get pushed in) which my son likes and dances too, but there no need for this big toy just for him to hear music.
It has been up for about 2 weeks now and my son played with it for probably a total of 30 minutes. His 8 month old cousins was here and didn't even look at it. So while I'm sure some kids my find it fun, mine did not which is disappointing considering the time it took to put together and the space it takes up.
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