Plum Play Discovery Forest Water Run for Kids

Worth it in the end but loses stars for being awful to assemble. I wanted to burn it at one point. Instructions are unclear, screws are cheap and needed to buy better ones otherwise if you use a drill the screws just round. However, now it's finally built, it is fantastic and has already been well played with. I think it'd be good if the sluice gates could be locked into the unit as I can see these going missing fairly quickly and this all water will disappear straight to the bottom. The sound it makes as the water runs down is lovely and I really like the little step up for smaller people to the taller unit. It's great but it was so expensive I would expect better quality screws, better instructions and maybe some bits part built to make assembly quicker and easier?

Such a great addition to my childminding business. The children love it and it's suitable for tiny ones right up to school children. Along with the mud kitchen it's our most played with toy. Turn taking, pouring, filling, rolling, sharing, encourages communication skills it's endless.

Pros: It's going to be loved when my son can eventually use it. Cons: It is an absolute NIGHTMARE to assemble. It's splinter-city, with messily drilled holes, insufficient screws, no pre-drilled holes at all in places, and parts that simply do not fit as they should. Pieces are terribly labelled -- and there are a LOT of pieces -- long number sequences are stamped onto each piece, and on most of mine the stamp was worn off). It is a *minimum* 5 hour build job if you're doing it solo (as an experienced DIYer with all the tools to hand), and realistically longer as the whole thing requires sanding down and likely retreating. Parts arrived broken, so the set is still only partially unconstructed. We'll see how quickly this gets resolved :/ I don't regret buying it (yet) because I do still think it will provide lots of fun once I've sanded and re-treated the wood, but it is a lot of money to pay for something that's so poorly finished.

The water run itself, once assembled, is great but we encountered quite a few problems in assembly with both water runs we ordered. Holes at the wrong end on one piece and inaccurate size of some of the other pieces - one plank being an inch shorter! - were just some of the issues.