NOTE: This is not a toy I would let my kids use unsupervised. They needed help filling the container with water, moving the nozzle from one bottle of sand to another, etc.

1. The container for the Mermaid is very small, but it is also filled with water, so any bigger and I would be worried it would make a huge mess if it got tipped over.

2. This is sand they are playing with, so sand did get all over. I had them play on a dishtowel, but there was sand on the floor and the table when they were done. Play-Dough leaves the same amount of mess everywhere too. I used the DustBuster when we were done.

3. If you are going to let them use more than 1 color at a time, it is going to get all mixed up. Just like Play-Dough gets mixed up if you use more than 1 color. You just have accept that it is going to get mixed together and move on.

4. It is hard to control the nozzles without practice, but the girls got better as they played with it. It is fun to make decorations underwater and poke the sand around. They did not mind that they weren’t good at it the first time, they wanted to try it again and again.

5. Some of the sand does float around on the top of the water and it can be hard scoop it up. We noticed that playing with sand in a plastic container, like the mermaid tank, was easier than it was in a glass container. The sand “stuck” to the sides of the plastic container, making it easier to clean up the sand that was floating on top. I seemed to care more about the sand floating than my girls did.

6. Getting the sand back in the bottles while playing required my help. The funnels that come with the toy are really small, so it was difficult for my girls to get the sand back in the container on their own without it going all over the table. So, instead I used our kitchen funnel which was much easier for all of us to use.

7. When it was time to put it away, I put a paper towel in the bottom of my kitchen colander and emptied the container into the colander. The paper towel held the sand and the water went down the drain. Then I just poured the sand into the containers again using my kitchen funnel. It was pretty easy to clean up since I wasn’t concerned about the colors being mixed.

All and all, they had fun and we will use it again soon.
Rating: 4 / 5

Instructions were not clear. I was a little dumfounded by the long spout and the bottles of sand. I knew the spout went on the bottle, but how? Well, the cap on the bottle snaps off. That leaves what looks like a short spout. In fact, that short spout serves as a funnel for when I need to pour everything back into the bottle. What I needed to do was unscrew that short spout and then screw the long spout on. Didn’t know that short spout unscrewed, which threw me off.

Fill the clear tub with water, put the arch inside, dip the long spout into the water and squeeze the sand out. Sometimes, the kids would pull the spout out of the water and the sand would fall everywhere. It’s messy.

The kids were not excited about scooping the sand out to put it away, which was fine with me, because it would have been a disaster.

To get the sand back in, use the short spout as a funnel and the provided strainer. It goes back in dry, which is pretty neat, but all the colors are mixed together. If the kids do it, expect a large mess.

This is a fun once in awhile outdoor activity. It’s just much too messy for indoors. The sand is very fine and gets everywhere. Putting the sand back into the bottles is tedious, not something I want to do regularly.
Rating: 3 / 5