Barbie Spin n Ride Review

It is no secret that all of my girls are huge fans of Barbie. This is a doll with many talents who manages to reinvent herself constantly, keeping up the times if you will. The latest Barbie to hit the market is the Barbie Spin n Ride Pups set which is available at Smyths toystores right now.

Costing £24.99 you certainly expect a bit for your money and Barbie does not disappoint. She comes complete with bicycle, helmet, two dogs and their accompanying skateboards. Also provided in the box is two attachments, one to attach the larger skateboard to the bike and one to attach both skateboards together.

What I instantly like about this product is that no batteries are required, a big plus in many parents eyes. Barbie pedals simply by pushing the bike backwards and forwards thanks to her moveable legs. This means you can take Barbie on any adventure you like without fear of her suddenly stopping.

The bicycle itself looks fantastic. With its pink and turquiose colouring, it is wonderfully girly. The only problem we had was that if the girls got a bit heavy handed then the wheel or the seat tended to come unclipped but they were easy enough to slot back together again.

My girls managed to figure out how to attach everything together all by themselves which was nice as it meant that they could play independently. Barbie's feet clip into the pedals (as long as her boots are on) and her back is clipped onto the seat, both preventing her from falling off when being pushed.

When the larger skateboard is attached to the bike it gives the bicycle the ability to be freestanding, it acts as a stabiliser as such. My youngest two loved this concept as the dog was skateboarding alongside Barbie.

The dogs were kept on their skateboards by marrying up the holes in their paws to the little parts sticking out on the skateboards.

I liked it when the two skateboards were attached together, the smaller of the two was made to spin round and round, a really fun added extra. The puppy was seen to be the favourite, very cute.

You can see in the video below just how both of the above work :

Like with other Barbies, the Barbie Spin n Ride set has provided hours of fun. The girls have played with the Barbie itself on and off of her bike. They have been making use of her moving legs and had her walking/running as well as pedalling, I'm guessing she's all exercised out right now.

For a plastic toy it is well made and designed. There were only two things that I could try and complain about.

First was that Barbie's hands didn't properly attach to the bike's handles, it would have been nice if Barbie's hands were able to grip the bike handles but this wasn't something that bothered my daughters in the slightest.

Second was that you had to be careful with the speed in which you pushed the toys, we found that if you tried to push too fast that the mechanism didn't work as well as it did when pushed along slowly.

Overall I really liked the toy. Great interaction and different ideas for game play each time they got it out of the toy box. I think it will definitely prove popular especially when the new Barbie DVD, The Great Puppy Adventure is released later on this year!!!

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Disclaimer : I was sent this toy FOC for reviewing purposes however all thoughts and opinions are my own.