Review: Melissa & Doug Train Table

With the holidays right around the corner I decided I need to do the world a service by reviewing some more toys. After all, the measure of a good parent is proportional to the number of toys their kid/s have under the Christmas tree. Right? So I'm going to help you navigate those rough waters known as toy shopping.

Probably the most common toy I see toddlers have is trains. Whether it's a simple wooden set or a full-blown electric train set that makes all the other neighbor kids jealous, they seem to be popular with kids. Heck, even I love trains.

Hours of wooden track fun!

We got my DS a Melissa & Doug train set for his birthday. We set it up down in our newly finished basement, mostly because the upstairs living room is already overrun with toys.

Assembly

Compared to a lot of other toys, assembly of this train set takes some time and patience. I put it together with my dad (who is pretty good at this stuff) and it took us around an hour. As I recall, the parts are well labeled and the instructions are pretty straight forward.




But if you're like me and can barely change batteries without screwing something up, you might want to get help.

Honestly though, it's not too bad.

Durability

It's very durable. I can't imagine how a toddler would break it unless they took an ax to the damn thing. And if you kid is chopping at a toy with an ax, you have bigger problems.

The chair I threw at the table after my train derailed.

If you assemble the table correctly, there's no reason for it to break. The trains and tracks that come with it are wooden, so they're probably not going to break anytime soon.

Playing Fun

I'll confess: I enjoy playing with it more than my son does. And I'll qualify that by saying he might still be a little too young to understand and appreciate trains.

With all the track pieces you can create different track patterns to run your wooden trains on. It's great! Instructions are included on some basic track set-ups, but I burned those directions because their track set-ups sucked.

Used snack cup and sippy cup not included.

When my DS wakes up from his nap we head to the basement to play. I usually sit at the train playing while he does something else.

Yes, I'd recommend this train to any parent. If your kids don't like it, then it's just more playing time for you.