[Gifted] The PLAYMOBIL Summer Villa (9420) is an impressive play set filled with accessories which will inspire hours of play. Many of the pieces are small and the thought that has gone into the set surprised me, there is even a toilet brush! It is recommended for age 4 plus and I found it perfectly suited to my 7 year old daughter because she can play with it independently and it’s detailed enough to really push her imagination. This product was sent to us for the purpose of review.
When I opened the delivery and looked at the packaging I was initially impressed by the range of items included (and pictured on the box). The accessories range from suncream to a toaster, a barbecue (with tongs) to flip flops, there is even toothpaste and toothbrushes. The next thing I noticed was a warning that the play set takes 90 minutes to assemble! I intended to put it all together while my eldest was at school so she could play with it when she got home, but I forgot. She was too impatient to wait for me to do it so she asked if she could and I thought I would see how she got on.
The good news is that it doesn’t really take 90 minutes to assemble, at least not to put together the villa. There aren’t that many pieces to put together for the building and even my 7 year old was able to do it in about half an hour with a few of the key pieces of furniture. It was at this point that she clearly got bored of assembly and she just wanted to play. So she did.
It takes about the same amount of time, if not more to put the furniture and items together e.g. to add stickers to the food cartons. I didn’t even realise until after I had taken most of the photos that all these little details hadn’t been completed because you can play happily anyway and the level of detail was unexpected.
Playing with the PLAYMOBIL Summer Villa set
The Summer Villa is designed so that you can play with the inside or you can use it as a backdrop to play outside. I feel like I should use Estate Agent speak to describe the villa so here goes:
The double doors leading into the property open into a large kitchen diner with built in hob and tiled splash back. The open plan design continues throughout the ground floor as you pass a wash basin and large mirror and go into the spacious bathroom complete with toilet. The roll top bath with overhead shower is positioned next to a window so you can relax with a view.
Access to the upper floor of the property is via a sweeping staircase on the outside of the villa which takes you to a space well suited to twin beds. Continue round to the master bedroom which boasts a stunning balcony separated from the room by fetching blue shutters.
Inside there are beds, a dining room table with chairs and shelves. The accessories for the outside space include table and chairs, a sun lounger and a barbecue. There are also around 50 other items included for play. The set comes with a family of 4: a Mediterranean looking mother and daughter with a blonde paler skinned dad and ginger son. Coming from a similar looking family I’m glad the boys have factor 50 suncream to hand. There is also a resident stray cat as is so often the case in these holiday places. Am I thinking too much about this? Possibly but the detail really encourages a greater level of story telling.
The Summer Villa play set has a lot of charm. I suspect that many of the small pieces will inevitably end up spread all over my house and lost, but that won’t stop the playability. Handily you can purchase spare parts from the PLAYMOBIL website if there are any pieces you want to replace (affiliate link).
I love that the set could be put together by my 7 year old with very little adult intervention (there were a few fiddly bits like pushing the taps in). The attention to detail of what is included also really impressed me.
The instructions are easy to follow although someone of the smaller pieces and set up makes more sense when you look at the pictures on the box to supplement them which I don’t feel should be necessary, but that is the only criticism I can think of.
The Summer Villa retails at £59.99 RRP and can be complemented with the purchase of additional sets including a family car, swimming pool, park playground, paddle boat, ice cream cart and day at the beach set.
***Disclosure: we were sent the Playmobil Summer Villa for the purpose of honest review***
A great review. Playmobil is something my older daughters 4+ love to play with but is one of those toys that get put in a drawer and forgotten about. This looks a great set up.
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