I believe this may be our very first toy review here at The Gamer With Kids but I don’t see why it has to be our last. I mean one of the aspects of raising children is being able to enjoy all the neat toys that are available to them. Sure the toys are supposed to be for them, but I know many of you probably have just as much fun playing with some of their toys just as much as they do. Since the holidays are coming up, I’m sure many of your children are already making their list for Santa and I know one of the items my kids had on their list was the Octonauts Octopod from Fisher Price. They’ve showing commercials for this thing for months now which is partially the reason why my kids wanted this.

Luckily, we were able to get one here to play with so let’s take a look at what you’ll get and whether or not it’ll stand up to the abuse of children.

Design and Build

The Octonauts Octopod is modeled after the Octopod in the popular children’s show. That means that when your kids see this, they won’t mistake it for anything else. The Octopod includes over 10 play pieces including Barnacles, Kwazii, a mini GUP-A, 3 creatures, 4 rescue tools and a clip-on Octo-Alert that features phrases and sounds! It’s made entirely of color injected plastic so you don’t have to worry about any paint chipping off and having your children ingest it.

The whole playset is very easy to setup and requires no tools to assemble. All the pieces are easily snapped together though you are required to apply some stickers to the pieces before fully assembling. I suggest you do this and not your children as to get the stickers placed correctly. Anyways, assembling is simple and requires that you snap the pods into the transport tubes and then the tubes onto the main body of the Octopod. There are 4 pods that must be attached. Each pod has their own specific function and also includes their own specific rescue tool that must also be attached. These are attached via a string that is attached to a loop on each pod. The last piece that needs to be installed is the clip-on Octo-Alert that clips to the top of the Octopod.

To start your children off, the Octopod includes over 10 pieces they can play with. They’ll even get a mini GUP to play with with which you attach either Captain Barnacles or Kwazii. If you want to really experience the Octonauts fully, other characters can be purchased separately in order to get the whole gang in on the action.

Overall, the entire Octopod playset is very well made. The pieces are all very sturdy and once built, it doesn’t just fall apart if you bump into it or play with it roughly. The pieces can be removed for interchangeability but for the most part, they stay where they are supposed to be and doesn’t fall apart. What’s awesome is that the characters of Captain Barnacles and Kwazii look exactly like they do in the cartoon series. I don’t like toys in which they look nothing like their cartoon counterparts.

Fun Factor

I can tell you that the first day that I brought this home, my kids were fighting over who would get to play with what character and had a blast pretending they were Octonauts. They must have played with it for hours. It also doesn’t hurt that I had a copy of the Octonauts first DVD on hand so that they could play along while watching 6 of the Octonauts’ adventures on television. Speaking of which, I do find that when they can play along with something they are watching on TV, it really makes the toy much more enjoyable as they can interact with what they see.

For the most part, my kids had a blast playing with the Octopod and still do. They love pretending that they are on missions whenever the Octo-Alert goes off and use their imaginations to create stories based on what they’ve seen. However, you’ll probably want to upgrade the pods themselves later to the On-The-Go Pods which are more interactive and can be snapped on to where the original pods are located. Again, you’ll probably also want to pick up the rest of the characters and maybe even one of the deluxe vehicles to really expand the set.

Final Thoughts

I really like the Octonauts Octopod playset. It’s larger than I thought it would be and very easy to assemble. Even your children should be able to assemble it themselves, though I’d probably apply the stickers for them so that it comes out straight and correct. The playset is well made, no really tiny parts that can be swallowed, and very sturdy once all put together. It has a lot of interactive elements to it which will make it that much more fun and I really like how modular it is where you can add different parts to it when purchased separately.

The Fisher-Price Octonauts Octopod Playset retails for around $34.99 though I’ve seen it on sale at stores already and online. If you do a quick check over at Amazon, it’s at around $28.00 right now which is a great price for this.