Reviews: Aquadoodle and Bath Blizzard

Although the weather’s turning to fall and we no longer have the wading pool and sprinkler as options for daytime fun, there are still fun and creative ways to have a blast playing with water. Inside the house, even. 

Courtesy of Team Mom, we recently were sent a couple of ‘aquatic’ type of toys to test out – the Aquadoodle Draw ‘N Doodle Mat, and the Bath Blizzard from Spin Master.

What they are:

The Aquadoodle Draw ‘N Doodle Mat is a large fabric mat that turns a different color when wet. Paired with the water-filled Aqua Pen, it provides hours of no-mess coloring fun for kids. The drawings disappear as they dry, so the mat can be colored on over and over again. It’s non-toxic, ink-free and since it only uses water – there’s absolutely no mess at all to speak of.

The Bath Blizzard is part of the new Kid Kleen line of kids’ bath activity toys. It’s a compact bath bubble-maker that hangs on the bathtub’s faucet and provides a waterfall of soapy bubbles spilling into the tub. Water-based fun that kids can actually clean with – definitely never a bad thing. 

Here’s my our take on them:

For the Aquadoodle:

We already had a couple of Aquadoodle products, which my girls have loved. But – what we didn’t have was the basic, large Draw ‘N Doodle mat that’s big enough for more than one of them to draw on at the same time.

I brought this one out during the afternoon, when my kindergartner and toddler were home – and bored of the same old toys and games that they’ve been playing with over and over. The moment they saw the large mat of the Aquadoodle, they got extremely excited. And they set right to work:

We were lucky that we already had a couple of other Aqua Pens, since this mat only comes with one. Otherwise there may have been some major issues over sharing. But with them each being able to draw at the same time, they staked out their own corner of the mat, and drew away.  My 5-year-old filled her section with ‘X-O’ hugs and kisses for me…

while my toddler practiced writing her letters. At least her ‘H’s – the only letter she currently can write by herself.

This kept them busy for quite some time – at least until my thorough-minded kindergartner ended up covering the entire mat at once, and pretty much soaking it through. At that point, we simply hung the mat up to dry and put the Aqua Pens away for the next time.

I love how heavy-duty the Aquadoodle products are – both this one and the others that we already had. Even after months and years of use, they are still in just as good of shape, and just as easy to draw on. We have had to purchase extra Aqua Pens since my girls haven’t always done a good job of keeping track of them, but they are sold separately for a reasonable price.

For the Bath Blizzard:

My girls had seen this product advertised on tv, and were ecstatic to be able to try it out themselves. We did have a slight hiccup at first – it takes 4 ‘C’ batteries, which we didn’t have on hand right away. But a few days later, we were able to stick all 3 girls in the tub and give it a try.

The directions were very clear and easy-to-follow. It did take a few minutes for the bubbles to start, as the directions warned could happen, but once the ‘blizzard’ began, it ran for quite a while before the bubble soap solution ran out. We could’ve added more, but to me that was a great point to say that the ‘fun part’ of bathtime was over and they needed to get down to the actual business of washing.

We started with ‘regular’ bubble bath, as suggested, and then used the Bath Blizzard to keep new bubbles coming. The girls were surprised at first that the Blizzard’s bubbles weren’t the same as the bubble bath ones – they were complaining that they weren’t ‘real’ bubbles. I think that’s because they’re more like the bubbles that you blow with a bubble wand outside, instead of having the white froth that typical bubble bath bubbles have.

After a few minutes though, once the Blizzard really got going, they stopped caring – and just had a blast with all of the bubbles, of every kind.

The Bath Blizzard comes with a strap you can attach in order to hang it over the bathtub faucet. In our case, this didn’t work because we have nothing at the end of the faucet to stop the strap from sliding off. I tried, but just couldn’t get it to stay. So, even though the instructions tell you specifically not to – we had to just set it on the side of the tub, and that worked out fine. It seems to be heavy-duty enough that it would survive getting knocked off the tub, but the girls did a great job of being very careful with it. I’ve seen some of the product descriptions mention suction cups – I didn’t see any in our box, and the instruction sheet didn’t mention them either. Having suction cups available would be a great alternative though for situations like ours where the strap doesn’t work.

The bottom line:

Both the Aquadoodle Draw ‘N Doodle Mat and the Bath Blizzard are products that my girls loved playing with, and will be enjoying for some time to come. And since both of them are toys where you simply add water – the fun is as never-ending as our bathroom faucets. 

Where can you find them?

Both products are available at leading toy retailers. The suggested price for the Aquadoodle Draw ‘N Doodle Mat is $24.99 and for the Bath Blizzard is $19.99.

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