My 5 year old and 18 month old play with this toy daily. I have only sand in it, but when it warms up, I will take sand out and put water only. I don't like the mess of sand and water. They have made a sand soup and it didn't impress me. If you don't mind to clean up a little sand here and there. You can relax and watch your kids play at least 20-30 minutes every day. Two to 3 kids can play together. It doesn't take much space, cover is vey secure. Step2 Sand and Water Transportation Station
There are two major issues with the sand and water table - 1) cover is not waterproof, and 2) the sand doesn't play nice with the accessories - they don't really work because the sand clogs up the gears.
I'll go through my experience with the sand and water table in order of events. If you don't want to read all of it, the gist is: I like it, but a plain raised sand table would be an upgrade.
Before I went out to get sand, it just had water in it. That was pretty good - the boats floated in it, the water worked well with the spinning wheel and other accessories. My son wasn't that interested in it, though. So I put some rice in it, and that went over well, but I wasn't interested in cleaning up spilled/wet rice and I wanted it outdoors. So I went to a hardware store and found a bag of sandbox sand. The sandbox sand was basically gravel. It was too big for the holes in the funnels, and scratched up the plastic. Because the cover isn't waterproof - it got wet, and when it got wet it was a muddy mess. Which is my fault for not knowing the difference between play sand and sandbox sand. Anyway it was a wet mess. It wasn't drying out on its own so I dumped out most of the puddle and tried to dry the sand out by keeping it in the sun and turning over the sand. I "played" in the sandbox a lot more than my son ever did, so it sat unused until the next spring.
So I took out the gravel, cleaned all the leftover dirt out, and found some play sand... which is about as fine grained as salt. Put the new sand in, sewed vinyl to the underside of the cover (with a gap in the seam to allow excess water to drain over the side... this works so-so. Well, the play sand is fine enough to go through the holes, and it was really great until the wheels stopped turning. The tipsy thing stopped tipping. The sand was getting into all the crevices and sticking them up. So they don't work. The funnels still work, though, and this way I don't have so much to take apart and store when the table isn't being used (if I don't put it away, it blows away).
I buried some bugs in the sand, and my kid plays in it so much I grab a book before we go out. I think if it was just a sand table - no accessories, not divided up, it would be an improvement.
My 2 year old loves, loves, loves this toy. He will get lost in play for hours it seems. I love that he has the opportunity to play with sand without having to sit in it. He loves to play with water and it is simple to refill time and time again. My only 2 complaints are that the sand doesn't seem to pour through the spouts. They always get clogged. Also, I wish there were an easier way to drain water without having to tip the whole thing over. Right now we are using it as just a water table, the mixing of the sand and water is quite messy and I think we will try it again when he is a bit older. We do plan on switching it occasionally and making it just a sand table for a while.In all I think it is a good purchase and well made and perfect for curious toddlers who love to make messes!
The Step2 Sand and Water Transportation Station is great fun for our 17 month old granddaughter. She had so much fun playing and splashing her hands in the water and making the water wheels turn. I purchased a child's umbrella from Lowes and placed it in the hole in the center of the table, works great. We are planning on taking it to the beach this summer. The table holds 2 gallons of water on each side and when finished playing, just let the plugs out and the water drains. There is a nice durable cover that comes with it and fits perfect until the next playtime begins. Would highly reccommend this for a 12 month - 3 year old to have fun with.
After researching all the water tables out there I chose this one. I thought the track/train trucks would be entertaining since my daughter loves trains. My son was impressed with it for 20 mins but then moved on. But he is 5, I think he's on the older side for it. I bought it more for my daughter who is 23 mos. She was excited about it for a week but now she takes it apart more than play with it how it's suppose to be played. I only have water in right now. I think the water/sand table together would be very messy. It was very easy to put together and it seems to be made quite well. I think it's fine overall. Maybe my kids are just spolied because nothing really keeps their attention for very long.'
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