As you all are well aware by now Monkey is obsessed with vehicles, any vehicle really.  If it’s got an engine then he’ll like it!  When we visited Hamley’s a while ago he discovered the world of Tonka Town and was mesmerised.  Tonka Town offer a range of vehicles, figures and play sets for children aged 3-5 years.  We’ve been having fun with the Tonka Town Fire Station Play Set.

The Tonka Town Fire Station Play set needs no assembly (phew) and comes complete with a fire car and two Tonka Town Character figures – Jose and Bruno.  Both of the figures are moveable, fit in the car and can grasp and slide down the fire pole.  The front doors of the fire station extend, doors open, there are two moveable ladder sections (I wish there were a couple more but Monkey seems fine with them) and a rotating satellite dish.  At the top of the training tower you can slide a ‘fire’ up and down and it lights up.  If you place one of the figures on a pad behind the computer console the sirens sound and lights flash.  There is another button you can press to make the lights flash again too. It hasn’t bothered me, but there is no on/off switch for the lights/sounds, so maybe just something to bear in mind.

There is even a red/green switch you can turn to show that the fire car is out on a ‘shout’.  Monkey has also found out that the striped pole can be turned around – he likes that little feature.

I just knew that Monkey, who will be 4 soon, would love this Tonka Town Fire Station Play set.  It offers 360 degrees play, he can let his imagination run riot.  Although he has a number of fire engines he doesn’t have a fire station – so this would be a great addition to his play sets.  Although the play set is made of plastic, it is actually really robust.  There are no parts that look likely to snap off, so I’m confident that it will stand the test of rigorous play over the coming months.

I can imagine younger children liking this set too, just a word of warning, Monkey can pull the hands and feet off the characters, they are really small parts.  Just something to be aware of if you have younger children around.

Fire pole with moving hand grab

doors that extend out

lights that flash, sirens that wail

FIRE!!!!

A moveable sattelite dish

Stand on the T to set the sirens off

Meet Jose

and Bruno

Jumping into action

Where’s the fire?

We’re off

and out

we go!

move the ladders

to here

Bruno at work

in the Training Tower

At the Fire Hydrant

Action Stations

Monkey to the scene of the fire

Down the pole

Time to get in the fire car

and away we go

move the ladders

You can extend play potential with the Tonka Town Jail Set, various vehicles and there are 8 Tonka Town Characters in total to collect, each coming with a few accessories.  Saying that, the Tonka Town Fire Station Play Set can be played with as a totally stand alone set too.  To learn more about the whole range and the various characters pop over to the Tonka Town website.

You can get a little taster of the set in action here ….

There are 2 sets of batteries required to power the lights and sounds – all of which are supplied with the set (always a bonus).

With an RRP of £39.99, I think this is actually good value for money as there are a lot of features in the set.  As I’ve already mentioned, it’s really quite robust, so I can see plenty of play potential in the future.

We’re off on holiday bright and early and I’ll be keeping an eye out for the newly published Tonka Town magazine priced at £3.99 at the airport, to keep Monkey amused on the flight.

disclaimer:  we were sent this set for the purpose of review, our comments, however, remain our own honest thoughts