playmobil....thoughts??!!!

[momma2beaugirls]

What are your thoughts on playmobil? Do your kids love it? How do you keep it organized? Am wanting to get some for my dds and need some reviews!!

Edited by momma2beaugirls - 7/25/12 at 8:57am

[Red Pajama]

we own lots of playmobil. They are not quite as sturdy as I remember from my own childhood, or I was much more careful with my toys (probable).

Cool accessories. Nice themes,  All in all, worth the money.

[mumkimum]

We like playmobil a lot (doesn't help that I always wanted it as a kid, and never had any).  If you kiddo likes imaginative play, or dollhouse-type stuff they're really very good and likely to get used a lot.

We happen to have one large house - I keep it on a short cart with a few shelves underneath (and we have a few storage boxes for small stuff, people we keep there).  Then there's a trunk with other larger kinds of sets in it.  A few really awkward sets are kept in their own boxes.  

For awhile, I'd just toss all of each set in a large plastic bag and we kept the sets separate, then pull out the bags to play.  It was good for keeping smaller pieces together with the larger set.  Eventually it seemed less fun to play that way, or we seemed to have more sets and we mixed similar things together (all people in here, all animals & trees somewhere else, all furniture somewhere else, etc.).  I do insist we keep the playmobil toys not mixed into other toys, but that's about it.

[IdentityCrisisMama]

We love "Play-mo". We keep them in plastic bags by item type (plants, animals, humans, food and etc.). I do wish we had kept the boxes and stored them that way as a set -- you should do that since you're just starting out! 

[pinklucy]

Play Mobil was what my son mostly played with for a good couple of years. Every birthday and Christmas he wanted playmobil and we now have several sets. The first thing he ever saved a lot of pocket money for was the playmobil aeroplane. :)

I have a set of plastic drawers just for playmobil and keep the separate sets in different drawers with the big stuff stored on top or in his room. His favourite set was the Egyptian pyramid combined with a few other smaller sets from the Egyptian range. The big sets come with posters too so his room was even decorated with playmobil posters at one point!

[AnnieA]

We are a Playmobil family! We have many, many sets. We have them mostly separated by who received them so there are a couple of bins in the boys' room and then a big bin in the girls' room. They mix all the sets together so what can sometimes occur is baby Jesus from the nativity scene getting launched from the catapult that came with a dragon set. I love that there isn't a set story line and really does promote imaginative play. And I have yet to meet a child that doesn't get sucked in to the great fun of a bin of little people and all their accessories!

[PatchChild]

Love it around here as well. We don't sort sets, everything goes into one tub and DS sorts out what he wants. There are lots of interesting scenes with knights, firemen, and farmers all mixed together.

[JudiAU]

Originally Posted by AnnieA 

We are a Playmobil family! We have many, many sets. We have them mostly separated by who received them so there are a couple of bins in the boys' room and then a big bin in the girls' room. They mix all the sets together so what can sometimes occur is baby Jesus from the nativity scene getting launched from the catapult that came with a dragon set. I love that there isn't a set story line and really does promote imaginative play. And I have yet to meet a child that doesn't get sucked in to the great fun of a bin of little people and all their accessories!

Clearly they need more infants in the sets because our baby Jesus is similarly abused.

[AnnieA]

Originally Posted by JudiAU 

Clearly they need more infants in the sets because our baby Jesus is similarly abused.

I won't even go in to the abuses that poor Mary has been subjected to! But yes, more infants are clearly needed!

[seaheroine]

My kids LOVE playmobil.  It gets a lot of play -- second only to baby dolls/toy kitchen.  I also keep it all in one big bin. 
 

[canadianhippie]

Love Playmobil!

We own the Top Agent set and he won the boat in a contest and we have the Ice Cream Parlour too!

I keep the tiny parts he tends to pull off in a ziploc, it is so expensive but their is so much detail in it, they are amazing toys!

[geemom]

I got 2 mega sets and some smaller sets for my daughter for Christmas last year.  They were a nightmare to put together, and all the little parts and pieces are very small.  I really like the quality of the items and the "cuteness", which I thought I would like to play with more than her.  She never plays with them, and won't let the playmobil animals be mixed up with her schleich animals because she totally prefers the schleichs.  Also, you really can't play with it on carpet imo.

[loveandgarbage]

As much as I love playmobil, the quality isn't as great as it should be. My kids are hard on their toys, but not outright destructive (most of the time!) and some things just fall apart too easily, and need adult hands to get back together. Like the airplane. The wings and the wheels fall off constantly. We also have most of the construction set (my kids' favorite) and the trucks have held up pretty well. However, the coal loader conveyer belt is SUPER flimsy and is now basically unusable. While I appreciate the little accessories that come with the sets, we have a hard time not losing them even though I try to be diligent about keeping them in tupperware. That's not really playmobil's fault, though! I just wonder if some of their sets really match up with what age they are marketed for. I think by the time my kids are old enough to keep track of little accessories they will have outgrown the sets, but every kid is different.

[Caneel]

Originally Posted by AnnieA 

I won't even go in to the abuses that poor Mary has been subjected to! But yes, more infants are clearly needed!

Thanks for the good laugh! 

We have enough playmobil ships, pirates and what appear to be British navy men to launch a recreation of epic naval battles.  The bit and pieces drive me absolutely insane but DS plays with something playmobil every single day.

[lyzamay]

My 6 year old really likes playmobil and has recently been asking for new ones. I went to the store to buy some and (like Legos) was dismayed to find out gender-specific they were. The ones that had females were all either caretakers or inactive— like lounging on the beach. We don't have a huge collection of them, but I would probably just put them in one bin, that way my DD uses them as she wants not as the company planned. For example, playmobil has a soccer line, but my DD used a basket/container as a goal, a marble for the ball, and made her own flags and yellow and red tickets.

[tangledblue]

Look online, it is somewhat gendered but sounds like the store you visited was particularly skewed. We have a girl veterinarian, gymnast, cowgirl, farm girl, snorkeling girl plus some mermaids/fairies. Also, you can change their hair around so that you can change girls to boys and vice versa. We LOVE Playmobil and have several sets. It is so versatile and thoughtfully designed, and some really nice stuff even at the lower price points.