Customer Reviews
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136 of 143 people found the following review helpful.
GHOULISHLY GOOD!By Astral
I'm no stranger to large playsets. My daughters have had several including the tower from Tangled, a Disney Princess castle (the Enchanted Tales hot pink one), Barbie's Diamond Castle and Dream House and others. All of them have been big, bulky, hard to store and a nightmare to put together. Monster High is the latest craze, and my soon-to-be six year old HAD to have the school to go with her dolls that she already had. I knew what I was getting into... but was pleasantly surprised.
If you are worried about accuracy, Monster High School is meticulously detailed. There's a locker area, a cafeteria and a school room. It boasts a basketball court but the "court" is simply a hoop on the side of the school (and it comes with a black basketball!). But the details are not the best part... when you first get it out of the box it looks kind of like a closed coffin, and not too big... but it keeps folding out and you end up with two good sized rooms (with floors!) and an upstairs area. These houses without floors are ridiculous... and it was awesome to see that this would not be an issue with this set! I was actually surprised at how big it is overall, and best of all - it closes right back up, locks up and even has a handle. This can easily be stored in a closet, under the bed or behind a door when not in use. It's not going to be a huge bulky play set. I could even reasonably see them taking this over to a friend's house to play with after they have the knack of opening it by themselves! The design is great, and I hope more companies will take a cue from design.
Assembly is a cinch (there isn't much of one). There are a few lights to hang, two moveable spiderweb lantern holders that can be moved around and clipped in various places, a pair of columns for the front with gargoyles... nothing too extreme. The school is already stickered and ready to go! It comes with a page of extra stickers but they are just for adding your own touches, the school has its decals on right out of the box! Very impressive! You can pop this out and the kids can be playing with it within minutes without hovering over you waiting for you to finish construction on the house.
The only downside are the accessories. It comes with a lot of them, but many have to be assembled, such as the cafeteria tables, the rolling cart, the benches (part of the "basketball court" I assume, but the kids use it for extra classroom seating) and two desks. There's other goodies that are ready to go such as various creepy foods and classroom supplies. The little working skull locks for the coffin lockers were another nice touch.
Overall, this playset is a big hit. There's plenty of room for lots of ghouls to haunt the halls and it's cute to see my kids practicing math and spelling by playing "school" with the Monster High characters. Imagination is where the educational spin of this comes in, but for those kids that have it, they will actually enjoy using their dolls to teach one another and will be practicing skills needed for school without even knowing it. If you were on the fence about this one due to fears about size or being unstable... then fear not!
Positives:
+Very little assembly required (maybe 10-15 minutes to sort the pieces and snap the furniture together)
+Bigger than expected
+Nice decent build
+Not a bulky eyesore! Folds up for storage with a carrying handle
+It has FLOORS!
+Accurately depicts Monster High
+Lots of little details and accessories
+Reasonably priced considering what you get (bought mine from Amazon for $79.99)
Negatives:
-The stairway to the second floor can be hard to lock in place
-The second floor could have used a column to help support it. The stairs keep it from collapsing but you won't be playing with that level too roughly.
-Could have used another desk or two, but that's a minor quibble
68 of 72 people found the following review helpful.
Freakishly Fabulous Monster High Ghoul SchoolBy Mom of three
I have to admit I was a little skeptical about purchasing this for $80 and having it be flimsy or cheap. After receiving this from Amazon On The Vine program, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. When we, my 11 & 13 yr old daughters and myself, took it out of the box and assembled it we all agreed this Monster High School set is AWESOME!!!! I thought it was fairly easy to assemble, for the first time it took maybe 30 minutes probably less. My daughters assembled the bleachers, the lab cart, and the desks and tables all on their own without help. It unfolds so easily, I was however frustrated at first because it seemed like the stairs wouldn't lock into place and the wall of the creepateria seemed to heavy like it kept leaning. However, if I would have looked at the directions closer, I would have seen looking at the front of the dollhouse(with the 2 doors), on the right side there is a little hand that you lock into the side of the other front piece(with the casketball net). That definitely makes a huge difference and then lets the stairs stay locked into place and stopped the front side with the casketball court from leaning. After initial set up the house can be set up and packed up in minutes.
In my opinion this set is pretty sturdy, it has floors and contrary to what I read in another review the furniture stands up just fine. The walls and outline of the floor are constructed of plastic and the floors are a painted cardboard. There are 6 plastic useable casket shaped lockers, that are built in on the one wall, that actually come with adorable skull paddle locks that you can hook through the locker and the locks even open and close and you can put things in the lockers. The table it comes with is perfect for the Creepateria and easily fits four dolls at it. The top half of the Creepateria looks small but observing my girls playing with the set, they actually had 2 dolls sitting with their feet dangling over the edge and one doll standing behind the DJ booth (which when turned around is a trophy case) and another doll standing up. With all 4 dolls on the small top level it held in place well with no leaning whatsoever. It stayed sturdy.
The casketball net easily attaches and the bleachers easily fit 4 dolls. Two can be placed on the top row and 2 on the bottom row and the bleachers do stay standing with or without the dolls on them. Also, the dolls stay seated on their own without having to hold them.
I don't think I saw it mentioned but if you only unfold the dollhouse partially to only show the classroom side but not fully unfold the creepateria side, the opposite side of the classroom wall has a ghoul's room (restroom) pictured.
The whole set is very roomy and the dolls fit through the doorways with plenty of room to spare. The accessories included are really cool too. It came with:
approx 80 assorted stickers, 2 gargoyles, 2 books, dico ball, 8 flat pumpkin shape lanterns, casketball net & ball, DJ booth(that reverses to a trophy case), 6 skull locks, table, lab cart, 2 desks, 6 skull locks, bleachers, spirit staff & stand, trophy,plaque, 2 diaries, 2 pens, binder, clear canister with removable lid, frog, 2 spiderweb railings, a ladder that folds and creepateria food that consists of : 2 tall drinks, 2 bowls of food, a cauldron and 2 small cauldron shaped mugs w/drink.
I would say this Monster High School set was a huge hit with my kids and a must for any Monster High fans. It is definitely a well made product and if I had to spend the money on it I would have to conclude I wouldn't have been disappointed with the product. It came with plenty of accessories and opens up to be quite roomy. In my opinion it is made pretty sturdy and I love the fact that it closes up to fit under a bed or lay on a shelf in the closet. It is true the accessories don't fit in it when it is closed up, but if they made it to close with the accessories it wouldn't be as compact as it is.
Approximate Measurements:
When opened the 2 rooms combined measure approx 31" wide and 15" in depth, the middle wall is roughly 13 1/2" high, containing casket lockers and a doorway on one side and classroom with beakers & chalkboard on the other. The creepateria is roughly 16 1/2"wide and the classroom is roughly 15" wide. The top floor is roughly 12 1/2" wide by 7 3/4" depth with the wall being 12" high at the highest point.
When closed: It measures roughly 18" high,at highest peak, 15 1/2" wide and a 4" depth.
89 of 115 people found the following review helpful.
Don't waste your money....By Katherine Bray
We are huge monster high fans in our house and my daughter has wanted this play set since it came out. So, today we went and got it. Within 5 minutes I knew it was a mistake. It is so flimsy that as soon as you start playing in one section everything falls over in another section. I watched my daughter play with it for about 20 minutes. After she had to keep picking everything up that had fallen I asked her did she want to keep it or spend the $80 on something else. We just boxed it up. While it has a ton of cute accessories and the school itself is very cute it is not built to play with. This was something she has wanted for awhile and I let her make the decision to keep or return it. Unfortunately, it is just not practical for kids to play with using the monster high dolls. The desks fall over if a doll is in it, the dolls fall off the bleachers, the DJ stand constantly tips over. I would not recommend anybody buying this set. If it was a gift I am sure we could get some use out of it but my daughter saved for awhile to be able to purchase it and it was just not worth the money.
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Cute doll, just very poorly made
Skirt is cheaply made
