I honestly don’t remember what our house was like before the boys started their obsession with trains, but not a day goes by without a train track being built or some other train-related game. M’s most recent game is pretending to be a train and stopping at different stations and for some reason, the “final destination” is always usually London Waterloo?

We are huge fans of Thomas & Friends and already own a fair few of their trains sets but when we were offered the chance to review the Thomas & Friends MINIS Motorised Raceway along with the newly released Thomas & Friends: The Great Race movie so I just knew it was something I couldn’t turn down!

Thomas & Friends MINIS Motorised Raceway

The Thomas & Friends MINIS Motorised Raceway is packed with fun. The trains are automatically lifted up via a vertical lift before having the option of racing down three different tracks.

Track 1 whooshes through water and speeds around a 360-degree loop.

Track 2 heads towards a broken track but Cranky can swivel and rescue the MINI trains.

Finally, Track 3 looks like it is heading nowhere but the MINIS roll off the edge and end up upside down along the inverted sky track.

The Motorised playset features:

• Motorised racetrack with three different raceways
• Thomas and James MINIS included with the set (additional MINIS can be purchased and added to the set)
• Vertical drop, 360-degree loop track and gravity-defying curve track

What we loved
The trains zoom around the track at mega-fast speed and we love changing up the direction the trains go. The most favourite track by far is the 360-degree loop. The MINI trains are perfect for little hands to grab hold of and the track is very sturdy once built.

What could be improved
It took around 15 minutes for us to put the track together. Most parts were really easy to assemble but we struggled with the thin blue and yellow plastic pieces and felt the instructions could be a little clearer on those. The raceway requires three AA batteries in order to operate and at the time of writing (and we’re not sure if it’s the type batteries we have used so far) but they have run out over the course of a day, with what I would call average use. I would recommend using rechargeable batteries which I am going to be looking into investing. Other than that we love this track and the boys really enjoy playing with it.

The Thomas & Friends MINIS Motorised Raceway set currently priced at £19.99 and can be purchased from Smyths Toys.

Thomas & Friends: The Great Race DVD

We were lucky to be invited to the special premiere of Thomas & Friends: The Great Race movie earlier this year and the DVD is due to be released on 5 September. If your children are Thomas fans then this DVD is a must. The boys were super excited when the DVD landed through our letterbox and were keen to watch the movie again.

The movie centres around friendship and we get to meet lots of new engines from around the world who are all competing in The Great Railway Show. Gordon is chosen to be the new Shooting Star for The Great Race but ends up in danger. Will Thomas be able to save the day?

Thomas & Friends: The Great Race DVD retails at £5.99 and can be bought online through Amazon.

*We were sent The Thomas & Friends MINIS Motorised Raceway and The Great Race DVD in exchange for this review. All opinions and images are my own. 

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