I agonized a long time over the perfect Christmas present for my 2 year old son.We finally had it narrowed down to these, or a set of wooden trains. We decided on these sets since we were under the impression that the cars, trains, etc moved automatically... we also liked the bright colors. We purchased this set, the straight expansion, the construction vehicles, a monster truck expansion and the mountain train expansion (through Amazon and in a few stores). Overall, my two year old really likes them... however, as a mom, I guess they're ok.... I thought it might make it easier if you're thinking of spending $$$ on more than one set to give what I've learned....The cons seem to outweigh the pros. But overall my son LOVES these sets and plays with them for hours each day, so overall we're happy with them.PROS1. Bright pieces are attractive to toddlers and easy to find when strewn throughout the house.2. Most of the pieces don't hurt when you step on them.3. Pieces are MOSTLY easy to put together. Some of them work like puzzle pieces, some of them have flat parts under the puzzle so the pieces have to go in from the top. My two year old figured out so it works for us.4. There's lots of ways to put them together, especially with multiple sets.CONS1. MOST of the cars DO NOT MOVE ON THEIR OWN, which was a little disappointing when we received them, ESPECIALLY when the sets are named "GOGO smart". Most of them DONT "GOGO". The only ones that seem to move are the trains.2. On this specific set (train station), to get to the second level, you have to turn a crank up that blue hill to move the train up, IT WONT GO ON ITS OWN, this is very arduous for my toddler and so the piece is usually left out, so that means no second level, which also means the curvy downhill orange piece isn't used. Bummer because that's one of the coolest pieces. He just ends up setting it up and pushing the car down the hill on his own.3. THIS train in this set WILL NOT go up the hills of the other train set (the treasure mountain one) ONLY the train motor on the treasure mountain set is powerful enough to climb the hills that come with that set.4. The straight expansion set pieces (come separately) have edges that are lower than the normal sets, so the self-moving trains commonly go off the tracks if the pieces are placed near corners.5. The trains, cars, trucks, etc, are SUPER annoying and use up batteries like CRAZY, especially the trains. My toddler plays with it for a few hours a day and I'm literally replacing the 3AAA batteries every day (that's not an exaggeration, I have to replace them after every 2-3 hours of use). They will keep making noise until they're turned off too.6. The monster truck expansion is WORTHLESS if you want to "add" it to the set. Almost all the significant pieces are ramps that are used to "fling" cars off. They don't connect, so pointless to put in with the trains.I wish we had skipped this one.We'll probably continue adding to the sets since we've spent almost $200 already and he seems to love them... but I'll be paying more attention to the pieces that come with the sets first...THESE ARE THE SETS WE PURCHASED (The one the review is on);The treasure mountain;https://www.amazon.com/VTech-Wheels-Treasure-Mountain-Adventure/dp/B01CNBJYB4/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1515343634&sr=8-11&keywords=go+go+smartThe straight expansion.https://www.amazon.com/VTech-Smart-Wheels-Deluxe-Playset/dp/B00DKCHV7U/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1515343634&sr=8-4&keywords=go+go+smartThe construction carshttps://www.amazon.com/VTech-Go-Smart-Wheels-Construction/dp/B00O0RHGGU/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1515343634&sr=8-5&keywords=go+go+smartThe Monster truck set. This set is WORTHLESS. NONE of the pieces can easily go with the other sets as they're mostly ramps. he never uses these pieces.https://www.amazon.com/VTech-Smart-Wheels-Press-Monster/dp/B06WV7MW9X/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1515343634&sr=8-7&keywords=go+go+smart Read more

Santa brought us this set to attach to the existing sets that Grandpa and Grandma gave us for our birthday.I have docked this set a star for one reason: the big blue incline piece that has the conveyor belt and the tunnel running through it.This set is very good save that one stupid piece. Our 3 year old can handle, (and understands how), to crank up the trains when they reach the conveyor belt. But it would be one million times better if the trains could just go up the incline on their own so that you could enjoy the train completing the track in its entirety without outside intervention.Unfortunately most of the motorized trains cannot manage their way up an incline without the use of the stupid conveyor belt.The ONLY trains that can go up inclines are the motorized "freight" trains (which do not come with this set) because they have a little cog on the bottom that attaches to the incline pieces (also not in this set) and cranks them upward.The set I would recommend if you had to pick between the two is the: "Treasure Mountain Train Adventure" because the train can make it through the entire loop on its own.I am glad we got this set overall, despite the conveyor belt hill of stupidity. The Speed Limit sign, Train Station, and Storage building pieces are really fun and I am glad to add them to our expanding track. Albeit at the moment the conveyor belt piece (and thus the cool orange corkscrew piece) are not a part of our current layout.It almost could be docked another star for having terrible layouts blueprints included that totally do not work and would have trains running off of the track. But you can manage one that does work with some tweaking. So I'll leave it at 4 stars for now. Read more

We purchased this over a year ago for our 3 year old boy's birthday and he's used it almost daily ever since. At first he needed the help of his big brothers to decide where to put theW track pieces in a way that made sense, but now he's enjoying designing his own layouts and is proud that he can click them together himself.We actually decorated his birthday cake with it, which made a really fun surprise when we drove it around the cake. He still talks about that regularly.It comes with a nice selection of extras like signs, etc., which are nice b/c it give them something to manipulate and change around. The favorite is the gate which stops the train until they raise it by hand, which keeps them involved. We did not put the stickers on anything because we kind of liked it simpler and open to imaginative interpretation and he never felt anything was missing.As parents, what we really like is that it is one of the most durable toys we've ever bought. Yay, VTech! We have 6 kids so we don't even bother to buy things that aren't "industrial strength". It seems almost impossible to find toys these days that don't break immediately!The second thing we look for after durability is long term pay-off. In other words, once the novelty wears off is there enough to actually DO with the toy that keeps their interest? Toys that do everything themselves become boring space-killers FAST. This one is a firm win in this department. Right away we loved that there are two switches on the train- one to let it go itself, and one where you can push it (but it still makes the sounds). But out favorite feature is the hand-crank on the hill! This requires child activity every time the train goes on that piece! The crank requires them to practice manual dexterity at just the right level of challenge for a tot of 3-4, too. GREAT FEATURE!This is one of the best investments we've ever made for our kids. I was surprised that the older kids have trouble keeping their hands off it. I've even caught the 13 year old at it (don't tell :). The 7 year old clearly loves "helping" his little bro with it and it has been a great way for them to socialize and develop their relationship. I don't see the 7 year old outgrowing his love for it anytime soon, so it can clearly satisfy a large age range. In fact, our biggest problem is that now we have to buy another one for our 2 year old girl b/c she keeps taking the train and tearing apart the track. But again, with any other toy I feel she'd have broken it by now, especially considering how they clean it up by throwing the pieces across the room into a wooden crate!I studied the other products in the Go Go Smart Wheels line before buying this one and feel this one offers by far the best payoff. The other sets seem to all be lacking in terms of the number pieces you can manipulate (like with this there are just enough track pieces to allow different configurations). It seemed to have the most activities that kids actually have to do themselves which keep their interest, too. I thought by now we'd be wanted different sets, but we're going to go with duplicate train set for Christmas b/c that's what all 3 of the little guys want and the other sets seem to be lacking in track size and high-interest features.The only think I don't like about it is the noises, but I guess that's what sells toys (typically to people without kids!!!) I don't hate them like I do with most toys, but they make this toy less valuable as a distraction for when siblings are doing schoolwork. We still use it for that b/c it keeps them happy for a long time (1-2 hours!) but it does interrupt us.All I could ask for is a sound free switch for the pieces that make the train talk, and another train set with different but similar features. Read more