Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought this for my son who is a young 2. He's a very busy little boy and gets bored easily of most toys. This set was easy to assemble, seems pretty durable, and is really cute. My son engaged in it quickly and has played with this toy longer than I've ever seen him play with any of his others. As another reviewer wrote, there is a hill that requires you to hand crank - my son picked up on this pretty quickly and it has added that much more interest to his play. The way the the track configures you can choose to send the train up the hill or under the tunnel, so if your child can't hand crank yet, don't worry they can still use this toy and have time to grow into it. My son loves that the train moves on it's own, it's different than the other push trains he has. He does at times try to push it, it's held up so far, but I hope this doesn't break it. The other Go Go Smart Wheels sets can attach to this set, and there are lots of different ways to assemble for lots of variation and fun! The reason I'm giving it 4 stars instead of 5 (really minimal in the scheme of things) is that the track configurations are kind of tricky. They give you a cheat sheet on how and where pieces go. At this point I can't use all the pieces without using their sheet. Now the dilemma we have is that the sheet has been misplaced. In my chaotic world of a 2 year old, this seems to happen a lot - you think I would have figured out a better system or safer place by now, but I haven't. I went to V-tech's site but can't find a downloadable manual online. I did email them so I'm hoping that I will get another chance to find a safer home for this guide and prove myself responsible. My only other complaint (again minimal, but the real reason for 4 stars) is that the track comes with a number of pieces open on 4 sides. You use these to connect track pieces that might otherwise not fit together, and to make cross sections. The problem is that when these go on a corner (common placement) the train runs off them. As a fix V-tech includes a piece that snaps on and redirects the train - saving the day. They really needed to include 2 of these pieces. The train can't use half of the route you see configured on the box because it would need 2 of these pieces to stay on the track. Same story for some of the other configurations. It seems like such an easy thing - on additional piece would offer lots of extra play options. None of the other play sets I've seen come with this piece and you can't order an extra online. I did email and ask if I could purchase one. I'm not expecting that I can, but it never hurts to ask!