This is the latest subscription box for kids from Pley: the Hot Wheels Challenge Accepted Box!
This box was sent to us for review purposes. (Check out the review process post to learn more about how we review boxes).
About This Subscription Box for Kids
The Subscription Box: Hot Wheels Challenge Accepted Box
The Cost: $24.99 + $5 shipping (box ships every other month)
The Products: “Early edition car and exclusive T-shirt in every box. The box itself transforms and offers exclusive track building options."
Ships to: the US only
May 2018 Box Review
This has quickly become our family's favorite subscription! Pley recommends Hot Wheels Challenge Accepted for kids 5-11 years old, but with parent supervision, it's appropriate for younger kids too. My son is three and obsessed with cars, trucks, and other machines– so he is always excited to have a new Hot Wheels challenge to play with, even though he's too young to put the track pieces together himself.
Each box includes a mini-magazine that has some fun track ideas as well as some games and other activities you can play. The featured early-edition car this month is Sandivore!
The magazine has guidelines for using your box to help build out obstacles for your track, plus a lot more.
There are also lots of paper activities, like mazes, coloring, etc. My son gets a kick out of looking through the booklet each month! He's just starting to pull books down and "read" them to himself, so he likes to have this little magazine to himself.
Each box also has a full spread mini-poster of the featured car.
Exclusive Hot Wheels Challenge Accepted T-shirt – Estimated Value $10?
(I gave this an estimated value of $10 which is somewhere between the Hot Wheels shirts I’ve seen at Target and Gap.)
Every box also includes a kids' t-shirt (you'll select the size when you sign up). I like the added value, and my son really loves these shirts! This shirt is way too big for him since he's younger, but he's insisted on wearing it as a sleep shirt several times already.
Hot Wheels Fun Park Chill Mill Truck
This truck is so cool - it features a carnival ring toss game. I am always so impressed with how much tiny details these cars have!
Despite its block-y square design, this car does pretty well on the track and seems well balanced.
So cute. We plan to take our son to the amusement park for the first time this summer, so I've been trying to explain to him what "ring toss" is. I have a feeling this car will be in our bag when we go!
It almost makes me wish that Hot Wheels made larger cars like this that you could actually play games with!
Hot Wheels Glow Wheels Sandivore
This is the featured new-release car this month, another glow wheels model. We love how these glow in the dark so we are always happy to have another! Plus it just so happens to be my son's favorite color, red, so he's obsessed.
The slightly annoying thing about this car, though, is that it doesn't actually fit on the tracks. See how they're wider in the back?
It was one of those conversations that every toddler parent dreads: But WHY doesn't it fit, mommy? But why? Why not? Hehe. But we got through it, and he still enjoys playing with this car off of the tracks.
Hot Wheels Track Builder, 3 ft Straight Track
(In my last review, these were $5.95 on Amazon and $1.99 plus shipping at Walmart. The Walmart price is now $2.77.)
It seems like everybody comes with one of these packs, so you can continue to build more and more on to your tracks over time.
I definitely have a new appreciation for how all the Hot Wheels components work together and break down easily for storage.
The tracks are pretty flexible but the connectors do wear a bit if you put them together and take them apart frequently, so it's nice to get a fresh supply.
Track Builder Loop Kit – Retail Price $6.99
Finally! I've been waiting for a loop-de-loop!
Each one of the Track Builder sets usually comes with an extra car, too:
These are usually a good fit for the track and seem to perform well (unlike Sandivore this month).
The loop kit comes with everything you need to make this:
My son was giggling and going "What is that!" as I was putting this together. He couldn't wait to see cars go upside down.
Track Builder Launcher Kit – Retail Value $6.99
We did get previously get the Rapid Launcher in a different box, but I actually like this one better.
This assembly uses a simple rubber band and button assembly to launch the cars. It's adjustable based on how far you pull the band back.
This one is pretty easy to use, even for a 3-year-old. He really enjoyed pulling it back and pressing the button to make it go! This doesn't require as much finesse as the Rapid Launcher, which is nice.
And here it is attached to the loop! Like the previous Track Builder set, this one also came with a car (so 4 new cars total in the box):
Love this one, too, especially the dark green glitter finish.
We used the parts from our previous box to play on the porch one warm evening. My son loves to try to get the cars to "land" in his dump truck, so we ended up having to take the loop out for a bit so the cars would make it to the end.
We used the turn kick from the previous box too, which is one of our favorite accessories– it's so fun to see the car get pushed around the corner at speed!
One thing to expect about Hot Wheels is that every car behaves differently. We had cars that would hit the top of the loop and just drop straight down with a crash, while others breezed through. And depending on where we had it set up (on the porch vs on the living room coffee table) we had more or less success depending on how truly flat and level the surface was. 🙂 These are all fun concepts to explore together and I can see that it's starting to teach my son about trial and error. He doesn't get super upset when something fails, we just try a different car and try to troubleshoot together. I'd never have expected to get so much quality time from this box, but it's really been the perfect rainy day activity for all of us to enjoy!
Verdict: Our third Hot Wheels Challenge Accepted Box is another big hit! My son always loves the cars and the new gadgets, so even though he can't play with them on his own, it's always a new fun experience for him. He's only three and he's changing so much all the time, so I can really see how he's learning and changing how he interacts with the toys over time, too. I love that this box is helping us work on our patience and trying thing multiple times before giving up, and the hands-on physics aspects of cars going upside down or flying off of ramps and around corners is really fun too.
As I mentioned before, this box is great for us since we're totally new to Hot Wheels and we can look forward to building our collection up slowly every couple of months. If your kids are already super into Hot Wheels and have a ton of accessories and track parts, it may less exciting for them.
Can you still get this box if you sign up today? From Pley:
Cutoff's are the 7th of the month following a release month (boxes are released every 2 months: February, April, June, August, October and December) You must signup BEFORE the 5th of the following month a box is released in order to get the current box. Signups from the 5th and on will receive the next box to be released.
For example, signup before March 5th to receive February's box. Signup from March 7th and on to receive April's box.
Value Breakdown: Value for this box was really, really hard to research because of the nature of toy shopping and these cars specifically: it's hard to find specific prices for cars online, and the track piece prices also seem to vary widely depending on where you buy them from. Last month was a great example: The Amazon prices for all of the accessories were super inflated, so I didn't use them (The clamp piece that Hot Wheels sells for $3.99, for example, was nearly $10 more on Amazon!).
I do feel that for $24.99 + $5 shipping, this is an affordable box for kids that for us has paid dividends in the family time we spend together. You may be able to get all of these items for slightly less if you're shopping in store, but I love being able to build our collection slowly over time and not having to pick pieces out myself. (Hey, I'm a busy parent! And taking a kid into a toy store is always a challenge.) And of course, Pley offers discounts if you sign up for semi-annual or annual subscriptions too.
What do you think?
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