Product Description

Bring Dora's adventures into the kitchen for a fresh batch of pretend play. Children can go on Dora recipe adventures with the help of the seven recipe adventure maps and 28 play pieces. Dora's kitchen displays unique Dora styling with a life-size Dora who will be cooking right alongside your child. Also included are bilingual phrases, music and sound effects. Requires 3 "AA" batteries (included).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5861 in Toys & Games
• Brand: Fisher-Price
• Model: H1581
• Released on: 2007-04-25
• Dimensions: 26.60" h x 23.70" w x 12.00" l, 18.65 pounds

Features

• Dora's Talking Kitchen brings Dora's adventures into kitchen role play!
• Children can go on Dora recipe adventures with the help of the 5 recipe adventure maps and 25 play pieces!
• It captures the unique Dora styling with a life-size Dora who will be cooking right along with the child.
• Also included are bilingual phrases, music and sound effects.
• Life-size Dora figure included.

Editorial Review
Ask anyone who’s ever set foot in a kitchen and attempted to prepare a meal: cooking can be an adventure. So it stands to reason that Dora the Explorer, everyone’s favorite bilingual adventurer, has an adventurous kitchen. This entertaining and comprehensive set features a stove, sink, range, musical radio, whirring blender and refrigerator to store items not in use. 28 different food and utensil items are also included. There are also some delightful features not found in regular kitchens including a touch screen that plays out food-based excursions and challenges young chefs to take part (find the tomatoes in the garden for instance). This is an exciting twist on the traditional play kitchen and is a great way to help kids learn and possibly encourage a love of cooking. --Charlie Williams

Amazon.com Product Description
Ask anyone who’s ever set foot in a kitchen and attempted to prepare a meal: cooking is an adventure. So it stands to reason that Dora the Explorer, everyone’s favorite bilingual adventurer, has a kitchen worthy of investigating. This entertaining and comprehensive play set features a stove, sink, range, whirring blender, and refrigerator for budding chefs to "cook" their inspired masterpieces. There’s even a radio that plays music and a telephone that really rings.

A plethora of play foods and utensils will keep small ones occupied for hours.

With 28 different food and utensil items included, the imagination can extend pretty far. But if your child tires of playing with the plastic pieces, they can start playing the games on the interactive touch screen instead. There are five recipe adventures that teach kids the ingredients in certain dishes, as well as the locations where those ingredients can be found (tomatoes in the garden, for instance). These food-based excursions challenge cooks-to-be and offer a new twist on traditional kitchen play.

A touch screen encourages kids to play food-based games and learn recipes.

Of course, the kitchen is chock full of realistic sound effects, and even has phrases in both English and Spanish--just like Dora. Speaking of that adventurous young girl, a life-size Dora figure stands to one side of the kitchen to keep kids company. When not being used, the various pieces can be stored in the oven or refrigerator until it’s time to prepare the next meal. This set is a fantastic way to encourage kids to have a love of cooking. Three AA batteries are required, but not included.

From the Manufacturer
Now you can cook with Dora in her very own special kitchen! Includes over 25 accessories and 5 recipe adventures. Simply insert a recipe card and press Map to hear the ingredients. Says phrases in English and Spanish along with other realistic sound effec

Customer Reviews

My 3 year old loves it, but I was expecting more.
My three year old received this for her birthday and she absolutely loves it (barely stops cooking long enough to eat real food and sleep, lol).

BUT!

Mommy is a little disappointed. I heard Dora and Map take you on a cooking adventure to find ingredients. I'm not sure I'd call it an "adventure". For instance, one recipe card is for Strawberry Pancakes. You insert the card into Map and all Dora says is, "Let's make strawberry pancakes. Let's go on an adventure to find ingredients. We need strawberries (then also says the Spanish word for strawberries), butter (then Spanish word for butter), and eggs (and Spanish word for eggs).".

That's it. No, now mix the ingredients and pour into the pan, nothing. No, first you go over strawberry mountain to get the strawberries, lol. I was just expecting more than 3 ingredients to be mentioned for each recipe card.

Another thing I don't like is the phone. You can pick the phone up and it rings. You talk to Diego, Boots, and Abuela. But NO DORA!?!?

The blender makes a few different sounds, including the normal blender sounds, then Dora also tells you it's a blender (using both English and Spanish). Same with the radio.

That's all the interaction you get with the kitchen.

Overall the kitchen is durable. The fridge and oven doors stay shut and aren't flimsy. There are two picture frames on the fridge door and you can insert your own pictures into the frames.

It was not difficult to assemble either. Everything just snaps into place and then screws are inserted to hold it in place. It took me about 45 minutes with several interuptions from my three year old to put this kitchen together.

But my daughter is happy, and that makes me happy. She has never played with a kitchen with hundreds of sounds, so she doesn't realize her Dora kitchen doesn't do everything other kitchens will do. She is very imaginative and uses her own sounds anyways. She is obsessed with Dora (she literally thinks she is Dora) so she is thrilled with this kitchen. I give the kitchen 3 stars from my perspective, but she would give the kitchen more than the 5 stars allowed.

ETA: Ok, we've had this kitchen a little longer and I want to correct something. The cooking adventure does involve more. Silly mommy didn't realize it when I wrote this review, but if you press the picture of the ingredient on the map, Dora will say "you can find strawberries at strawberry mountain", etc. Once you press all 3 ingredients Dora will say "now mix the ingredients", "we did it!".

Also, there are only FIVE recipe adventures, not seven like they advertise.

Finally, we did have to take our first kitchen back to TRU after having it for only 28 days. It stopped working. I replaced the batteries and still, it would only say one or two words then shut off. We've had this second one for about as long and so far so good (keeping my fingers crossed though!). If this one stops working, I WILL be exchanging it for a different kitchen. I'm still disappointed you can't talk to Dora on the phone, that's kind of crazy, it is HER kitchen afterall!

Dora Beats Disney Princesses
For my daughter's 2nd birthday, she received the Disney Princess Talking Kitchen. It was cute but started falling apart in about 6 months. When I saw the Dora kitchen in the stores, I knew that she would love it. She's almost 3 now and I must say she plays with this almost every day.

The kitchen components are made of plastic and while they are not as thick as a Little Tykes kitchen, they are definitely better than the Princess kitchen. It took me about 45 minutes to assemble this with no assistance.

It is somewhat small width-wise and sits flush against a wall. Two toddlers (or 4 year olds) could easily stand side by side and play together. There is a refrigerator with "pictures" of Dora and Boots and you can slide in your own photos on top of Dora. This also comes with a cooktop, and oven plus 3 cards that slide into the recipe slot at the top of the kitchen.

The food and accessories are also excellent and help the child incorporate those recipe cards so they can "make" Cowboy Cookies, Empanadas and a couple of other dishes.

As far as the limited sounds and the disappointment that many are expressing, I'm quite happy. But I'm also a big believer that today's toys rely too heavily on electronics and batteries and take away from a child using their own imagination. My kids have repeatedly asked where the batteries go (in other toys) and the other day, my almost 3 year old held up a stuffed animal and asked "what does this do?". But I digress.

Dora says some phrases in English and Spanish and will prompt your child to gather ingredients for those recipes.

I'm also eager to get the other food sets that just came out for this kitchen.

Its OKAY.....not many features....for the same price buy a different one
I got this for my 2 yo Daughter who LOVES dora. for the price of $79 it isnt worth it.

only the map, blender and radio make sounds. nothing else does.
some other sets have hundreds of noises but not this one.

if you are buying it for pretend play or just because it is DORA (which was our case b/c daughter went nuts when we saw it and cried for it) then you will be happy. But if you want one that makes noises or is interactive etc then dont buy this one.

i knew better than to buy this thing. ugg. now it is put together and just dont feel like lugging it to the store for a refund.