Toy castles - come, tell me what you love

[NorthernLurker]

So dd3 is 6 and has dd2's old three wishes castle which she plays with quite a bit. Tonight a bit has fallen off it again and I asked if she would like a new one for Christmas. She would (as long as the old one goes in the attic not the bin too much Toystory3!)

So I'm looking for a ROBUST toy castle. Not overtly girly and with plenty of scope for imaginative play. Frankly the three wishes one is a bit crap - flimsy and you can't really move the toys aorund it very well. I'm thinking something a bit tougher and probably marketed at boys tbh but not too butch. Does that make sense?

Not the playmobil one! ( am thinking of name changing to DoNotBuyThePlaymobilCastle as I've posted that so much this year lol)

We have the imaginext castle, and I think its great. We have the dragon to go with it, and there is an infra red sensor between them, so they talk to each other. We also have some extra knights and a royal family.

I think the melissa and doug one looks good, and so do the le toy van ones.

We have got this Melissa & Doug one.

It opens up so you can play inside it too. So far, three year old DS1 has made it:

A pirate castle
A dinosaur castle
A dragon castle
A princess castle
A "shopping castle" (with a plastic till lodged in it)

And DS2 has tried to eat it and failed.

So it seems to work ok for us.

We have bought the le toy van lionheart castle which seems fairly robust. If I had more space I would have gone for the toys r us one which gets great reviews but its huge!

The melissa and doug folding one gets great reviews but I wasnt convinced the dimensions would be right for our schleich figures

Ds4 is getting the imagimext one for x!as, we have a wooden ones in the past and not been impressed.

We have other imaginext toys amd they are very good and very sturdy so am assumimg the imaginext castle will be of the same quality.

Ive bought the melissa and doug castle and it looks great. Dh and i had a play with it to make sure!

Imaginext all the way.
Hard wearing and doesn't fall apart ever.

The Melissa and Doug one is lovely, and arrives fully assembled. It's sized to fit playmobil and sylvanian families, which is handy.

My friend's son has the Imaginext one and it's brill. Even I like playing with it. Good for imaginary play.

Was the imaginext castle discounted at Argos last week? It's top of my shopping list!

Another vote for the Melissa & Doug one, DS1 got it a couple of years ago and it's still going strong, home to an assortment of Playmobil knights, pirates, Trash Packs and robots!

We have bought ds the imagenex one. Toys r us had £20 off if you ordered online for in-store pick up- not sure if this deal still on?

We bought the imaginext one with the same offer at toysrus. DS is desperate for it and we bought some of the accessories to go with it. Lots of good reviews here and elsewhere for it.

Thanks very much. Both are lovely but I think the Melissa and Doug one is the way to go. We have a lot of homeless playmobil Romans who could move in.......

I'm considering getting the Melissa and Doug one too, for my DS who is nearly 6. Could anyone who has it already please tell me if it also fits Schleich figures, or are they too big? DS has a few already and I thought I might get a couple of knights etc to go with it.

online somewhere it says they are suitable for 8cm figures (compared to the le toy van that say 10cm) which was what swayed it for me in the end

Ah, thanks Luggage, I hadn't seen that. We have a ton of Playmobil knights so it's no great shakes if the Schleich are too big, it would just add to the play value if they did!