When my children were given Cranium Balloon Lagoon last year, I was not sure they would enjoy it, since based on what I knew of it, it seemed to young for them. Fortunately I was wrong and this game has been played with often. It is recommended for ages five and up, but my children were ages six and seven when we received it and they loved it from the first time we played.

The first thing I noticed about this game is that it comes in a strong and sturdy storage box with dividers to keep the various pieces organized and together. The first thing my children noticed were the bright colors and the assortment of items included, such as a small fishing pole, plastic frogs and plastic balloons.

Balloon Lagoon must be taken apart for storage in the box, so that an adult must assist in setting it up each time to play. Assembly is fairly simple, and only takes a few minutes. The four rather large cardboard pieces (measuring about 12" by 7.5" each) must be connected in any order to a purple center piece, and then a yellow, red and purple Merry-Go-Round is placed on top of that purple piece. This makes the board approximately 28" inches across, so a large playing area, preferably a table or other hard flat surface, is necessary. The Merry-Go-Round does require three "AA" batteries (not included) to play music.

To complete the game board, the carnival games must be properly positioned and each of the four cardboard pieces is designed to match one of the carnival games: "Word Worm Letter Lake" sits on the yellow, "Data Head Snack Hut" sits on red, "Star Performer Frog Pond" sits on green and "Creative Cat Tumble Tides" sits on the blue area. The background of the entire board is light blue to simulate water, and each player is given a purple submarine game piece which can "float" from one carnival game to the next. As you win at each carnival game, you get to put a balloon representing that game in your submarine.

To play, the first player spins the Merry-Go-Round, which has a pointer attached to the base. Whichever of the four carnival games it points to is the one he or she must play. Another player must press the purple circle on the Merry-Go-Round's top to set the thirty second timer, which is peppy carnival music.

"Word Worm Letter Lake" consists of a yellow plastic pond, into which ten magnetic letters are placed, and a small spiral-bound book attached to the base with one four letter word on each page. The words are: corn, nest, star, ants, cake, cars, nose, cape, taco and cats. Within the time limit, use the yellow plastic fishing pole, which has a magnet on its end, to fish out letters one at a time. Continue until you have retrieved all of the letters in your word or until time runs out. There is no reading required, but a knowledge of letters is helpful so that the letters fished out of the lake can be matched to those in the book. The directions indicate that you get the number of balloons that you correctly fished out of the pond, but we sometimes make the game a bit more challenging (and longer) by only giving one yellow balloon if you get all four letters correct. Flip to the next word for the next time this game is played.

To play "Data Head Snack Hut" you must drop the six dice into the top of the red plastic hut and try to get four to match before time runs out. You can match hot dogs, pretzels, ice cream cones, pizza, lollipops or hamburgers, and you only need to drop the non-matching ones back into the hut each time. The directions state that the balloons you receive is matched to the number of snacks you matched, but we often play that you must match at least four for a red balloon.

I think that the "Star Performer Frog Pond" is my children's favorite carnival game. Here, you place a green plastic frog on the lily pad printed on the game board and slide your thumb off of its back to make it hop into a green plastic pond. The goal is to get four in, and we play that you must get all four in to get a green balloon, while the directions indicate that you get the number of balloons to match the number of frogs that jumped into the pond.

The most difficult game in Balloon Lagoon is the "Creative Cat Tumble Tides." Attached to the blue panel is a spiral-bound book with pictures of things you might see in the ocean: a scuba diver, a shark, an octopus, a mermaid and a lobster. A blue plastic carnival game with four red levers sits in back of this book and each one spins a wheel with a part of the picture on it. The goal is to match the pictures on the wheels to the picture you have facing you from the book (flip it to the next picture at the end of each turn and then begin with the first picture again if you reach the end of the book). Again, the instructions indicate that you should get a balloon for each section that you have matched, but we give only one blue balloon if you successfully match the entire picture.

The winner is the first to fill up all fifteen holes in their submarine with any color balloon. Overall Cranium Balloon Lagoon has been a lot of fun for our family, with the slight scoring adaptations we have made. Now that my children are seven and eight, and still want to play this game with mom and dad, the game would be over too quickly if we scored as the directions indicated.

If the game board is assembled properly and placed on a flat tabletop, it should be able to rotate so that whichever carnival game you need to play can be place in front of you. When this game is played on a rug (only a low-pile rug will work), or a coffee table where there is not much room, the players themselves need to move around to each game. This is not a problem when only children are playing, but most adults will not want to do this.

We own a number of Cranium games, including Cranium Cariboo, and our family has enjoyed each one. Cranium Balloon Lagoon is designed for preschoolers and young children, but my eight year old son still enjoys playing with it. I would not purchase it for a child of that age, but it is certainly a game that a child of that age could enjoy playing with a younger sibling since it is quite different from most board games.

(Though all of the parts of this game store securely inside the box, if you should lose some of the pieces, they can be ordered on-line at www.cranium.com.)


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): gift
Type of Toy: Board Game
Age Range of Child: Whole Family