I got it last week at Christmas Tree Shoppe for $15 and I am setting it up for the DCKs this week. Any bad experiences to share that I should look out for?
http://kids.discovery.com/shop/role-...rd-rocket-ship

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I haven't had a rocket ship but did buy a cardboard house for them to color. It lasted maybe a month, the kids had fun decorating it but I closely monitored so that I wouldn't have colored walls, floors, each other. They did kinda destroy it by trying to jump through the windows. I had a very aggressive group then. But they still remember it so they had fun I guess.
If anybody had access to refrigerator boxes, you could do the same.

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I bought one of those a few years ago and the kids loved playing in it, but they didn't really get into the coloring part of it so much. I had mostly boys then, so I was happy that it lasted a few months before the tape could no longer hold it together

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Don't have one of those but I do have a washing machine box that we've been using since before Christmas (really surprised it's lasted this long). Like another said I let them decorate it with crayons, daubers and markers but closely monitored them so it didn't get on the walls or carpet.

Don't think I would want to spend a whole lot of money on cardboard because the kiddos will tear it up pretty quickly.

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We had an icecream van one. The main thing that helped with durability was taping weak spots or where things connected to help reinforce the cardboard.

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DUCT tape... Lots of duct tape

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We had a ship (as in water, not space) one year and a caste twice. I bought all of them on clearance after Christmas for about $10 to go along with our themes at the time. We painted the castles both times, which the kids absolutely loved. We colored the ship with markers. The ship hardly lasted 2 weeks but the castles lasted about 2 months (1 month inside the house and then it was moved outside where it eventually was destroyed).

Since then, I've been on the hunt for a warehouse where I could get a couch box or large appliance box. There are so many possibilities when you make your own!

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For Christmas, My cousin's son (4) got a really nice kitchen set which came in a really big box (similar in shape to a large 60' flat screen TV box but a lot wider). While my cousin and I were putting the kitchen together: my little cousin, my brother (20), and one of his friends (about 24) decided to play in the box. 5 minutes later it was pretty much destroyed.

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