Moonsand is nasty stuff. We have some in my preschool class and we rarely use it. It sticks to the carpet and gets ground in very easily and it's hard to brush off kids clothes. It's really a shame that it's so hard to clean up because the kids love playing with it. On the rare occasions that we do take it out, we put it on plastic trays and move the tables off the carpet to the tile floor. Then we run and borrow the custodian's vacuum cleaner right away.
We love Moonsand around here. It is definitely an outdoor toy though. It never comes into the house and is kept in the garage next to the sidewalk chalk, bubbles, etc.
My niece got moonsand for her birthday and it was put away until warmer weather. Totally an outdoor activity. I know people that have let their kids play with it inside and it gets into any little space in the floor, table, etc. and it actually gets moldy. Not nice.
I don't find it bad at all. A lot easier to clean up than a lot of other messy things we do....it justs vaccuums up. I am an ece though so I do lots of play dough, painting all those messy things.
We were staying at a rented cabins once and a relative brought some for the kids to play with UGH!!!!
After spending a week trying to sweep it out of the carpet (there was no vacuum cleaner!) I swore the only people I would ever by it for were people I really didn't like.
My kids now see it in the store and still go - oooh. That is bad stuff.
Theres a secret to clean moonsand play: cake pans! If you let your child play in a cake pan and tell them if it comes out it goes bye bye it seems to work. Thats how we use it at work.
My DH asked the same question what was Santa thinking? Even my son who wanted it so bad put it away after 5 minutes. Should have bought some more cheaper Play-doh!