EnnEss said:
How much do they actually talk and point out things? It seems like a really cool idea.
Pal Mickey is a very interesting idea. It has positives and negatives.
Positives:
--fun for the kids
--plays a (limited) number of games out of the parks
--appears to be just a "regular" stuffed toy; huggable and lovable!
Negatives:
--price
--repetitive at times
--lanyard too long / clip too large for young kids (IMHO)
--"replay" value
I think the positives are self-explanatory, so I'll try to explain the negatives. I think $65 is pretty darn expensive for what the toy does. My kids saved up their own money, so I didn't fight them when they wanted to buy PM, even though I had some reservations.
PM was very talkative in AK, to the point of being annoying. When you first enter the park, there are small animal viewing areas. We first visited at night, so the animals were already off stage. PM didn't care as he told us numerous times about the anteaters.
The included lanyard is poorly designed and too long for young kids. At its shortest length, the lanyard places PM nearly below the knee of my DD7. The included belt clip is about the size of a cell phone clip, which is too big for little kids. It jabbed them in the ribs. My son ended up holding his PM on his lap in the stroller.
After you have heard all of the jokes and answered all of PM's trivia questions, it basically becomes an overpriced display piece. My kids haven't touched PM since we got home. My daughter asked me to put her's on eBay because she wants to get some of her money back.
PM did say something really cool. During our EMH visit to AK, we walked right on Dinosaur. DS5 loves dinos, so he was thrilled to see all of the fossils. He actually loved the ride and was glad to save the iguanadon. When we exited the ride and headed through the courtyard, PM giggled and wiggled. When my son squeezed PM to find out what he had to say, PM said "Boy, I'm glad to be off that Dinosaur ride! It was scary!" We all got a big kick out of that.
So.... is PM worth the cost? It all depends on what you want. The novelty wore off after a few days, and sometimes PM has good information, sometimes he doesn't. I guess I would say that PM is hit and miss.