Sofia Royal Prep Academy Backpack

Sofia the First is a cartoon series that incorporates characters from the Disney Princess franchise. Ariel Winter is a young girl who becomes a princess (Sofia The First) when her mother, Miranda, marries King Roland II of the kingdom of Enchancia.

This wearable Sofia Royal Prep Academy backpack contains a pop-up magical Micro World based on the Princess Royal Prep Academy. When the backpack is opened, there are six different play areas: library, classroom, dance floor, art room, stable and courtyard. It also comes with four micro dolls included Sofia, Fauna, Minimus and Prince Zandar. It is suitable for aged 3 onwards. Personally speaking, I would up the recommended age to at least 5 years old and above as there are small figurines in this set. Also there are a lot of stickers to stick on the set. To avoid disappointment, I would suggest you stick them before showing/hanging the toy over. It took me over 15 minutes to stick individual windows and fix many more tiny stuff like books. It needs 2 AAA batteries (not included) to power the lighting inside the building.

The backpack is made from a plastic hard shell with a non-adjustable strap. You can use it like a bag or hook the strap to use it like a backpack. As it is non-adjustable strap, the strap is far too long for my 5 year old daughter to hold on comfortably. She had to hold onto the strap while in the backpack position.

My daughter and I find it hard to open the backpack. It is quite hard to grip the flat plastic tabs. I had to use my nail to lift it up in order to open it. Once we opened the backpack, simply flip both the buildings up. The tower will pop out, so be careful if your child is of a nervous disposition as it may scare them. Then you will have to flip down some parts of the buildings. Occasionally, the ladder and the garden (attached) came off from the set and I had to place it back for Ms C. It is quite easy to fix them back.

Ms C enjoyed playing with it but sometimes she finds it hard to place the micro dolls into their correct slots to make them move around. For example, placing the horse onto the tower to make him swirl around the pole is quite hard even for me, I find it quite fiddly.

I am disappointed with the stickers. There are over 70 stickers to stick on and within an hour of playing, many of them came loose. I stuck them back again, thinking maybe I didn’t stick them well enough but after a while, the stickers came off again.

The playset is very bright and colourful. Ms C loves playing with Sofia and with her friends. There is a lot of room for creative ideas and imaginative play. It is easy to pack it back up and take out to play. Overall, I think there is some room for enhancements to the toy, but my daughter does enjoy playing with it. It is available to buy from Flair website, good toy shops and Amazon.

Disclosure: We received the sample for the purposes of writing this review, however, all thoughts and opinions remain our own. We have included an Amazon affiliate link to the product. If you click on this and buy, we may earn a small commission but at no additional cost to you.