John Deere Ride On Gator

My daughter turned 4 this year. She had her first party with friends in addition to family. My mom left the John Deere Gator in the back of the truck, covered up. Hanna had no idea it was coming. She opened all her gifts, and played games and had a great time with her friends.

As the party was coming to a close we let her know there was one more gift for her. She came over to the truck and we made her shut her eyes. Her one little friend did NOT have her eyes closed and the ride on gator was revealed she yelled out "Oh my God!!". Hanna was yelling "what?! What?!".

We've had the Gator for a week or two now. We've not had as much time to play on it, since it's been raining a lot. Here's my initial thoughts.

First of all...

Hanna loves the Gator. She would ride it all day long, rain or shine if she could. It works great, runs great, gets her around and will provide HOURS of entertainment.

With that said, my biggest complaint about the Gator is there is no shut off switch. It has a key, but it's just for looks. It doesn't actually turn off the Gator. My big concern is she gets all excited and decides to ride her Gator without adult supervision. I wish it had a parental on/off over ride ~ but it doesn't.

Maybe I'm an overprotective parent, but I would NEVER allow her to play with the Gator without adult supervision. This is not a slow toy. We have the second gear disabled at the moment and this thing still moves. I had a hard time keeping up with her while she was still learning how to drive it (which at times meant near collisions with large items like trucks, cars and the house lol).

One positive is there is a way to disable the second gear for smaller kids (or less adventurous parents).

From reading the directions I expect to get about an hour out of the battery ~ due to the terrain we have available for her to ride on. Since the rain we've not had the Gator running for more than hour at this point (almost) and the battery is still running strong. My mom thought it would get 2 to 3 hours on one battery ~ but after reading the manual we realized the battery life would probably be much shorter. If you're going to use the Gator for hours a day you'd probably be wise to get an extra battery to have charged on hand.

Some models come with the additional battery, but ours didn't.

All in all, it's a fantastic toy. Brings a lot of entertainment, and is a great way to pull Hanna into activities when I'm working in the yard or garden. I highly recommend the John Deere ride on Gator.