This review is from: Ravensburger Oceanic Wonders – 3000 Piece Puzzle (Toy)
I’m comparatively fast when it comes to jigsaw puzzles, so I’m always looking for a challenge. This puzzle delivered. It took me several weeks, compared to the couple days I usually take.
Quality
The puzzle is high quality. The pieces are smooth with a light texture to reduce glare. There’s minimal dust in the box. The pieces are all variations on the standard “H” shape–no oddball shapes–and all of the pieces interlock in some way, so you don’t have to press two flat edges against each other and beg them to stay put until you find the surrounding pieces to lock them into place. The only disappointment was in the artwork. Don’t get me wrong, it’s gorgeous–but some elements are obviously cut-and-paste from one part of the puzzle to another. There are a number of fish and pieces of coral that are identical in shape, only differing in size and/or color.
Challenge
Prepare for this puzzle! It’s a great difficulty level. Though there are a lot of colors, many of the colors are similar in several different areas of the puzzle. The pieces are small enough, and the puzzle large enough, that in many cases, the entire piece is a wide swath of a solid color. It’s up to you to guess which dolphin that gray piece belongs to!
Size
I did not realize just how much space this puzzle would take up. Take note! This puzzle is 48″ x 32″–that’s almost 4 feet by 3 feet! If you’re like me, you start the puzzle by spreading the pieces out, face up, on the table. Then you put together the edge pieces (the frame). Then you start filling the inside. I have a huge dining table, 3.5 feet by 8 feet when both leaves are in. The scattered pieces easily took up 75% of the extended table. There wasn’t any room to assemble the edge! Much less to sort pieces by color or pattern. I spent a lot of time scooting pieces out of the way. I had to put the frame together amongst the scattered pieces, then pick out small segments to assemble in the empty area. We ate dinner every night for weeks perched at the very end of the table, sometimes on top of puzzle pieces. So just keep in mind–this puzzle needs a lot of space.
This was a great puzzle, and I highly recommend it to people who have the space and the patience to put it together.
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This review is from: Ravensburger Oceanic Wonders – 3000 Piece Puzzle (Toy)
My wife is a fan of puzzles, so I did some looking around and picked this puzzle for one of her birthday presents. She just finished it last night and we’ve already toasted the completion with some excellent Chardonnay. This is an exceptionally high quality puzzle. You will need to have a large table devoted to the process while you piece it together. Also, plan to invest some time: There are 3000 pieces! The illustration is quite fine, but it doesn’t do it justice. The finished puzzle is gorgeous.
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This review is from: Ravensburger Oceanic Wonders – 3000 Piece Puzzle (Toy)
After attempting to build the border on this puzzle, we noticed two sections of the border were missing (app. 10-15 pieces total in two sections). We looked and looked and sorted through multiple times and there was no mistaking that these pieces were missing. Checked reviews and saw that this is not an uncommon problem with Ravensburger. Bummer. We had already spent hours on the puzzle and had sorted everything out. Emailed Ravensburger and was told to cut out the UPC, mail it to them (snail mail) and “if” it was a manufacturing error they would send a replacement IF the puzzle was still available, in about 4-6 weeks.
I wrote back that, if they were able to determine that it was a manufacturing error from the UPC, couldn’t I just email it in to expedite the process? I received a curt reply to mail it.
This company has clearly had to deal with missing pieces before – a problem that is probably the ONLY problem that can occur with a jigsaw puzzle and the ONLY problem that kills the entire experience and has the potential to create ill will. Yet they obviously have not seen fit to alter their business model in a way that will mitigate the problem.
I don’t get it.
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It’s a BIG, beautiful puzzle,
Quality
The puzzle is high quality. The pieces are smooth with a light texture to reduce glare. There’s minimal dust in the box. The pieces are all variations on the standard “H” shape–no oddball shapes–and all of the pieces interlock in some way, so you don’t have to press two flat edges against each other and beg them to stay put until you find the surrounding pieces to lock them into place. The only disappointment was in the artwork. Don’t get me wrong, it’s gorgeous–but some elements are obviously cut-and-paste from one part of the puzzle to another. There are a number of fish and pieces of coral that are identical in shape, only differing in size and/or color.
Challenge
Prepare for this puzzle! It’s a great difficulty level. Though there are a lot of colors, many of the colors are similar in several different areas of the puzzle. The pieces are small enough, and the puzzle large enough, that in many cases, the entire piece is a wide swath of a solid color. It’s up to you to guess which dolphin that gray piece belongs to!
Size
I did not realize just how much space this puzzle would take up. Take note! This puzzle is 48″ x 32″–that’s almost 4 feet by 3 feet! If you’re like me, you start the puzzle by spreading the pieces out, face up, on the table. Then you put together the edge pieces (the frame). Then you start filling the inside. I have a huge dining table, 3.5 feet by 8 feet when both leaves are in. The scattered pieces easily took up 75% of the extended table. There wasn’t any room to assemble the edge! Much less to sort pieces by color or pattern. I spent a lot of time scooting pieces out of the way. I had to put the frame together amongst the scattered pieces, then pick out small segments to assemble in the empty area. We ate dinner every night for weeks perched at the very end of the table, sometimes on top of puzzle pieces. So just keep in mind–this puzzle needs a lot of space.
This was a great puzzle, and I highly recommend it to people who have the space and the patience to put it together.
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|Beautiful! Beautiful! Beautiful!,
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|Missing pieces and bad service,
I wrote back that, if they were able to determine that it was a manufacturing error from the UPC, couldn’t I just email it in to expedite the process? I received a curt reply to mail it.
This company has clearly had to deal with missing pieces before – a problem that is probably the ONLY problem that can occur with a jigsaw puzzle and the ONLY problem that kills the entire experience and has the potential to create ill will. Yet they obviously have not seen fit to alter their business model in a way that will mitigate the problem.
I don’t get it.
0
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