Last week, we gave you the results of our water toys test. We had eight kids try 10 backyard water toys. One of the worst was a water slide we picked up at Walmart for $24.96 from H2O Go! It was a pain to set up and the kids really didn’t slide much. Some actually left with bruises.
We heard from Austin-based FunAir, which after a successful Kickstarter campaign, launched its own version of the backyard water slide. Its Super Sweet Slide is 25-feet long and made from coated vinyl. It’s the same coated vinyl FunAir uses in its other slide products that hang off of boats or boat docks.
The slide comes in a bag that is about the size of a bag of dog food. After unrolling it, use an electrical air pump or a hand pump to inflate the two sides. (A bicycle pump or your own hot air won’t work.) Attach your garden hose to the top of the slide and start sliding. It should take about 15 minutes with an electric pump, a little longer with a hand pump, to set up. The slides are connectable, so you can make a super long Super Sweet Slide by attaching additional slides. Only the first one needs to be hooked up to water.
Super Sweet Slide is from Austin-company FunAir.
Like all slides, Super Sweet Slide works best on a soft lawn. It’s also great on a hill, but you don’t need one. And when you slide, go belly first and try to remove as much friction between you and the slide. So, if you have on a swimsuit, ditch the T-shirt over it for better sliding.
The goal for FunAir was to bring a quality lawn slide that people can use year after year, says Chief Operating Officer Todd Lewis.
That means it’s not the throw-away $25 slide. Super Sweet Slides are $499, plus shipping, which would be about another $47. It’s at funair.com.
“It’s the Yeti cooler concept of slides,” says FunAir founder Eric Goldreyer. “You could buy an Igloo or you could by a Yeti.”
See the difference between the two slides below:
