Customer Reviews for Backyard Discovery Caribbean All Cedar Swing Playset

We bought this model SPECIFICALLY for the staircase. It was the only one on the market we could find. Our son has a limb difference which requires more adaptive swing sets. I was a little disappointed to see the swingset market hasn’t given more options for kids with accessibility needs. But this swingset checks that box for us. We hired someone to build it (well worth the money in my opinion). It took 2 1/2 days for them to build it, and they do it for a living. I wish the wood was better quality. It’s seems a bit thin and brittle, we’ve had some issues with it splintering and it’s only been up about 10 months. The slide is also a little sketch, definitely NOT made for adults to go down. But overall we are really happy with it.

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] Bought this for the summer for my two boys. Instructions were easy to follow and the kids love it!

I recently ordered this playset and just got done building it. Just like many of the other reviews mention, it takes a good amount of time to put together. However, the directions are extremely easy to follow. If you take the time to place all of the material out in order the way it's suggested, it will make the installation much smoother. My kids are in awe of this playset. They haven't stopped playing on it since I got it up. The quality of the material is pretty decent. I am hoping this lasts several years to come. I am very happy with my purchase!

I just finished building this and overall I’d say this is a very good value. There’s no way you could buy the materials and build it from scratch for less money. However, it’s not perfect. Here’s the good news- the customer service from Backyard was very good. I was missing 1 piece of wood and they got it to me quickly. The instructions were excellent. I used a combination of the written instructions and the app. The overall quality of the materials were satisfactory and I expect this playground to last 10-15 years. Keep in mind- this is not a commercial grade playground and they are upfront about that. Know what you’re getting. Here’s the bad news- I really enjoyed putting this together but it is VERY time consuming. It took me a month but I was only working on it 10-15 hours a week. So, I had at least 40-50 hours in it. There were a couple discrepancies between the written instructions and the app. In fact, there was one bolt that is mis-identified in the app but correct in the written instructions. Suggestions-take your time, be patient. Unpack and sort everything out first. Do you have everything? Be honest with yourself- is this really your kind of project? If not, get it with assembly. Seal all wood first! This took me 2 days but was so much easier than doing it after assembly. This wood is very dry and I’d highly recommend sealing it. Get help with the sliding board (the most difficult part. BD-there has to be an easier way!) and the roof. Overall- it was not that physically demanding but it was mentally demanding for me.If you don’t get the right piece in the right place with the right orientation and the right hardware than you’ll pay for it in a later step. I made 3 or 4 “Orientation” mistakes and had to go backwards to correct. But overall, I was amazed at how well everything fit and how good the instructions were. I only had to cut 1 piece of wood about 1/2” to fit. If you understand the basic concepts of “square”, “plumb” and “level”, you’ll be fine. In fact, if you don’t have some basic construction knowledge I’d recommend getting it assembled. Having said all this, I would absolutely recommend this product. It’s a great value for the price.

I was in a debate of 4 or 5 stars. If you are thinking to yourself "I can do this in a day or two" ...... STOP RIGHT THERE!. this thing came in 4 boxes. When you think of the phrase "some assembly required"... its ALL ASSEMBLY REQUIRED. even the slide has to be put together. The side rails are 4 separate pieces and the bottom is one long plastic piece that must be bent and set into the grooves of the slide walls, and screwed in place. Of course, reading the instructions before hand with the warning that failure to assemble properly may result in injury or AMPUTATION! O_O Everything is in pieces. you will spend the first 3 hours taking board by board out of the box. Laying them in some kind of order that will consume the real estate of 3-4 times the size of what this playset will take up, just so you can find the board you need easier when each letter and number is called off like you are at bingo night. There are bags, upon bags, UPON BAGS of hardware. you are going to want to have baggies for after you open them, you will need these bags over and over and over. if you have baggies, at least you can close them up and not have them fall out and wondering why you are missing some bolts (a lesson I learned about half way through and especially at the end). Good thing is, if you loose any hardware, you can come to the Backyard Discovery site and order what you need specifically for your playset. It just prolongs the time to get your kids on it. As you go through this "WoNdErFuL" process, you will need a helping hand. Do not try to solo this project! In the words of Obi Wan-Kenobi... "Don't try it." The playset will have the high ground. If you try to do this by your self, you will: discover new curse words, experience a deep rage against the world, angrily wonder why the ground is on the ground, find a deeper appreciation for gravity, question life choices, contemplate if its too late to pack it all back up and return it for a refund only realizing that it will be more work to take apart what you had put together, and possibly cry yourself to sleep at night from exhaustion. Now don't get me wrong. This thing has been well thought through. I only had to drill 7 holes out of this 249 step process and its because the instructions tell you to do so for the walls and the slide. All the holes lined up. I did place in a few bolts that were the incorrect size, only to realize it was the wrong size bolt that I used 5 steps later after putting it in, having to go back and switch it out with the correct size. But that was just "improper operator headspace and timing" / "operator error". I learned a lot during the 6 days that I worked on this playset. It has been years since the last time I had to pick up a framing square. All in all, it could have been A LOT worst as with some other company. But once the last screw was placed in with the slide and swings attached, that glass of whiskey tasted OOOH SOOOOO GOOOOOOD! Putting it together I give 4 stars. I love that this playset has the stairs instead of just ladders which makes it easier for my toddlers to get up and down it. The stairs is the main reason my wife and I chose this one. In all the research I did, this is the only one I found with stairs. My kids just want to spend all there time outside now and not on a tablet or watch TV. The joy that they have from this makes all the frustration of putting it together well worth while. overall... 10 stars. A must have if you can . But if you get this set..... don't ask for my help, I did my time. Sincerely, A tired daddy of happy kids thanks to Backyard Discovery

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] I purchased this playset two months ago in an effort to create a wonderful, backyard playspace for our grands! The reviews on the Backyard Discovery site were helpful in planning for the arrival and assembly of the playset. We sorted the pieces prior to assembling which made the assembly much easier and quicker. All parts and pieces were included and are of great quality. Sorting of materials and assembly time was about 20 hours total over the course of a few days. We chose to substitute two of the swing area accessories to accommodate the ages of two of our younger grandchildren (age 1 and 2) but have plans to use the second swing and hand swing when they are a little older. Also, the staircase makes it easy for our two year old grand to access the playhouse area. Overall, we are well pleased with the playset, and our grands are indeed having a blast making a million memories on this playset! Truly a great investment for our family!

This is doable, but be careful with the Chinese Cedar. It is fragile. There are 4 boxes total and it will take 2 to 3 hours to lay everything out. Stay organized. Assembly is possible with one person, but I would strongly recommend getting an extra hand. It will take you two full days to put this together. Overall, its solid for the price. The cedar is fragile but once its bolted down and staked into the ground it becomes very rigid.

My girls ( 2 & 4) love this playground! As you can see, they’ve enjoyed playing on it with friends. We bought this on Black Friday 2022 and have been using it since January. Pros: stairs provide a safer way to get to top than a ladder, large with plenty of room for multiple kids to play, sturdy Cons: takes several people and hours to put together (took my engineer husband and 2 friends about 35 hours total to assemble), wood has to be sealed (this took another 4-6 hours after assembly), A little pricey-considering how much we spent we still had issues with wood splitting/splintering and not being of great quality, slide is very bumpy and uncomfortable to go down Tips: plan several days or weekends to assemble, lay out all hardware pieces and keep organized, map out where you want playground located (you can’t really move once you start assembling), spend the extra money and get rubber mulch underneath (it has made a huge difference), ultimately: just pay the money to have someone assemble it if you can. We would have done this but didn’t have the official “6ft clearance” on all 4 sides so the company wouldn’t do it. I gave 4 stars because of the cons listed above, but overall a great play set, my kids love it, and not enough cons to make me regret buying it!

We bought this last year when are little girl was 1 & 1/2 years old. The staircase was what sold us on this model. Perfect for toddlers who can't climb ladders yet but still want to get outside and slide and swing

Kids love it, no parts missing or broken, great product!

I love it!!!!! Gorgeous BIG playset with so many areas to explore

My kiddos absolutely love this playground. It has everything they could want. The bench swing is solid and the climbing wall is a feature that gets plenty of attention. The clubhouse and slide are perfect for all ages and gives plenty of shade. All in all, this is a great addition. The quoted title says it all!

We are very happy with this Backyard Discovery play set! The kids really love all the features- especially the hammock and slide. Very pleased with the quality too!

Any handy man in Kissimmee area who will come to my house and build I need help lol

It looks great and the design is very functional. My 6 year old loves it and even the dogs love it, since there are stairs and they can perch out on the top and guard the property. However, the Chinese Cedar wood is awful. I am having to replace boards with more durable wood because they split and you can literally flake the wood apart. I was so disappointed when I felt how flimsy the wood is. You can break the peices easily and you can drill a screw right through it.

I bought this through Home Depot, came earlier than the estimate. Lots of fun for the neighborhood. I used goconfigure for the assembly and they got it done in 10-12 hours. The boards do creek when an adult walks on them but it feels sturdy enough for kids. I used Thompson water sealer and it seems to work great.

Assembly took forever..a lot of pieces.. but overall my girls (2 & 5) love it!

With high demand on these things due to COVID, it was well worth the wait! Separating the hardware and pieces out by step was KEY! Made the assembly go at a steady pace. Took me one day to sort out the pieces and another day to put it together myself. I was only missing one piece and a couple pieces of hardware, but the manufacturer was vert quick to get those pieces to my door so I could begin assembly free of charge. The hardest part was getting someone to come out and create a level pad for it in our back lot. I had to go back here and there to realign some pieces with their pre-drilled holes since it was hard to tell in the directions, but wasn't too bad. As in some of the other reviews, the density of the wood was quite a bit lighter than expected, but does seems to be just fine. It's good enough for my kids and us parents to play on it with them. In the beginning it creaks quite a bit, but as the unit settled in the ground better and boards shifted into place things sounded up nicely. I wish I would have stained each piece prior to assembly as it would have made that chore a TON easier though. Kids can't get enough of it and everyday are begging to go play on the "playground." Solid investment!

It turned out beautiful if you have big For tall kids I recommend it lots of headroom lots of space for everyone or if you have a lot of kids grand kids love it and they play on it everyday best thing I could have ever Invested in we all love it Also it fit perfectly in our small backyard ,I don't have to worry about them getting sick playing on or at the park they can stay right at home and have great fun.

We chose this set because of the staircase - it's so much easier for the little ones than the ladder. We also love the cute little bench swing. We did hire someone to put it together and it took him about 2 days. It's been up for a little over a year and seems to be holding up well, but we definitely need to have it sealed soon.

Very well built and all of the measurements and pre drilled holes lined up, hardly any warped boards, the directions aren’t lying though when they say it takes about 40 man hrs to complete.

This us a lovely set. Is it worth 1600? NO! The wood quality did not meet my expectation at all. The wood was quite soft and several pieces split during installation. It took hubby and I, 4 days to complete the build. Im sure it would have taken less time if the insrtuctions we clear but unfortunaly they were not clear so we ended up making and fixing a lot of mistakes.

The bolts actually snapped. We reinforced all parts of the set with our own screws and wood. If safety is a priority, do not get this set unless you are prepared to spend even more time and $$ reinforcing. We were lucky our daughter did not fall through the balcony-as it collapsed. Customer service is atrocious and not willing to assist at all!

Not sure I would recommend Backyard Discovery at all. We loved the look of this playset, but the China Cedar is very weak. The directions were a bit confusing with all the different bolts, screws, lag nuts, barrels...in all sizes you can imagine. Had we known the insane differing sizes in ALL the hardware, I’d have placed each in a cup and labeled them along with separated wood pieces by letters. This makes you wish a certain build-it-yourself Swedish company built playsets, their directions make more sense. It was frustrating to start with the swing chair, slide, ladder and swing beam, then to just “set it aside” til you built the body of the playset, which took hours with so many pieces and confusing bagged hardware. They weren’t labeled consistently for easy reading. Some were labeled with sticker and some black print on clear plastic with black hardware...difficult to see. It became so confusing, we likely used the wrong bolt/lag/nut/screw for certain areas which ended up with being short on hardware. If that wasn’t enough, the 4x4 in between the swing support isn’t a true 4x4. Why they couldn’t just just 4x4’s for the support legs like Gorilla, is beyond me. Cheap, cheap, cheap. But it’s what we chose.

So far so good.

My daycare kids and daughter love it!

For the price, you would expect consistently in quality of boards. We were missing over $40 worth of hardware as well.. front black bars are VERY crooked... This isn’t acceptable. ALSO, dimensions online for suggested play area are short compared to the instructions included in the box... therefore had to take apart and add extended area so the kids landed within the play area off the slide... otherwise they were sliding into the grass & what’s the point of closing it in then?!

The final product is decent quality. We just received and built the playset in May 2020. It took 2 of us near 36 hours to complete. The instructions seemed out of order at times and didn't always highlight exactly which way a board was to be placed so there was some re-doing necessary. The stair boards were too wide so we had to shave them. The 5 foot boards in the clubhouse would have been much more stable if just one 10 ft board. Each board is lightweight and seemingly low quality but together they are stonger. Extra hardware included. My 4 and 8 yr old love it.

It's absolutely perfect! My daughter and my nieces and nephews absolutely love it. It took five of us adults 9.5hrs to assemble, but it was worth every minute! It's super sturdy and looks great!!! The only thing that was a little off was that all the pieces are in separate boxes, and there's no rhyme or reason to how they pack the boxes.

Went up pretty quickly considering I was by myself. I figure I probably put in 30 hours all said and done and I'm pretty handy but no pro. Keep the box packing lists. Being able to narrow down to one box was a big help. Unpack box one, it has the slide and all the hardware, then line up the other three so they're accessible but don't unbox anything, just take off the box tops so you can scrounge through them. Maintaining inventory of parts is essential on this assembly. Open all hardware packages from the same corner, don't bust them open so they spill out because you'll be grabbing from some bags at step 3 and step 54. Try to keep them all in the hardware box with the opening facing up so they don't spill. ALWAYS read the part # from the bag before picking them. You will get confused and grab the wrong part. Read the notes in the steps. Most of the time they're vital - like "This side is the shorter side" and "make sure offset holes are facing down". You might end up taking apart hours of work to fix a mistake. Start with all the accessory builds before tackling the structure. The swing arm, slide, rock wall, and porch swing can be assembled in a couple of hours and eliminate a lot of confusion of parts. Take it in steps, pick each part individually for each step. Don't try to bang out a bunch of steps at once, you'll make a mistake. Some are really complex and others are screwing in a single board with two screws. If I was the engineer working on the doc there are several steps I'd combine and several others I'd re-arrange but as far as instructions go this was closer to great than it was to bad. Do yourself a favor and level the ground before you start. I went with the premise of "Eh, it's leve-ish" and wish I took the extra 1.5hrs to level. If you can't get a 100% level make sure everything is square instead of level. The wood is pretty dry and brittle so if you need to drill (you will) use a backstop so you don't have a blow out. The worst parts were probably the stair stringers. A few cheap bar clamps came in handy, too. Other than that you basically need a rubber mallet, a driver with a quick change shaft and a Phillips bit(they provide the torx bit), and a combination square. Oh and a 1/2" socket wrench or driver. And plenty of sun block. I ended up with a lot of extra hardware, some onesie twosie typical spares but a few bags of stuff I assume was for a different variation of the same kit. All in all the kid likes it, the wife is satisfied, it looks decent, and I never once felt like lighting it on fire out of frustration during the build.