1.ELEMARA 19.1ft Inflatable Water Slide with Built-in Sprinklers
Last July I finally stopped ignoring the link my 10-year-old had been texting me every three days. The ELEMARA inflatable water slide. 19 feet. Sprinklers included. His pitch was that it was cheaper than taking the family to a water park "even one time." He had done the math. I checked it. He was right.
So I bought it. Here's the honest version of how that went.
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## Setup
The box shows up looking manageable. It's not, once you start unrolling it. At 19 feet inflated, it takes up most of my backyard, which is 25x40 feet \u2014 I had to move the fire pit table to make it fit. The height caught me off guard too. The top of the slide lands around 8 feet, which is taller than it looks in product photos.
First setup took my wife and me about 20 minutes. We got it down to 10-12 after that. The blower is loud \u2014 the kind of loud that made my neighbor text me to ask if everything was okay \u2014 but it fills the thing quickly. The water hookup is just a standard garden hose connection. Nothing extra to buy.
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## The Sprinklers
I expected these to be mostly decorative, like a misting feature that doesn't really do anything. I was wrong about that. They run along the top of the slide and keep the surface wet enough to actually slide on. Without water, the PVC gets grabby in direct sun within maybe 10 minutes and kids slow down or stop halfway through. With the sprinklers going, it stays fast.
My 7-year-old tried to drink from them. Multiple times. That's not a product note, I just felt it was worth documenting.
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## The Bodyboard
Comes with one. It's a thin piece of foam and its main job is protecting knees on the slide surface, which it does adequately. My kids use it about half the time. The other half they ignore it. Either way seems fine.
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## What I Noticed