Review: Ridemakerz and Father's Day Promotion

This weekend, we visited Ridemakerz out in Glendale.  It was a long ride for us from the far east valley, but everyone agreed that it was well worth the trip!!  I had never heard of Ridemakerz before, but when I was contacted about the possibility of doing a review, I knew it sounded like something my boys would enjoy.

At Ridemakerz, you create your very own custom car.   They have over 30 bodies to choose from, and each of those bodies can be customized up to 649 million ways! The bodies range in price from $18 to $38.  All three of my kids were amazed at all the possibilities!  The boys chose their vehicle bodies pretty quickly, and I was thrilled that they had a number of options that appealed to Lydia as well.  She ultimately chose a body with a pink paint job. While my kids didn't choose any of the CARS bodies, they had all the CARS vehicles for fans of the movie!

After the body is chosen, there are different sound options.  The cars all come with a standard sound card, and then you can choose another for an additional $3.  The kids listened to all the choices multiple times before choosing an extra sound that was perfect for them!  The kids were able to keep the standard sound, as well as their new sound.

Once that was done, the next step was to decide whether you wanted a low-riding car, or a monster vehicle.  Both Colin & Lydia chose the monster option, while Nate chose to stay low to the ground.  There were a number of different wheels to choose then, as well as a number of different rims.

Again, there were options for everybody!  They had plain rims, rims with dragons, and even rims with daisy flowers!

 While we were at the store, we were helped by Alyssa.  She was fantastic!  She was very enthusiastic and did a great job helping the kids make their choices and let them know about all the options they had.

Once these choices were made, the next step was to start putting the cars together.  They have this neat work area with drills hanging down so the kids can put everything together.  You can choose to have a free wheeling car, or a remote control car.  My kids love remote control vehicles, so they were excited about this option.  I was excited that they had an option so that the cars could be recharged instead of running on regular batteries!

Greg at the store also helped the kids put the cars together.  It was challenging enough to be fun for the boys, but also simple enough that minimal help was needed --even for Lydia.  She really felt that she built her car!

 After the chassis was added to the body, and the wheels -- it came time for the accessories.  There was an entire wall of accessories -- including extra lights, stickers, engines, and more.  The kids had a great time choosing different accessories and then adding them to their awesome cars.

 To finish it off, the kids received a key (that acts as a screwdriver) so they can access the remote control innards when needed and then their cars and spare parts were loaded into a neat cardboard "garage" box.  You can see them here standing in front of the wall of rims!

My three (aged 4, 9 and 10) had an absolute blast!!  I thought the choices were amazing, the product fantastic, and the staff so wonderfully helpful and enthusiastic.

They offer birthday parties, and I think it would be an awesome place to host a birthday party!

There are 5 locations -- the one here in Glendale, AZ is the one we visited.  You can also find them at Downtown Disney in both Florida and California, in Branson, MO and Myrtle Beach, SC.  Visit them at www.Ridemakerz.com for more information & details.

In honor of Father's Day, they are running a special "Build One Ride & Build Another for FREE!"  This special is good at all locations this weekend only -- June 18 & 19.  The BOGO offer includes freewheel chassis and stock wheels. Accessories are an additional charge.  (Offer excludes Disney-Pixar Cars bodies)

I highly recommend a visit to this shop!  The kids had so much fun building their own custom cars, and there was such a huge variety of choices! 

The kids are putting together a video review as well, but I wanted to get this post up so people knew about the Father's Day special right away.  Look for their video review in a couple days, where you'll be able to check out the cars they built.

*Disclosure: I was invited to visit the shop and my children customized their cars, thanks to the generosity of Ridemakerz, in order to facilitate this review.  Many thanks to Ridemakerz for giving us the opportunity to visit and play!*