Review: Intex Inflatable Bull (Inflat-A-Bull)

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According to Wikipedia, the taming of bulls as a sport has ancient roots dating as far back as the Minoan civilization in 2600 BC. After 4600 years, we think it’s safe to say that the desire to ride the bull is now built into our DNA. Kids are born wanting to ride the bull. It’s inherently human.

The kids in our family are no exception to this fact of life. That’s why we jumped on this Intex “Inflatabull” (no pun intended) when it went on sale and was featured on Book of More Money. Since it’s the summer and parents are no doubt looking for things to keep their kids entertained, this product review on the Intex Inflatabull is intended for parents out there who aren’t sure if this would be a good purchase. No one is being paid by Intex to do this review and you can rest assured that this review is honest and unbiased.

Overview

Dimensions	96" X 77" X 32"
Material	17.5 Gauge Vinyl w/ 3 Separate Air Chambers
Weight Limit	220 lbs.
Recommended Age	Kids 9+
Warranty	1 Year
Cost	About $45 from Amazon and Walmart

This Bull is Huge, You’ll Need an Inflator

My initial impression of the Inflatabull was that it is huge. While it’s advertised at 96" X 77" X 32", you don’t appreciate how big it is until you unbox it, and it only gets bigger as you pump it up. Given its size, you don’t want to manually blow this thing up. You might die. Even if you have multiple people alternating sucking wind, it’s a herculean task to manually inflate this thing, and you’ll have to do it with impatient kids surrounding you giddy with excitement. In fact, I’m not even sure it’s possible to blow this up manually. The Inflatabull has 3 air chambers and as shown below, one of the valves is hard plastic with a screw-on cap. Unlike the rubber vavles you see on most pool inflatables (shown in the picture below to the right), it will likely be very difficult to wrap your lips around to form a seal while you blow your lungs out.

Thus, you should get a portable volume inflator (such as this one, which comes with a car adapter). If you don’t get a volume inflator and have to manually blow this thing up every time you go to the pool (assuming it’s even possible), not only does this pose a serious health risk, I suspect you’ll start leaving this at home to avoid the hassle. That of course would render this a waste of your money. There’s the other option of leaving the Inflatabull blown up all the time, but that’s going to make transporting it a pain (it will literally take up your entire back seat) and also finding a place to store it at home while fully blown up will be a challenge. A portable volume inflator solves these issues, and they’re great to have around in general for blow up mattresses and other stuff.

The Quality Is Pretty Solid

The product description advertises that the Inflatabull is made of “durable 17.5 gauge vinyl” and has “durable grab handles.” I don’t know vinyl well enough to know where 17.5 gauge vinyl falls in the spectrum of good quality vinyl, but going just by touch and feel, the Inflatabull certainly feels durable and is a lot thicker than some of the other pool toys floating around. It’s certainly thicker than the poop emoji pool float you see below (another steal on Book of More Money). You’ll still need to be very careful when transporting this thing outside of the pool so as to not snag it on anything. For example, we threw this on top of a trampoline for temporary storage while at Grandma’s house and when pulling it off, it got snagged on one of the metal springs resulting in a small hole. I don’t blame the quality; the hole was due to human error. We followed the steps in this do it yourself article to find the hole (using a spray bottle with soapy water) and patched the hole with a permanent patch from the hardware store. It was good as new.

The grab handles seem very durable. The grab handles are where kids yank and tug on the Inflatabull to try to “buck” the rider off. There’s also a grab handle on top of the bull that the rider holds on to. We’ve had some pretty rambunctious kids ages 5 to 12 yanking and tugging on those handles for about a dozen outings so far, and they’ve held up perfectly. Here’s a close-up of one of the grab handles.

Probably the weakest point in the Inflatabull and perhaps the part that will be first to fail will be the vinyl connector pieces attaching the inside of the bull to the large outer ring. There are 4 such pieces (you can see them in the image below) and they are a little thin and flimsy compared to the rest of the product.

The problem is that kids will use those connectors to stand on while trying to mount the bull and will also try digging their feet into them to hold their balance to avoid being bucked off the bull. So there’s a lot of stress to those connectors. While the connectors are still holding up very well on our Inflatabull, we’ve made a rule for older kids that when riding the bull their feet must dangle off the sides. In other words, older kids aren’t allowed to dig their feet into the connectors to gain their balance or to support themselves while riding the bull. This is just a precaution to keep the Inflatabull alive and well for as long as possible.

Intex backs the Inflatabull with a 1 year warranty. While it might be a hassle to fulfill, at least the company has backed it for a reasonable amount of time. I scanned the reviews of the Inflatabull on Amazon (so you don’t have to) and the reviews are mostly positive. At the time of this post, it has a 4.1 star rating after 380 reviews and a Fakespot B rating. Not bad. I will point out that the majority of negative reviews complain that there was a leak right out of the box or a leak within the first couple of uses. It sounds like these might be manufacturing defects and the lesson here is to use the Inflatabull right away while you’re still within the return period for the retailer you purchased from. If there’s a problem with the bull right out of the gate, you can exchange it or return it, which is better than having to chase down Intex for a warranty replacement.

Kids Love It

My kids (and their cousins and neighbors) love the Inflatabull. Their favorite thing to do of course is the classic rodeo. One kid rides the Inflatabull while the others grab on to the handle grips. A parent keeps time and they have a competition to see who can stay on the longest–just like the Minoans did in 2600 BC. To make things harder, we make the older kids use only one hand to hold on to the bull (in addition to not placing their feet on the connector pieces as discussed above).

Another favorite for when there aren’t a lot of kids in the pool (and you do this of course at your own risk) is what my kids call “the running saddle up”. We position the Inflatabull close to the side of the pool and a kid leaps from the edge and tries to saddle up without falling in. The difficulty of this depends of course on how much of a running start they get. Landing on the bull is easy, but hanging on after the initial bounce is a challenge.

Over the July 4th weekend, we even took the Inflatabull to Lake Melones in Calaveras County where my uncle rented a party boat and invited dozens of family members and kids. The Inflatabull withstood being dragged all around the lake on a rope behind the boat as well as some rough play by a dozen boisterous kids.

Safety Precautions

General rules of pool safety and common sense apply when playing with the Inflatabull. However, there are a couple of safety precautions that are worth specifically highlighting. First, when someone is riding on the bull, we have a rule that no one is allowed inside or on top of the ring. This usually isn’t a problem when the bull is first mounted, but as kids try to tug and pull to buck the rider off, one kid always seems to want to jump on top of the ring to get leverage. Being on top of our inside the ring puts kids in the danger zone of being hit by the rider as they are bucked off. Nothing will ruin the day faster than a foot in your face or a head to head collision. Second, you should be cautious of little kids getting stuck under the bull. With kids tugging and pulling the bull and causing a lot of splashes, it may be hard to notice a little one stuck underneath the massive bull.

Conclusion

We hope you enjoyed this product review of the Intex Inflatabull. Overall, the Inflatabull has been a huge hit with the 5, 9, and 11 year olds in our family as well as their neighbors and cousins. It’s lasted us plenty of use in the pool (and at the lake) and it’s plenty affordable at only around $45 from popular retailers such as Amazon and Walmart. We highly recommend it.

That’s it for this product review. Stay tuned for more reviews and other blog posts in the future and be sure to check our main site - Book of More Money - for the good, better, best deals online each and every day!