We bought this last year and it was fun for the adults and kids. It is hard to climb on to. We found that it works best when you have 5 people – 4 holding it and 1 person climbing on. For a child, we used 6 people – the extra person helped them up. Then the 4 people use the handles to shake it until the person falls (obviously, you can go slower/lighter for a kid). You definitely should supervise this activity even for adults – they can fall off and it will float on top of them. Again, we had fun with it but used it under heavy supervision. Also, this is really big – you won’t be able to use it in a small pool especially a small round pool (because you won’t have enough room to fall off safely).