Quick Fill Water Balloon Comparison: Bunch Of Balloons vs. Balloon Bonanza

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My wife and I hosted a neighborhood 4^th of July party complete with food, fun, and games. The weather was perfect with highs in the 80's and plenty of sun, so part of the plan was to have a water balloon fight. We didn't want to manually fill and tie hundreds of balloons so we went out to look for a more efficient solution.

We had seen commercials on TV for a new product that fills and seals many water balloons simultaneously. Essentially the product has a group of balloons each attached to a stem, and all the stems lead to a single hose attachment end. When the hose is attached and the water turned on, the balloons fill up simultaneously. With a jerk of the hand the balloons are detached and seal themselves. It seemed like exactly what we needed, so while shopping for party supplies we searched for and found the product at Toys 'R Us. Actually, we found two similar products. We didn't know which one would be better, so we bought some of each product.

The two products were called "Bunch of Balloons," and "Balloon Bonanza." We thought it would be interesting to compare the two water balloon filling devices and see if one was noticeably different. The following are our findings:

Bunch of Balloons

• Price: $11.99
• Balloons: 100
• Details: Three groupings of different colored balloons.
• Analysis: The balloons filled up a little unevenly, but it wasn't horrible. As they reached the recommended size, some of the balloons actually came off their stems on their own. The rest easily came off as well. The balloons were all a nice size, and I didn't notice leaks in any of the balloons.

Balloon Bonanza

• Price: $12.99
• Balloons: 120
• Details: Three groupings of different colored balloons.
• Analysis: The balloons filled up extremely unevenly, and the balloons started coming off the stems while still very small. Overall the balloons were much smaller and there was at least one balloon in every grouping that didn't fill at all. Each grouping also had several balloons that had leaks in them and were unusable. I didn't notice the worst part until later, however. I had filled the balloons into a big plastic bin. One of the bins of balloons wasn't even used. At the end of the night we just threw remaining balloons around. At the bottom of the bin was several inches of water and over twenty balloons that had leaked completely empty.

Conclusion

My initial reaction in the store was that the Balloon Bonanza was the better deal. It has 20 more balloons for only $1 more. But looks can be deceiving. Aside from some unusable balloons plus ones that leaked, all the balloons don't fill to be that large, and therefore they do not burst as easily.

If you have a choice, Bunch Of Balloons is the better product.  You'll get just as many (or more) usable balloons, and they're better balloons.

Have you had a water balloon fight recently? Have you tried either of these product or something similar?