Minimum Age: 3 years Rating: Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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"Princess Liana" Barbie has beautiful blonde hair topped with a tiara. View larger.

Her dress flips from plain to fancy with the turn of a knob.

What We Think Fun Factor: Durability: (what this means) The Good: Sparkly dress, jeweled tiara, and light-up pendant turn this Barbie into a true princess The Bad: Barbie's dress can't be removed In a Nutshell: Little princesses everywhere will love playing with her At a Glance Ages: 3 and up

Sparkly yet Sturdy
Your little girl can play with this Barbie right out of the box. Parents might need to show younger kids how to flip Barbie's dress over with the turn of a knob (the instructions tell you how). You might also need to point out the tiny button that makes Barbie sing a song from "Barbie and the Diamond Castle," but once they know where it is, even little ones will be able to find it quickly.

The stiff material of Barbie's purple, pink, and orange sparkly dress will stand up well to lots of play. Her matching purple, high-heeled shoes, on the other hand, could get easily lost or swallowed. Parents should help with the delicate operation of cutting Barbie's tiara free from the plastic that binds it to Barbie's head. Afterall, every princess likes to take off her crown once in a while!

A Barbie with Bling
This Barbie has a lot of bling -- from the dress that makes a "bringg" sound when it flips from "plain" to "fancy," to the pendant that lights up during this same operation. Barbie's fancy dress, with a sparkling pink bodice and layers of shimmering orange gauze over pink "silk," will dazzle every girl. Plus, it looks just like the dress that Princess Liana wears in the movie.

Your child will also love being able to remove Barbie's purple tiara with its orange jewel and the purple shoes that perfectly match her dress. If your child has the "Princess Alexa" doll (also based on a character from the movie), the two dolls can sing a special duet together while holding hands. And, of course, how could you forget Barbie's hair? Long, silky, and lustrous, girls will love brushing it with the heart-shaped gold brush that's included.

A Princess from Head to Toe
We appreciated the whole princess-like package -- the tiara, the sparkly dress, the light-up pendant. Everyone child dreams of being royalty and we think think this singing Barbie will hit just the right note with your own would-be princesses. It would be nice if you could remove her princess dress for those days when Barbie wants a more casual look, but that isn't the case here. We like the hairstyle that Princess Liana sports (with two sections of hair knotted together at the nape of her neck), but we worry that younger girls might accidentally muss it with inadvertent brushing and end up with a bad-hair day for Barbie. These minor criticisms aside, we think this Barbie will be a hit with little girls even if they haven't seen the movie "Barbie and the Diamond Castle." If they have seen it, they'll love their Princess Liana Barbie even more!

What's in the Box
Singing"Princess Liana" Barbie with two-in-one dress and light-up pendant, shoes, tiara, and hairbrush.




Customer Reviews

Liana Doll is Original Posted 29 November 2008
The Barbie & The Diamond Castle (B&DC) Princess Liana doll is the same height and proportion as the 90's 00's era dolls. However, one of the major complaints of the doll has to be how different it is from the rest of the Barbie collections.

First, Lianna has a wind up dress swapper on the back of the torso. It does not hide under the dress, and sticks out quite a way from the doll. Lianna will not be able to sit in any Barbie mobile. This also is feared to break within a short amount of use (hasn't happened yet). When that happens, the dress will need to be manually flipped.

Second, Lianna has pink legs underneath her dress. This perhaps helps to not draw attention to her lower torso when she's "transforming." However, it doesn't exactly fit in with life-type legs. More unfortunate is that they're solid--no bending in the knee joints. Again this will create problems with her ability to ride certain Barbie mobile things.

As with all Barbies, the shoes do not stay on. I have contemplated either super gluing them on the feet or removing them so my daughters don't lose them.

Another issue with the B&DC dolls is their accessories are few--this one has shoes, a crown, and a brush. Many less expensive Barbies come with more stuff. And all of these items are small, losable, and possibly a choking hazard.

Now for a critique on her "singing ability." It's nice to hear the first time, but the two songs very quickly lose their appeal, even if it's a former American Idol singing (McPhee). The Liana doll does do a nice duet with the Alexa doll, but again, it's a quickly fading novelty, and gets worse when you do not push the sing buttons at exactly the same time, or if the two songs are mismatched. !!IMPORTANT FIX!! If your Liana doll does not sing two complete songs when you take her out of the box and pull the tab out of her back, try this before you take it back--1) Find a thin piece of metal: paperclip, cake tester, needle, etc 2) Insert it into the hole in the back 3) pushing slightly in a downward motion skim the floor of the hole 4) About halfway in, the metal should catch the switch 5) pry this in an upward fashion (it will stay that way) 6) Remove metal tool from doll and press sing button 7) Assuming the batteries are not dead, the doll will sing again. I checked all over the internet for a fix, but none were to be found, including the mattel website. Cheers!

Barbie Doll Posted 24 November 2008
Actually I just went to wrap the dolls today and the Liana doll wasn't like the other....it didn't sing or light up which I was expecting so I was disappointed.

A Pleasant Surprise Posted 07 November 2008
My 4 year-old daughter could not think of anything she wanted more than this Liana doll and the Alexa doll when it came time to spend her birthday money. I wasn't thrilled because Barbie's in our house get kicked around and forgotten. I was surprised to find that these dolls are actually a lot of fun. She loves changing the dress around and listening to the dolls sing together. I like that you can stop the music by turning the knob that changes the dress. It makes a chime sound and the music stops. It's nice for when the two dolls are not singing the same song or if you don't synchronize them right. Some have complained that the dress doesn't come off, but I'm really happy about that. My daughter takes the dresses off her barbies and then asks me to put another one on because she can't do it herself. This doll does have mysteriously pink legs made of hard plastic, which makes it impossible to keep the shoes on, but I super glued them on and we won't have to worry about that ever again. We're happy with this doll, and I secretly enjoy trying to synchronize the dolls' singing perfectly.

Awesome Singing Barbie Posted 03 November 2008
My 4 year old daughter got this doll a month ago when we were on vacation, and she has not put it down. She had seen the movie and wanted both the Liana and Alexa dolls when she saw them at the store. She chose to get this one first. She has played with this Barbie so much! She loves to sing the songs. She keeps asking for the Alexa doll, so they can sing together. I highly recommend this Barbie!

my little girl loves this doll Posted 25 October 2008
My little girl, 4, loves this doll. She sings along with the song, it really cracks me up. She hasn't lost interest yet which does happen with a lot of thisgs, it's been 3 weeks, so it seems it's okay.