I use ceramic bowls and have had no problem. I've also used plastic bowls and had no problem. Sara, my cat Sunny loves to play in the water dish too. My solution was to put the dish in an empty cat litter box so that when he does this it will catch the water and then I can clean it up. He doesn't do this everyday but he does it enough to cause problems. Since I've been doing this, I really don't have as much of a mess to clean up.