"This was a good fun build, The modular format with each bag being a room made it easy for me to split the build with my 8-year-old, One of us building the odd-numbered bags and the other building even bags.
"This kit has been on my wish list since it came out and was viewed at the Glasgow Lego shop. I have been told that due to the cost of it I would never get it. Even hints for my Birthdays and Christmas went unanswered, In the end after selling a lot of items, My wife regnegged and said that I could get it for my 50th Birthday using the proceeds from the sales.
So after a wait due to being out of stock, the kit arrived about a month before my birthday. Should I wait or start building.
Well I started the build and the plan wasn't to speed build and take things slowly (Though not as slow as the year and a bit it took my daughter of 6 to build the disney castle) and the plan was a bag a day.
Build its self was quite smooth, had an issue connecting the last piece of track (Which resulted in a destruction of some of the pillers). Did a rebuild and discovered the issue was I haddnt installed one of the parts.
Yes building white pillars is a bit boring but as I wasnt doing a speed build it was evently paced and got my daughter involved with some of that.
Though Occasionally I did find that she had built bits with out my knowledge like the first 50 bits of chain.
Also something to watch out for is that you will probably get more than the 203 chain pieces (and who is actually going to count all those very tiny chain pieces) So once I installed the chain I then went and removed the slack from the chain by removing the excess pieces.
The also have converted the train from 3 to 6 cars for now.
Runs smooth and a great set. Fingers crossed that family and friends will take the hints and get me more lego when my Birthday comes at the end of August"