Mulligatawny
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Mulligatawny's Stats
Mulligatawny's Stats
- 5Average Rating
- 2Helpfulness Votes
- 0Featured Reviews
- 1Review Count
- October 23, 2017First Review
- October 23, 2017Last Review
Mulligatawny's Reviews
Heartlake Puppy Daycare
Heartlake Puppy Daycare
Posted:October 23, 2017
Mulligatawny
Age:
35-44
years old
Customer Type:
LEGO Parent
Building Experience:
Intermediate LEGO builder
Overall:
5
/
5
A Great Starter Set
" Call me crazy, but I didn't start small and work my way up with my daughter, SR. When she showed interest in LEGOs I jumped into (went off?) the deep end.
This set was on sale, so I got it for less than I thought it was worth*, and I realized after-the-fact what a perfect set this was for her. She's 5.5 years old and in love with Disney Princesses. So, even though I wasn't ready to spend the higher amount for the licensed sets, I really liked that the minifigures in this theme of sets are compatible/interchangeable with the Disney Princess sets. So, in the future...
I have a 2nd daughter who just turned 3 (SJ) and while I won't let her get her hands on all of these tiny pieces yet, we did let her play with the set after it was built. That's where this set really shines. There are 2 girl figures (Mia & Andrea), 2 puppies (Toffee & Luna), and plenty to do both inside & outside the "daycare". We let the girls have 5 minutes inside, then 5 minutes outside--switching places every 5 minutes. I had to show them how to make use of the outside standalone segments, but since they had seen the pet show at Sea World they both caught on. The biggest challenge for little hands is NOT losing the stuff in the toy box outside, and getting the shampoo bottles off (and back on) the shelf inside. Also the faucets get knocked off a lot...operator error, I'm sure.
My girls' favorite parts of this set were: the separate beds for the dogs, feeding them in their color-coded bowls, the slide to push them through the wall (making it easy to go inside/outside--great design idea!) And they LOVED "dressing up" the mini-girls' hair (and the dogs) with the bows & flowers. Oh, and the clear "glass" door with the bone handle--SR even got how clever that was.
As for the build & pieces, I thought the stickers were a nice touch--they didn't make any of the pieces unusable for other purposes except maybe the dogs' name plates (big deal) and the window with bubbles...I almost skipped that one. SR put together all but maybe 4-5 of the 286 pieces by herself, but she needed help learning to count "bumps" and counting "rows" to check her work and really see what was going on in the instructions. She did a great job picking out the pieces required for each step, and attaching them herself (although taking them apart is a different matter). I will say: maybe a few more pieces per step would have been fine, resulting in fewer steps.
It was also great that the set came in numbered bags, so we could do less sorting, and it gave us a clear stopping place for bed time. (We came back the next day and finished the next bag, etc.)
Lastly, I geeked out over several of the pieces included here. (I don't know if any were made specifically for this set.) The dog bowls, the cellphone, the clock, the individual canopy-shaped roof pieces (in alternating colors), and the picket fencing are all very cool. (But I hadn't built a set in over 22 years, so what do I know?)
[* I consider a good value for pieces-per-dollar to be 1 digit less than the number of pieces. In this case, 286 pieces meant that $28 would be an acceptable price point.]
"
I would recommend this to a friend!
From: Menifee, CA, USA
From:
United States
Age:
35-44
years old
Customer Type:
LEGO Parent
Building Experience:
Intermediate LEGO builder
Purchased For:
Daughter
Play Experience (Optional):
5
/
5
Value for Money (Optional):
5
/
5
Level of Difficulty:
Easy
Very Easy
Very Challenging
I would recommend this to a friend!
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