Review: 40361 Olaf's Traveling Sleigh
Posted by MeganL,
As mentioned previously, the latest gift with purchase is 40361 Olaf's Traveling Sleigh, available with purchases of over $50 of Frozen or Frozen II sets.
There's been many comments about how expensive the Frozen II sets are; let's take a look to see if this GWP can mitigate the sting of those prices a bit.
The set is exactly what the name suggests; a sleigh that's outfitted for transporting goods, apparently for a Christmas holiday celebration. Knowing nothing about the film, one would hazard a guess that a Christmas celebration is included, and Olaf has been entrusted with delivering presents and the Christmas tree.
Our minifigure/snowman in the set is Olaf, the lovable snowman who was inadvertently brought to life in the original movie. He's quite an endearing and popular character and I'm happy to see that he'll be in the new film. This version of Olaf is new this year. I wish there was some colour around his mouth, however it does make sense that it's white considering he is, after all, a snowman. I particularly like the printing on his body of blue metallic snowflakes.
Olaf's sleigh has two cars. The first is the larger car with two sets of runners. It has space for Olaf to ride, a storage box with skis and ski poles, and a raised compartment in the back for a present. The pieces for the present are new this year, though I find them very reminiscent of gift boxes used in Friends sets of the past few years. There is actually a present inside - in true Friends fashion, it's a hair bow! The lantern on the front of the sleigh in warm gold is also new this year.
There's a possibility to be creative - if you remove the present from this part of the sleigh, there's a foot plate in medium lavender that would allow for a minidoll (perhaps Anna or Elsa?) to go for a sleigh ride along with Olaf.
The second sleigh car carries some very important cargo - a Christmas tree. There's been a number of different renditions of Christmas trees over the years, and I think this is quite an elegant effort. I like the use of the sloped pieces for the upper branches of the tree and the 1x1 round plates and transparent red and blue look perfect for the ornaments. Similarly, the blue jewel piece looks great on the top of the tree. The two sleigh cars are connectedby a warm gold chain.
Overall thoughts
This is a charming little set. Olaf is a popular character, and this is a build that will lend itself for a lot of play. Considering the number of smaller parts there are also a sizable number of extras included. This set would work well in a holiday setting - I plan on including it in my Winter Village display when I assemble it a little later this year.
For those Frozen fans - or those who have children who are Frozen fans - this may well be worth planning a purchase in the next several days in order to get this promotion, and could even be considered a nice bonus. If you're not quite as motivated, however, even with including this set, I'm not sure it quite offsets the price of the Frozen II sets.
Many thanks to The LEGO Group for providing a copy of this set for review. All opinions expressed are mine.
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18 comments on this article
Nice build, not sure it saves the Frozen 2 sets from a super high price.
I just want all the yellow leaves in the Frozen sets. I'll probably just get them on Bricklink or something though.
Such a sweet little set. :) So much play potential in this one.
Nice review @MeganL
The frozen series 1 sets were heavily duscounted so probably best to wait then pick up a bargain...
The Olaf figure is a nice addition with a special body design, and this does capture a scene from the Frozen Christmas movie. I understand how promotional sets are distributed with purchase, but I wish the range of sets to get him was larger.
The set is nice with great parts. I like the tree, but it needs more decoration. Surely there's a way to incorporate more studs halfway up the tree.
Not much appeal to me, but a very nice tree nonetheless.
I'm not getting any of the other Frozen II sets so I'm not going to bother with this set. The Frozen sets would be so much better if they were a little cheaper and included minifigures instead of minidolls, when does lego/disney realise boys/men like those movies too?
Wow, I finally looked at the prices I keep seeing mentioned--no wonder there's a fuss. I thought Star Wars pricing was rough... Still, this is a cute set, I hope it helps soften the blow for anyone getting them.
A couple years ago there was a great tongue-in-cheek article on the history of the different snowmen that have been made over the years. Does anyone know where that can be found?
@MrJackson - I think you're talking about this one:
https://brickset.com/article/25843
Though as it's a couple years old, it may be worth updating it sometime.
Who needs the imperial star destroyer when you have Olaf’s travelling sleigh!
@Guyon2002- Can't argue with the high prices, although Amazon already has everything except Arendelle Castle and Olaf 20% off. I can argue with the minidoll statement though- what makes you think that boys/men can't enjoy a well-made Lego set just because it has minidolls instead of minifigures? I think the Frozen characters work far better as minidolls when you compare Elsa and Anna's minidolls and minifigures to their onscreen counterparts. I prefer minifigures but minidolls are a refreshingly different style and especially work well for the Disney sets.
Love the new Olaf! Looks like a nice little freebie set.
I think the part used for the gift boxes was introduced for the series 18 CMFs.
I always thought Olaf would look better if the mouth insert was printed light or dark bluish grey, because that is how he appears in the movie. Can't be that hard to print that area, as evidenced by many intricately printed pieces, especially with the various CMF series.
Plus, as nice as this GWP is, the RRPs are an insult, to say the least.
Any set that needs massive discounts in the first place to become fair value is.
AustinPowers, you want more printing on Loaf? That will be another 10% increase in the price.
@David1985: in the case of this set, I wouldn't mind, as 0 Euro plus 10% is still 0 Euro.
;-)