A truly massive and impressive set. Once built it dominated any other Lego we have in our house. The build itself did get a little repetitive with the white circle blocks in building the structure but there was plenty of building to share around the family.

Once built, it is awesome fun to play with. Incredibly relaxing making the cars go around and around. We were lucky enough to attach a motor and the Lego boost system to it. This allowed us to have sounds and did make it more interactive.

This was a Christmas present for myself (and the kids) and I would recommend it to all, young and old Lego fans.

We tweaked the theme and made it a pirate roller coaster. Unfortunately we have packed it up before we took some pictures.

Part 1: the build

I found the build very tedious and repetitive. It hurt my fingers to push all those cylinders onto those technic poles and it was annoying connecting all those tiny chain links together. The build did have its good parts like the cotton candy cart, stands, sign, and turnstile.

Part 2: the parts

It comes with many roller coaster track pieces as one might expect, some pink beehives to double as cotton candy, which, i may add, is genius, some roller coaster cart pieces, a seagull, and some common parts in rare colors (colours for all you british brickset users out there)

Part 3: playability

Really, the only play feature is the coaster mechanism, and that works very well so there’s not much to talk about.

Part 4: minifigures

All the minifigures than come with this set are pretty generic but one of them has a rare torso and some of them have uncommon hairpieces.

Part 5: value for money

this set provides a reasonable value for money because of how much it costs to buy individual roller coaster pieces and it comes with a good bit of minifigures.

Part 6: motorizing it

The set can be motorized with either a boost set or a medium motor and battery. I don’t own a boost set so i will only be covering the medium motor. It worked, but slower than i could crank it and it sounded like it put strain on it.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

-very awesome looking

-mechanisms work well

-can be motorized

-good value for money

Cons

-motorizations do not work well (at least for the medium motor)

-minifigures are not that good

I'm an avid fan of the theme park sets that come out annually, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been crying out for an official roller coaster for years.

So, has LEGO finally delivered?

Note, this is not a normal review, as I want to spend most of my time focussing on the actual workings of the set.

Parts:

This is the only set that contains the complete collection of roller coaster track pieces which are:

• Long straight
• Short straight
• Corner
• Flat with ramp up
• Diagonal ramp
• Ramp up to flat
• Small hill

They look fantastic (particularly contrasting with the white), and could be mixed with different coloured track pieces (purple from the Joker's Mansion in particular would likely be an effective combination).

These pieces are awesome and make the set worth buying alone.

Which is just as well, as the remaining pieces are generally boring and with a great deal of repeats to build the struts.

The price per parts ratio is also extremely good, as you get a lot of large pieces including many proper base plates and of course the rails themselves.

Build experience:

In a word: tedious. There's no escaping the fact that the majority of the building experience are the support struts. They have minor variations within themselves, but not enough to make the experience anything other than boring.

Playability / functionality:

The set required a lot of tweaking to make it run smoothly initially, and even then the force required to turn the chain / rollers at the top is considerable. Given the size of the wheel you turn manually, it (like the Carousel before it) is impossible to move in such a way to maintain a smooth speed, which makes it look visually unappealing.

However, since most of the joy comes from watching the carts zip around, this isn't too big a deal.

The secondary mechanism (brake wheel that doubles up to push the cart from the station to the chain) started off fine, but for some reason became increasingly stiff until only a week after completion, it required too much force to reasonably work. Again, this is a minor issue (mostly when being played with / shown off, this doesn't even get used), but notable.

The main problems began when I set up the set with a motor (as described in the manual) for our major annual LEGO exhibition. It lasted most of the first day without problems, but then required an increasing amount of human intervention to fix problems until by the last day it would manage possibly a minute without carts stopping.

It could be argued that the roller coaster was not designed for such long and constant use, but really once you own one, you'll want it to be running for as long as possible as it only really comes to life when your figures are bombing around with their arms in the air!

The main mechanism problems:

Here's a list of the ways we had problems with the ride mechanism (When run during an exhibition using a single M motor for 5 days):

• The cart wheels and axles rapidly became dirty, slowing them down enough to not complete a circuit.
• The track pieces became loose and unaligned from the vibrations of using the mechanism constantly, causing stoppage and even a few Final Destination-like events (much to the amusement of the viewing public!).
• The chain mechanism damages pieces and gains friction, making it increasingly hard to work. The chain jumped a lot as a result creating a constant crunching noise and preventing the smooth lifting of the carts.
• The carts gets stuck at the top with the first roller between carts one and two.
• The rubber band maintaining tension in the chain broke after the first day.

It should be noted that by day 2 of the exhibition, manually working the mechanisms was all but impossible as the friction had built up to such extremes. We also found tiny pieces of plastic underneath the box at the top (which uses movement from the chain to drive the three wheels around the top curve).

Solutions (?):

The cart wheel axles would certainly benefit from some kind of lubrication.

The simplest fix (we believe) is simply separating the chain from the wheels mechanism, and having seperate motors running each. This will massively reduce friction and required torque, and likely won't even take up much additional space as the box at the top of the lift hill is suprisingly big.

This should fix nearly all of the problems, and allow for long-term constant running.

Without changing the mechanisms though, the only real solution is to constantly take them apart, clean them and rebuild - a time-consuming process that will be needed at regular intervals if my experience wasn't abnormal.

Pros:

• Fantastic track pieces.
• Very light weight.
• Strong construction (apart from lateral movement, but it'll happily survive being lifted up and moved around).
• Attention to detail (for example, studs are left above the word 'coaster' so you can customise it by adding your own name).
• Handles up to 3 independant carts at the same time.
• Looks beautiful.

Cons:

• Extremely suspect mechanisms.
• Repetitive build.

Conclusion:

This set is massive and beautiful, and fills a much-needed hole in the LEGO line.

If you buy it you won't regret it for sure. When it runs, it is amazing, and you can have multiple cars happily looping at the same time which doubles the visual experience.

Despite my negative experiences I still thoroughly recommend this set. It should be easy from what I've written to understand why some ratings are so low and others so high, but the overall conclusion is more than the sum of its parts.

Any builder with the dedication to build this almost certainly has the skills and resources to be able to fix the issues with the mechanisms, and when it runs, it is a true joy to behold, especially when placed next to the three earlier models in the same theme.

I saw this in a promo vid via social media about a month before it's VIP Members' exclusive launch, which (almost) coincided with birthday. The set is not cheap (£299.99) but the detail and build quality looked so good, I decided to invest - and I was not disappointed.

The overall build time was only around 12 hours (assisted by my daughter). There are some mundane repetitious aspects (mainly the support columns), but the structure is extremely secure and there are some clever techniques involved.

Once built, the set proved to be very playable by my daughter, particularly with 11 minifigs included and nice peripheral touches, like the ticket booth and cotton candy vendor.

This ranks alongside my original UCS Millienium Falcon as a favourite and satisfying build. Well worth the money!

Wow. Lego has done it again. From the Mixer, to the new Ferris Wheel, and the new Merry go Round, comes the biggest and best set yet, the Roller Coaster. At over 4000 pieces, the price is reasonable. The build is challenging, but rewarding. It is quite remarkable as you build this page by page it turns into a working roller coaster with drops and turns. The 11 minfigs is a real plus in that you have enough minifigs to load the coaster cars for a ride of their life. You do not know how long I wished Lego would develop a roller coaster.This one is beyond my hopes. With this Coaster and the other three amusement rides, I have a real county fair..