Note: My reviews summarize the opinions and experiences of a 6-year-old girl and her father, both of whom have been playing with LEGO Friends for less than a year.

This set overdelivered, especially to my 3-year-old daughter, who is generally barred by her sister from playing with "proper" LEGOs. Proper LEGOs being LEGO Friends, of course.

I bought this set when I ran out of the cheaper Friends set to buy as we were getting our colleciton off the ground. I thought my 6-year-old, who is not totally out of the princess stage, would be excited about it, but she thought the princess in this set -- being a traditional LEGO minifigure -- looked "weird". It sort of makes sense, since the only LEGO figures she knows are Friends mini-dolls. I can see her point there. I know there was a revolt of the traditionalists againt the mini-dolls, but let's face it, they are cute.

The set was thus given to the yonger daughter who has had blast (having dabbled in DUPLO already) assembing and reassembling it according to the instruction booklet and her own imagination.

I have not seen the girls play with the assembled set much, probably because it does not stay assembled for very long. Naturally, the horse and the carrot were a welcome addition to any number of play scenarios.

Overall, a great set, just don't expect your Friends-centric kid to embrace it.

I bought this "basic bricks" set for the bricks, what else would you expect? The box consists of 88 parts plus 7 extras. With it you can build hurdles used in equestrian sports or some bedroom furniture for the princess minifig that is included. Or anything else you can imagine given the array of bricks and small parts that are included.

The set is labelled 'for young builders' with the additions easy to build and inspiration included. The latter refers to the small folded booklet which indeed gives the young builder at least 8 different options for building a thing.

Minifig

The minifig included is a princess from the Castle theme and doesn't appear in any other sets. Special about her is that you can build her with either black legs or with a dress. Nice feature!

Notable parts

Parts you may like especially are the pearl gold window panes latticed, the horse with moveable legs and the 12 (!) round 1 x 1 plate with flower edge. You also get a carrot and a hairbrush. And of course many bricks and plates in the Friends colour scheme.

Pros

• Price per piece ratio
  
• Nice colours: bright pink, dark pink, medium azure, lime
  
• Minifig
  

Cons

• Couldn't find any cons, but the least useful brick is probably the 2 x 4 x 3 window frame. Any AFOL using that brick today?
  

Conclusion

Buy it for the parts especially when you like the Friends theme.

So this was my very first review. I chose this set to practise... and hope you like it nevertheless ;-)