Set Review ➟ 41430 Friends Summer Fun Water Park
I must confess I am a long-time fan of Friends. Whether or not that is mostly because I have kids in the right age range remains to be seen. Of course, I enjoy building sets together with them and it provides a clear distinction between THEIR sets and MY sets. But there is more to it. The vibrant colours and fresh designs make the sets look appealing and I am frequently amazed by how much my kids play with a set before they even finish building it. Even so, most of the Friends sets that are in the house follow a pattern: they somehow all fit into the larger scheme of an AFOL planning a city. A shop here, a house there, a vehicle to go from A to B… That makes 41430 Friends Summer Fun Water Park a bit of an outlier. I’m sure my kids will happily include it in their city though.
So what drew me to this set? My favourite way to stay up to date with Friends sets is following HeartlakeTimes. Blogger LegoMyMamma and others do a great job of making sure they review everything Friends and then some. Their exhaustive reviews give me an easy overview of what a set is about and the pictures and descriptions help me determine how interesting a set may be for my kids (or for me). In the case of the set under review, both these interests aligned. Let me show you why.
First up a few basic facts about the set:
Set name: Summer Fun Water Park
Set number: 41430
Number of elements: 1001
Number of minifigs: 4
RRP (Spain): 109,99€
There have been several Swimming Pool sets in the Friends theme before, but this one is by far the largest. It includes no less than 3 slides and many other attractions. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves and start building the set. There are 8 numbered bags, one for each stage, as well as two additional bags with elements. The instructions come in two books, one small and one large, which are protected by a plastic cover, together with the stickers.
Bag number 1 serves to build a nice assortment of accessories to get into the mood of a swimming pool party.
There is a unicorn float and three mats (each mat has a sticker). There is also a can of soda, a bottle of sunscreen (?) and some water guns. Also included is the lifeguard tower which has a cabinet with a first aid case, a float and binoculars. The characters that appear in this step are Olivia and Mason.
Bag 2 brings us Stephanie and a van/ice cream shop. The design of the van is pretty straightforward and solid. Inside there is a freezer with a few 1x1 round plates representing different flavours of ice-cream. The freezer can be taken out of the van. There are windows almost all the way round so the interior is very bright. The roof is only held in place by a few studs so it can be removed easily. The ice-cream cones on the roof are a really nice touch. They are simple to build, but make the van look really cool and in style. The headlights and grill of the van are stickers and give it a nice, rounded of look.
With bags 3 and 4 it is time to get started on the Water Park. You start off by building a little toilet, followed by a changing room, a shower and some lockers. The toilet serves as the base for the first (and smallest) of the slides.
And then it is time for the part I was most interested in: the tube slide. LEGO has created two new tube elements and this set contains a total of 7: 4 straight pieces and 3 corners. The tubes are 4x4 and fir perfectly between two arches, which create the entrance to this slide. The tubes connect through small ridges and can be rotated 360º. As a GBC fan I can already see multiple applications of these tubes. The outside of the straight tube elements have 4 studs on top and another 4 at the bottom. The corner elements have no other connection point than the flanges to connect them to the next element. Inside the tubes are perfectly smooth so a minidoll can slide through them easily.
In order to make the set look more appealing the next stage (5) adds a wedge so the pool doesn’t turn out too square. This part houses the ladder that provides access to the first level (which includes the top of the smallest of the slides) and is covered with transparent light blue elements to create the impression of a waterfall. There is a sticker at the bottom of the waterfall to emphasise the idea. The final element of this section is a large shower inside the pool area.
Next up, with bag 6, is my daughters’ favourite part of the Water Part: the sauna. There are quite a few elements in coral that provide a pleasing contrast to the prevailing blue and white of the pool and although to my eyes it clashes a bit with the pink of the floor of the sauna area it proved particularly popular with my kids.
On top of the sauna there is a lounge area with recliners, as well as a few steps that lead to the start of the second slide. Once again there is a waterfall to cover the front. This time the water falls on a ridge above the sauna area to divert the water to the sides an allow access to the pool. My favourite detail in this part of the pool is a large fish tank with a single fish in the first bend of the slide.
Stage 8 adds a second tower with flag to the Water Park as well as a fun little mechanism to drop water (transparent 1x1 plates) on the guests., topped off by a large sign and palm trees on either side.
There are plenty of fun details in this set wherever you look. There is a traffic light and instructions over the tube slide and another traffic light for the long slide.
At the start of the tube slide there is also a water cannon and the “empty” area in front of the end of the tube slide has a medium lavender chest with some hidden treasure.
The coral shaped decoration elements and green seaweed fill in some of the spaces that might otherwise be a bit boring, but there are things to do and adventures to play in every corner of the build. There’s a fun octopus element on the chest, two seahorse elements on top of the corals and a larger seahorse above the water gun, as well as plenty of shells and sea stars.
There is also a fun water sprayer at the base of the long slide. And my second favourite element: the flamingo, mascot of the Water Park.
There is only one (small) drawback to the set: the Friends don’t have bathing suits. However, this is easily remedied: just take their legs off and it looks like they are swimming and having lots of fun in the Summer Fun Water Park
We wish to thank LEGO for providing this set for review. The opinions in this review are not supported or endorsed by LEGO.
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