Set Review ➟ 41683 Forest Horseback Riding Centre
LEGO Friends is a special interest in my family. Initially it provided a clear distinction between “my” LEGO and my daughters’ LEGO, but over the years these distinctions have begun to fade (if you ask them everything except possibly Technic and MINDSTORMS is “our” LEGO) and to be honest I have found myself enjoying the Friends sets enormously.
Animals are always a hit with my girls and me, and it had been a while since we went riding on the horses from the horses from the 41039 Sunshine Ranch (from 2014!) or on the horse from 41369 Mia’s House (from 2019). It made sense to have a new stable in the theme and 41683 feels like the condensed version of the Sunshine Ranch.
As usual with many LEGO sets, building starts off with a few accessories: a little campfire next to a pine tree, the perfect spot for marshmallows, and a doghouse for Goldie.
The builds are fun, but not particularly interesting in themselves. One negative aspect of the Friends dolls immediately comes to light. It is incredible hard to make any of them sit on the stumps around the campfire with a marshmallow on a stick in their hands. The Friends dolls don’t have a stable base when they sit down and the weight of the marshmallow makes them prone to fall.
Next up we immediately looked for the horses in the set. They are a beautiful new design. Their heads can move and both the manes and the tail are made from a different kind of more flexible plastic. There is also a foal for Kevin to ride.
On par with the animals in this set is the selection of minifigs. Inclusion is a big theme in this year’s LEGO sets and in this case there are two additions to that theme. We already met Andrea’s sister as a “toddlerfig” in 41449 Andrea’s House, and in this set there is another toddler named Kevin. Kevin can’t hold a marshmallow, but then again, you wouldn’t want a child his age playing with fire. There is a small hole in his hand, but there isn’t anything in the set he can actually hold. Everything is too big, including the carrot for the foal. It would have been nice to have something to put un his hand, like a plant by way of some grass he can feed the horses. It’s unclear if Kevin is Savannah’s son or Mia’s brother, but Savannah has a pair of reflective sunglasses and a white cane, making it clear she has a visual challenges. A nice way to introduce different abilities in a LEGO Friends set.
The house has a number of fun details, including some hay under the stairs that lead to the upstairs apartment, as well as a stable with space for all three horses, including their saddles, bridles and brushes.
The kitchen / dining room is well prepared and contains all the details you need to play out your scenes.
There are two beds in the attic – the sofa in the kitchen can double as Kevin’s bed so everyone can stay for the sleepover.
There are however a few minor design issues that drew my attention. The windows in this set are very low. They look fine when you look at the kitchen or the façade without the minidolls, but once you place them in the build things start to look a little funny.
It takes some doing to get Savannah to sit on the sofa. Fortunately, you can easily remove the table and put it back in place so you have some more wriggle room to get things to work. However, once she is sitting comfortably and before she keels over again, let’s have a look from a different perspective:
See what I mean? Nothing too serious, but from a safety perspective it doesn’t look like the best placement for a window, not to mention that fact that, while Savannah can’t see it, the view she is providing the casual passer-by is not exactly flattering.
The same occurs with the other windows. Mia is making tea and looks out of the window while she waits for the kettle to boil. Fortunately she is still wearing her riding cap so she won’t hurt her head as she bumps it against the wall.
Again, the windows are much too low. One of the reasons why this happens is that the height of the kitchen is a brick lower than that of the upstairs rooms in most of the Friends houses. And since the attic is firmly attached to kitchen, there isn’t much space to move the dolls around inside the kitchen.
Overall, the set provides everything you could expect. The front looks nice and has some basic details and the rear shows there are a lot of scenarios that can be played out here. Nevertheless, the set feels a little … “light” or “thin”, especially compared to the 2014 set, which also contained two horse, a foal in addition to a cat, two rabbits and a chicken, but no toddler. The price point is slightly lower and, adjusting for inflation, I suppose that has to show somewhere. In any case, the new horses are beautiful and the sets gets extra points for inclusivity.
We would like to thank LEGO for offering this set for review. The opinions expressed in this article are not supported or endorsed by LEGO.
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