LEGO Friends Hit The Slopes In Two New Cool Set

Chill out with the LEGO Friends Snow Sets!

Let us review the LEGO Friends Ski Holidays sets. LEGO Friends seems to be coming in hard and strong since the soft reboot of the line within the past year or so. But with the scene set with houses and shopping malls, it was inevitable for the theme to start exploring other ways to bring in interest and explore new landscapes. So like the previous LEGO Friends, the reboot goes winter! How does the cold icy world of the LEGO Friends reboot hold up? Is this a set that’ll be hot and flying off shelves, or better left on ice?

LEGO® Holiday Ski Slope and Café (41756)

RRP AUD $TBD.99 – CA $99.99 – EUR €84.99 – UK £74.99 – USA $79.99
980 pieces
Available from LEGO.com and LEGO Stores from 1st September 2023.

Being straight off the heels of the LEGO City equivalent, the Holiday Ski Slope and Café touches on a lot of similar beats to our highly rated LEGO City Ski Slope review. Equipped with a small diner, repair workshop, log cabin aesthetic and fun play feature, there’s a lot to love.

The Ski Lodge is a vibrant coloured splash of colour to an otherwise normally bleak environment. Bright greens, pinks and blues really sell the LEGO Friends aesthetic. But the browns and greens make this easy enough for LEGO City fans to convert into something for their LEGO city.

Big highlights on this set for me are the trees, which aren’t a new technique for LEGO Friends. But the unique colours for the flower elements at the base are a big win in my book. Other little quirks include the repair bench, which has an really nice part usage to represent a bench vice. I also really like the soda machine, although it isn’t functional like other LEGO sets have been before, but that’s okay here. Also love the hot cocoa!

This set is also slightly functional, as you can remove the snowboarders from the slope and make it a functional snow ramp! I do like that you can opt for a display-or-play functionality. Big tick here.

The three Minfigures in this set all give functional winter vibe outfits, which I’m glad to get more variability on these characters. But one character has to be highlighted. I believe this is the first ever instance of LEGO alluding to someone with Cerebral Palsy, or other likewise condition. I love that!

LEGO Igloo Holiday Adventure (41760)

RRP AUD $TBD.99 – CA 64$.99 – EUR €49.99 – UK 44£.99 – USA $49.99
491 pieces
Available from LEGO.com and LEGO Stores from 1st September 2023.

My first thoughts after initially seeing this set was reminding me of an igloo/space station. As the dome shaping atop the main build uses parts originally introduced in the LEGO City NASA line.

This set is comprised of two main elements. The igloo home and then the icy waterfall. The Igloo admittedly doesn’t hold a strong “igloo” aesthetic to me, to be honest, as the colour palette is more of a fancy tent rather than a building made of ice. Moving past this, the interior of the build manages to squeeze quite a lot of detail into the inside. I’m a huge fan of the avoidance of building straight onto studs. There are a lot of angled elements inside, allowing for three beds for the three campers, plus a few fun accessories to enjoy too!

To the right of the Igloo lies the Icy Waterfall, which is represented with a sparkle-translucent light blue fire element. This is probably one of my favourite aesthetic choices of the set. As the frozen waterfall is easily recognisable, and is accentuated by the small water ripple in the water below, implying that it is still dripping water below.

As mentioned above, I’m a huge fan of these tree elements and their multi-coloured appearance to help convey snow. Also, dog sled!

There are small things with the set that don’t exactly help the cohesiveness of the set. I like the campfire addition, but with nowhere to sit, it feels a tad out of place. There is also some sort of berry bush that reoccurs in this set, but I don’t feel like it really adds to the set at all, I’m afraid. Swap these out and give me more trees, darn it!

Verdict

Overall verdict on these sets? If they pique your interest, there’s a reason for that.

Something about these sets stands out leagues more than any previous LEGO Friends sets. Is it the cohesive colour palette? The fact you could easily convert the sets into a LEGO City landscape? That you could marry this up with the recently released LEGO City Snow Ramp of the same description? All yes.

The Igloo is a bit of an odd set, and as much as I like the quirks. Tt is massively overshadowed by the Snow Ramp set. If you were considering getting one set, and you thought the Igloo, I’d almost recommend holding onto your dough and picking up the larger set.

Both sets here are great though, and I’d recommend them either way.