Summer is coming in a few short weeks and that means county fairs are starting up soon around the US. One staple in many amusement parks is the carousel, aka merry-go-round, and LEGO has released a new LEGO Creator set with the Carousel (10257). The set contains 2,670 pieces and retails for $199.99/£159.99/179.99€.
It’s been eight years since LEGO release the original Grand Carousel (10196) and fans have been waiting for an updated version. Let’s check out the new one to see if it is worth adding to your collection.
Minifigures
There are a total of seven minifigures in this set. The Ride Operator is an older gentleman who wears a striped blue and white shirt with a red bow tie and blue pants. The head piece has printing of his mustache and wearing glasses. His accessory is a printed 1×2 ticket tile.
The mom wears a lavender colored shirt with a medium lavender jacket with tan pants. The head piece is double-sided with a happy expression on one side and a sleeping expression on the other.
The dad has a red plaid shirt with olive colored pants. I do like his particular head with the happy expression on one side and a barfing expression on the other. His accessory is also the printed ticket tile.
The grandmother has a nice looking plaid blue torso with brown legs. The two sides of her head are very similar with the only difference in her eyes. She has a camera as an accessory.
The boy has on a blue shirt with an orange jacket and green pants. He has a smirk on his face and I’m not sure why he has that particular expression. He also wears a tan baseball cap while holding an ice cream cone.
One of the girls has on a light blue hoodie over a purple shirt with a star. The printing on her head shows her wearing red framed glasses with a smile. Her accessory is a trans-lime green candy piece.
Finally, the other girl has a pink and white shirt with a kitty cat design. Her face printing shows her with some freckles and a smile. Her accessory is a hot dog.
Build
The first part of the build is the ticket booth. The construction is very simple and it has a printed cash register 2×2 slope piece.
The Carousel does not sit on a large baseplate in the traditional sense but instead goes on some smaller plates like the 4x8s, 6x8s, and some 10×10 corner plates. The final size of everything together comes out to 40×40 studs in size.
The inner workings of the set is basically the simple gear system that connects to the center pillar. It also extends to one of the sides to integrate Power Functions if you desire.
The two-tier platform is built upon some circle gear racks. Here we have one of the more repetitive parts of the build as there are a number of sections that you will need to assemble. By the end of one or two of them, you’ll most likely have memorized the build. The smaller platform has some stairs going up to it with some hand rails circling it. This whole section goes on top of the base area which gives everything more stability.
Next up, we have some sections that are used to cover up the central pillar. Here we use some of the reflective stickers that have some nice floral designs. There are a total of eight sections which again is repetitive. Even though this area doesn’t use a lot of parts, it did take me quite a while to finish because of all the stickers to apply.
Following that, we have the wheel system that allows the animals to move up and down when the Carousel is spinning. This whole section clicks in and is stabilized by using Technic bars on the outer edges while some more pins are on the inner area.
The fourth bag is used mainly for the Carousel animals, the swan, flamingo, tiger, frog, and elephant. The swan is the only animal that doesn’t move like the others. The wings are on ball joints so there’s some movement there. The head and neck are connected on a clip so you can get some movement there as well.
The flamingo has a simplistic look and with the way the parts are used, it gives the look of a pole going right through it.
The tiger uses a SNOT technique to show its black stripes and has some bulk to it.
The frog is probably my favorite out of the bunch. The legs are on pins so it gives off the illusion of it hopping when the body goes up on the pole.
Finally, the elephant is bulky and uses a SNOT technique to give off its impressive look.
All of the animals are attached at the bottom of the platform and at the top of the wheel system.
For the last set of bags, the parts are used to make the Carousel’s canopy. The cloth sail pieces attaches easily on the pegs at the top and on the sides. They are held on using the white 19M flex rods.
Next up, we have the outer edges of the canopy and this is probably the most tedious part of the whole build as we have lots of repetitive building of three different things. The first are the large design which uses a new printed 2×2 book tile. There are twelve of these to create.
Following that are the little things that go between the first group of detailing. These make good use of some medium blue fender bricks to create the circular design. In the middle of this group of sub-assemblies use up the rest of the round stickers.
Finally, we have the curved areas that connect everything together. This uses some new medium blue tail piece that connect to the 1×1 brick. These attach to the first group on the jumper plates and the ends of the tails go behind the second group of builds.
Results
With that, the LEGO Creator Carousel (10257) is completed. It took me about six and half hours of building with most of the time going to putting the stickers on some of the parts because of my propensity to have the stickers straight on or very close to it.
One thing I really like overall with the Carousel is the vibrant colors that it has. The various shades of blue goes nicely with the yellow canopy and pearl-gold elements. The colors of the animal also give a nice contrast as well.
The main play feature here is the crank to turn the Carousel. You can either turn it by hand with takes quite a bit to make a full rotation or you can use Power Functions to turn it for you which is very fun to look at when you have it running. I just used a regular motor on it so it went at a regular speed but you can also control the speed of it using additional accessories.
There are also some things I didn’t like so much about the set. The first is the abundance of stickers that are used. Although they are nice shiny ones, they are a bit tedious to put on. I would think the set would look good even without the stickers.
One other thing that’s a bit off is the design of the animals. The riders don’t have a space to “sit” on them and they’re just standing on top and holding on to the pole or just loosely sitting on the swan.
The last thing I didn’t like so much about it was the repetitiveness of various stages of building. As I mentioned before, there were times where you had to build an x-number of things and it just got a little boring.
The final result, however, looks great and goes nicely with the Fairground Mixer (10244) and the Ferris Wheel (10247). One may even want to play around with it and change it out to a certain theme like the Star Wars Microfighters or even the Super Heroes Mighty Micros. I’m actually looking forward to seeing some of the fan-made changes to the Carousel.
[easyreview title=”The Brick Fan Scoring Summary” cat1title=”Design” cat1detail=” ” cat1rating=”4.5″ cat2title=”Playability” cat2detail=” ” cat2rating=”4.5″ cat3title=”Value” cat3detail=” ” cat3rating=”5″ summary=” “]
Thank you to LEGO AFOL Relations & Programs (ARP) team for sending in this set for me to review. The content above represents my own opinion and not the company. Review sets sent in does not guarantee a positive review.
When you make a purchase or, sometimes, carry out some other action as direct result of clicking on a link at The Brick Fan, we will receive a small commission.
The Brick Fan is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
We partner with Rakuten Advertising, who may collect personal information when you interact with our site. The collection and use of this information is subject to the privacy policy located here: https://rakutenadvertising.com/legal-notices/services-privacy-policy/
