LEGO Creator Fire Brigade 10197

Over the holidays, my niece got a larger Friends LEGO set and I helped her put it together (it had around 1200 pieces!). I was once again bitten by the LEGO bug. I hadn't played with LEGO's for nearly 20 years but now I had to! I looked around LEGO's website to see what kinds of sets were available - I had seen all the movie sets and what not already in the stores, but wanted something more interesting... Saw these Creator sets and I just had to have them. I ended up getting the 4 that are currently available (Town Hall, Pet Shop, Fire Brigade & Grand Emporium). Too bad the other 2/3 are valued so highly and cost around $1000 each (too rich for my pockets!) but I am looking forward to the Chinese Theatre that will be coming out sometime this year. I wish they made more than 1 of these each year! This set took me about 5-6 hours to complete and it is magnificent! I did a time lapse photo shoot of it as well (which may have increased my build time a little). I've completed 3 out the 4 sets I've purchased and they are some of the best looking sets I've seen and truly had a blast putting them together. One the best parts about these buildings is that they are designed to be connected together to make a street out of them. Can't wait to get more LEGO sets to build in the future.

If you like awe inspiring Lego buildings, you will enjoy this one very much. It takes a lot more time to build than most Lego buildings, but if you are like me, you will not want to stop building until it is complete.The 2D pictures do not do this building justice. It is a large building with a lot of details, which will make it one of the centerpieces of your Lego collection.The bricks are separated into bags numbered 1 and 2. Bags 1 build the truck, the mini figures, and the first floor of the station. Bags 2 build the second floor and roof of the fire station. I use the food storage size Rubbermaid (or equivalent) containers when I build. I find it easier to separate the bricks by color and size. With as many pieces as this set has, you will definitely want to organize the bricks in some manner before you start building, otherwise there is an increased chance you will become frustrated searching for that one small piece. Another great thing about using the containers .... if you need to take a break from building, you can put the covers on and reduce the chance of them getting knocked over.This is definitely worth the MSRP of $150.00. I am not disappointed at all that I bought it. I am disappointed I waited so long to catch the Lego bug and missed out on the modular buildings that came before this one, which are now priced out of my budget.Happy building!

We also got the dreaded set from the lot with the missing pieces for Santa present. Here's some tips and observations.1. The lot number is found (but not obvious at first) on pieces of clear tape at the ends of the box.2. We called Lego tech support and they knew almost immediately what was missing. They were also very good about it. It's a bag of pieces that they have to send from Denmark and it takes two weeks to deliver. We are still waiting.3. There are bags and books marked 1 and 2. The missing pieces are in stage 1, the engine and garage. While waiting for the missing pieces, we went ahead and assembled stage 2, the second floor dormitory and the roof.4. While this set is designed for much older children, my 6 year old was able to assemble stage 2 by himself. He was very proud of the outcome. The only help I gave was some initial sorting and moral support.5. He loves it! He wants more in the series. I'm happy that he found something different from the Star Wars, etc. I enjoy seeing him playing with it. There's fewer battles.6. A few pieces were missing in stage 2. Not many, and some we could substitute from other pieces he had...but 3 pieces were unique and vital to hold together a decorative feature on the face of the building, and no doubt we will have to call for those, too.7. Recommend highly if you can get from source carrying lots without missing pieces.Update edit: The pieces arrived about 30 minutes after this review was posted. They took 2 weeks as stated. I'd give this product 5 stars but for the glitch, and now the glitch seems to have been resolved. The delivery of the missing pieces from Legos was free of charge, of course.

The Lego Fire Brigade would be very fun, educational and durable toy if ours had worked out well and had all its parts! Strangely enough, our set needed to be returned to Amazon because we could not build successfully with the parts missing! My daughter and I build lots of Lego sets! We never had any parts missing once over the years!! Never! This was a fluke! Amazon sent out another set! To our surprise, the same parts were missing!! Now we knew we had a missing part epidemic!! Amazon accepted another return and refunded my money this time! Amazon did a review of the situation and halted selling this set until their review was completed! I couldn't buy the Fire Brigade again!! I never built this set.......yet!!In the meantime my daughters report card was sent home from school so I bought the Tower Bridge instead for her!! Her and I enjoy many hours together building big Lego sets! She is 10!!! She does the majority of the construction. I sort the parts and locate the parts she requires to build next! Fun!!Legos quality control is fantastic for the billions of parts they manufacture and sort into sets!! My recent experience was a fluke!! It was nice to know Lego wasn't perfect after all!! I seen it happen myself!!