Such a friendly place

We have our first ever post from Gary Davis today; he's the Brickish Association's Ambassador and goes by the name of Bricks for Brains on Flickr.  When Gary agreed to write something, he didn't expect me to suddenly reappear with a massive LEGO® Friends set... 

I'm not much of a set builder - I much prefer building MOCs - so I was pleasantly surprised when Tim entrusted me to write this review of the LEGO Friends set: 41101 Heartlake Grand Hotel. I've always loved the way that New Elementary focuses on new LEGO elements and on re-coloured elements, so that's what I've done for this review. If you're interested the step-by-step build of this set, please refer to the excellent review written by LostInTranslation on Brickset.

The Friends range continues to be popular with over 30 new Friends sets issued in the first half of 2015 alone (not counting polybags and 'tat'). At £99.99 (US$129.99), 41101 Heartlake Grand Hotel is the highest-priced Friends set ever issued and also the one with the most pieces: 1,552. The average price per piece works out as 6.44p (8.38¢), which is not bad as it includes several large plates.

The finished model is an impressive size and is packed with features that provide plenty of playability for the 8-12 year old target age group. There's a moveable lift (elevator), a revolving door, a grand piano, baggage cart, ice cream bar and trolley, sun loungers and a fountain. There is also four-seater taxi for arrival and departure. With only two bedrooms, the hotel is quite exclusive but fortunately non-guests can use the lovely roof-top lounge area. The modular construction enables some alternative arrangements and creative builders, with suitable parts, could add more rooms.

What's in the box?

In addition to the bag of large plates, there are 11 numbered parts bags and I'm pleased to say they are numbered 1-11. I find it very frustrating trying to find a piece in bag no. 1, only to find it's in the other bag no. 1! As usual, some bags contain smaller bags keeping the smaller pieces under control.

The set includes two instruction manuals. No. 1 is a small stapled manual, like those that come in a £9.99 set, and no.2 is a substantial A4-sized, glue-bound document with some 230 pages. The former contains instructions for items outside the hotel such as the fountain, garden chairs, porter's trolley and taxi. I don't why it couldn't all be incorporated in one manual, it would be much neater for those who like keeping their instruction books.

There is a rather lovely sticker sheet included. I'm not a great fan of stickers as a rule, but I have to say these are very nicely done, with lots of gold embellishments. I particularly like the hanging dressing gown, the three clocks showing different time zones and the gold control panel for the lift.

As usual, at this point my inner demon takes over—I can't resist opening all the bags together. The resulting pile of elements is something to wondrous to behold!

 As soon as I see that lovely large pile of mixed elements, I'm driven to sort them! I initially sorted the hotel parts by colour to get an overview of what treasures lay within.

New elements

Let's get down to business. There is only one completely new element in this set and that is the semi-circular window frame with radiating panes: Bow Window 1x4x1 2/3 (Element 6112306 | Design ID 20309). There are four of these in the set, all in Brick Yellow [TLG]/ Tan [BL]. Their most obvious use is to fill the semi-circular arch of the Brick W. Inside Bow 1x6x2 (Design ID 15254), and they're used in that way to good effect in the set. There is no matching 'glass' piece to fit in this frame, so the hotel will be a bit draughty (ignoring the fact that it has no rear wall!). I won't discuss it further, as it will receive its own post on New Elementary.

There is one other element that hasn't appeared in any sets before—but it's not new. It appeared with Lisa Simpson (sim010) in the first series of the Simpsons LEGO Minifigures (71005). It is of course the Saxophone W. Ø3,2 Shaft (6038163 | 13808) in Warm Gold [TLG]/ Pearl Gold [BL]. It's a nice design but unfortunately Friends minidolls can't play it due to their non-adjustable hands—Lisa has no such problem.

Recoloured elements

Now let's look at the elements that appear for the first time in re-coloured form. There are 17 in total, excluding the minidoll parts, which I'll come back to.

There are five elements in pearl gold for the first time: 


• the frog (6107741 | 33320)
• 1x1x6 column (6107209 | 43888)
• the 2x2 'macaroni' curved brick (6107743 | 85080)
• the 8x8 round tile with 4 studs (6107208 | 6177) 
• the 1x1 brick with the decorative scroll (6112307 | 20310)

The latter is new this year and has only appeared in Tan colour up until now. It was discussed at length in a separate post here on New Elementary.

There are three very useful pieces in Medium Lavender appearing for the first time in this set:

• the 2x2 corner brick (6107187 | 2357)
• 
the 2x6 brick (6115808 | 44237) 
• the 4x4 ' large macaroni' curved brick (6107742 | 48092)

There are no fewer than eight elements appearing for the first time in Medium Lilac [TLG]/ Dark Purple [BL], including five types of slope: 


• 1x2 45° slope (6109814 | 3040)
• 2x2 45° corner slope (6107202 | 3045)
• 1x2x3 75° slope (6107204 | 4460)
• 2x2x3 75° slope (6109971 | 98560)
• 2x2x3 75° slope corner (6109972 | 3685)
• 1x6x2 arched brick (6107874 | 15254)
• 2x8 plate (6109931 | 3034),
• 4x4 plate 1/4 circle (6109933 | 30565)

Finally, there is one element appearing in Black for the first time in this set. It is the Plate 1x2 W. Hor. Hole Ø4.8 (6114987 | 11458); a useful piece that has been around since 2013 which bridges Technic and System within a very small space.

Minidolls

There are five Friends minidolls in the set, plus a dog and a cat. There are three of the original five friends and two characters who I believe are new to Heartlake City: Nate and Susan.

There are no new elements here but four of them are in new colours and/or prints: Nate's torso (6115474 | 11408), Olivia's top (6115465 | 92456), Susan's torso (6115468 | 92816) and Susan's legs (6115797 | 92817). Although Susan is a new character, her head has been used for various minor characters in five other Friends sets, according to the Brickset database. Her hair is quite rare though (6102273 | 11256) as it appears in only one other set: 41095 Emma's House (used for Charlotte). Sneakily, Nate's trousers (6064747 | 16985) are hand-me-downs from Prince Charming, from set 41055 Cinderella's Romantic Castle.

Printed elements

There are a total of ten printed elements in the set, with 7 different designs, and they all happen to be tiles. None of the prints are new. The postcard/bumper sticker (6115160 | 21213) appears in two other 2015 Friends sets. The newspaper (6115167 | 21220) and the gold disc (6115442 | 21256) each appear in three other Friends sets this year. The 1x1 round tiles printed with food are now fairly common and of course the envelope even more so.

Other pieces

As is obvious from the box image, the set includes a lot of white elements, many of which are standard brick and plate—and there's nothing wrong with that. There are 531 white pieces in total.
Interestingly, the second most plentiful colour in the set is Warm Gold, with 134 pieces. Many of these are useful quantities of the 24 different element types, including a dozen 1x4x2 fences with 4 studs (6060803 | 15332) and a dozen round grille bricks (6107194 | 92947). It's also worth noting that the set is a good source of Medium Lavender (93 pieces) and Medium Lilac (81 pieces).

There is a good supply of Brick Yellow plates in the set including: two 16x16 plates (4611414 | 91405); six 8x16 plates (4609726 | 92438) and two 6x8 plates (4624223 | 3036). Astonishingly, the 6x8 plate hasn't appeared in Brick Yellow in any sets since 1999 other than one earlier this year: 41073 Naida's Epic Adventure Ship. 

Various sizes of window frames are also in plentiful supply in White and Brick Yellow. There are also 21 various arched pieces in White and Medium Lilac.

In conclusion; 41101 Heartlake Grand Hotel is a nice model with plenty of detail and playability, for those who like sort of thing. For me, it's a really good, cost effective parts pack with some newish and rare elements, and several really useful re-coloured elements.

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Our thanks to LEGO Group's CEE Team for providing this amazing set, which is available now. Consider using our affiliate links to buy it (or anything); this helps support New Elementary!

USA: Amazon.com | The Official LEGO Shop

Canada: Amazon.ca | The Official LEGO® Shop

UK: Amazon.co.uk

Deutschland: Amazon.de

France: Amazon.fr

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