Review: 43263 Beauty and the Beast Castle from LEGO® Disney™

It’s been 34 years (pause to realize my age…) since Beauty and the Beast was released by Disney™, blowing audiences away with the vibrant story and visuals. The movie and its characters have become icons, and many LEGO® sets have been inspired by it. So far, all of these sets are either aimed at children in the LEGO® Disney Princess theme, LEGO® Brickheadz, or references in other sets like 43226 Disney Duos. 

Now, for the first time, an 18+ set fully dedicated to the movie is being released: 43263 Beauty and the Beast Castle. Will it be as impressive as the original? Be our guest, and join us in exploring the mysterious castle and all its secrets.

Products in this article were gifted by The LEGO Group; the author's opinions are their own.
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43263 Beauty and the Beast Castle

• Release date: 1 April 2025 for LEGO Insiders, 4 April for all
• Pieces: 2915

Price: 

• US$ 279.99 on LEGO.com US
• CA$ 349.99 on LEGO.com Canada
• GB£ 239.99 on LEGO.com UK
• AU$ 449.99 on LEGO.com Australia
• NZ$ 499.99 on LEGO.com New Zealand
• DE€ 279,99 on LEGO.com Deutschland
• NL€ 279,99 on LEGO.com Nederland
• FR€ 279,99 on LEGO.com France
• PLNzl 1199.99 on LEGO.com Polska
• NOK 3399,90 on LEGO.com Norge
• DKK 2199.95 on LEGO.com Danmark

Other countries click here

Designer insight 

When thinking of 18+ LEGO Disney sets featuring a castle, the first thing that comes to mind are the OGs: 71040 The Disney Castle from 2017 and its remake 43222 Disney Castle from 2023 (see Tim's review of set 71040 and my review of set 43222). These sets come with 4081 and 4837 parts respectively. This means we have to tone down the expectations with Belle’s dwelling, as her castle clocks in at ‘just’ 2916 parts. It's still a lot bigger than the previous largest version: 43196 Belle and the Beast's Castle from 2021 which has just 505 parts. 

Senior Model Designer Ryan Van Woerkom mentioned the choice for this size in a roundtable interview that I attended.

“There was never really an ambition to make this bigger, if we made this set 100% accurate to the film, it would be humongous,” explains Ryan. “We're typically comparing it to the other models of a similar type. Of course, The Disney Castle is the flagship of LEGO® Disney™ models, it shouldn't be overshadowed. It always felt that this should have a size somewhere between the Snow White cottage [set 43242] and the Disney Castle.”

Aside from not wanting to overshadow the Disney Castle, Ryan went on to explain that pricing was also taken into account so that fans without the space or the budget for such a large set have something attainable. Of course this did mean sacrifices needed to be made. The early concept was a bit bigger, but during the design process the model was trimmed down. 

“I think the main ones that we sacrificed were Belle’s and Beast’s bedrooms. It was something we realized would take up a lot of space, got a lot less screen time, and didn't necessarily have an accompanying musical number or something particularly memorable. There was a time when this castle was a little bit taller, but it still wasn't tall enough to accommodate a whole other floor with those rooms.”

Determining the shape of the castle was a tricky topic. Most shots of the castle show only sections of the building, so the final form is a mixture of combined shots from the movie, concept art and various incarnations found in Disney Parks. 

“Back then, all of the scenes of the castle were just animated by hand, so they never had a fully rendered 3D model of it,” Ryan explains, “so I have a reference board where I have stitched different frames together. When I was in doubt about certain angles of the castle, it was useful to look at ways Disney has made the castle in 3D. Each generation of designer and Imagineer has interpreted it slightly differently, so we tried to kind of distill it into the salient features like what are the most common things that we see across all the iterations. We are primarily focused on the classic animation. The 2017 live-action remake definitely wasn't really part of it.”

Ryan went on to explain that even picking a color scheme was difficult, as the castle comes in two forms. 

“At the beginning, the castle is not enchanted, and almost appears off-white, but it gets a lot of reflections from the rising sun that give it a bit of a pink tone. When the curse is lifted at the end of the film it appears to be almost like a rose quartz marble. We tried the castle in white and it just didn't look iconic at all; we tried it in grey because that is what it looks like when the castle is cursed, but it just looked far too gloomy – we didn't want it to look like a haunted house; and then finally, we ended up with the lavender tone, where I think it feels magical.”

When seeing the Disney Castle and the Beauty and the Beast Castle side by side, the size differences are obvious. Whereas the Disney Castle is 80cm high and sits 53cm wide, Beast's domain measures 53cm by 33cm. Whether or not this smaller size and the cuts in the rooms still make for a good set is something I’ll have to determine as I start building the model. But first, let's take a look at all the new elements used in the castle.

 

Recolors

The set is devoid of new molds, but the color scheme calls for a nice array of existing elements to be recolored. The castle walls are mostly made out of lavender bricks:

• 13x Brick Arch 1 x 4 in Lavender (6546181 | 3659)
• 6x Brick Special 1 x 2 x 1 2/3 with 4 Studs on 1 Side in Lavender (6546180 | 22885)

• 18x Brick 1 x 3 in Lavender (6546179 | 3622)

The turrets and sloped roofs bring two elements new to dark red:

• 8x Wedge Sloped 65° 2 x 2 x 2 Corner in Dark Red (6546177 | 78886)
• 8x Brick Round Corner 4 x 4 x 1 with Bottom Cut Outs [No Studs Flat Top][1/4 Arch] in Dark Red (6546171 | 5649)

• 9x Plate Special 1 x 1 with Handle on 2 Ends in Tan (6533760 | 78257)

• 2x + Spare Plate Round 1 x 1 Swirled Top / Poo in Light Bluish Gray (6546846 | 53119, 3441)

Try the grey stuff, it’s delicious!

 Try this sand green stuff too...

• 36x + 2 Spare Bar 2L with Stop in Center in Sand Green (6546184 | 78258). Please don’t count the number of parts in this photo…

• 1x Dish 8 x 8 Inverted [Radar], Solid Studs in Sand Green (6546183 | 3961)

The element that comes close to being a new mold is Brick Curved 1 x 1, coming here 4x in red (6536991 | 7126). This new slope was introduced in January 2025, and Elspeth has studied it in her review of 43272 Heihei. The element can also be found in 77242 Ferrari SF-24 F1 Race Car, released in March 2025.

The following elements were introduced in March 2025, but as of writing they have not appeared in our blog articles (until now):

• 6x Plate Special 1 x 3 Rounded with 3 Open Studs in Orange (6523864 | 77850)
• 1x Tile 1 x 2 with Stud Notch Left in Bright Green (6534935 | 5091)
• 1x Tile 1 x 2 with Stud Notch Right in Bright Green (6527816 | 5092)
• 1x Wedge Plate 2 x 2 Right in Bright Green (6534933 | 24307)
• 1x Wedge Plate 2 x 2 Left in Bright Green (6534934 | 24299)

Decorations

These window prints will be great for your large castles and mansions!

• 4x Panel 4 x 4 x 6 Quarter Cylinder with print in Trans-Clear (6541827)

• 12x Tile 2 x 4 with Groove with print in Light Bluish Gray (6541829)

What can you see in the magic mirror?...

• 1x Tile Round 2 x 2 with print in Light Bluish Gray (6541830)

The other non-minifigure decorations in set 43263 are handled by this small sticker sheet, designed by the graphic designer Camilla Thorsted Cording. 

Sticker #1 represents the painting seen in the library. The design team wondered which castle is depicted here, as Ryan explains:

“We were just agonizing over this painting. Is that a reference to the Disney Castle? There's a tree in the foreground that almost looks like a palm tree. That seems really out of place, what's going on there? It was something we were never clear on: there's no more detailed reference from Disney on what that is.”

 

Minifigures

Like most other 18+ LEGO Disney sets, Belle, Beast and the other human characters come as a minifigure. 

Belle comes in her iconic ball attire, with a new printed torso in yellow (6550966) and dress in bright light yellow (6541832). Personally, I would have preferred to also have her in her blue ‘village-dress’, as we’ve seen many iterations of the yellow version already and only one blue version (in mini-doll form), but that was cut, as Ryan explains:

“A version of Belle in her blue dress with the white apron that she arrives in at the castle was indeed discussed, because we haven't had the chance to do that before. The idea was to hide [the yellow dress] behind Madame Wardrobe, so you can swap it out between them. Ultimately, it came down to both space and not wanting to sacrifice a novelty figure, because we do have limitations on how many new decorations we can do each year. We have to budget those accordingly.”

Beast appears as a minifigure for the first time. He brings a new printed head in warm tan (6541836), a new printed torso in blue (6552397) and legs with reddish brown molded boots, appearing for the first time in plain black (6550970). Despite his on-screen size, he is represented as a standard minifigure instead of, for instance, a BigFig:

“We do have some limitations on what fits into the DNA of the LEGO® minifigure,” Ryan reveals. “In this case we were always pretty satisfied with the look of the over-molded head and his tail [bracket] giving him a little bit of extra height. I think it would look very interesting to consider a different body type, but it was never part of the scope of this particular set.”

 

As a consolation, Belle does come with an additional curved brick with dress print in bright light yellow (6541833) which, combined with a bracket, allows her to sit down.

Gaston is a repeat from his appearance in 43227 Villain Icons, aside from the addition of a quiver.

LeFou is all-new, making his first appearance in LEGO form. His dual-sided head is light nougat (6541834); his torso in reddish brown (6551090) looks very reusable; and his short legs appear for the first time in sand green (6551083).

Maurice is also new to LEGO minifigure form, although his face did appear in a mirror in 43196 Belle and the Beast's Castle. His dual-sided head in light nougat (6548920) has a new print, as well as his torso in reddish brown (6551562).

Brick-built characters

Of course, most characters in this castle are not minifigures, although that would make a nice addition to the set. Instead, the enchanted castle staff are built from LEGO bricks.

Lumière re-uses a print that has been around for 5 years now; only the white candle stumps make him different.

Cogsworth’s previous incarnations were often more blocky. This version steps up, both in the build as well as the more detailed clock… well… face.

Like Lumière, Chip the cup and Mrs. Potts the teapot don't receive new prints. As far as I can find, the trolley remains unnamed, but it does move on its own in the movie, so it is an enchanted servant. 

Sultan the footstool/dog just looks so cute. From a footstool point of view, tassels would have fit better, but as they also function as a head and a tail, Ryan went for a more sturdy option:

“We played around with the tassel element [25375, 28836], trying different versions with that, but we ultimately really enjoyed this one [the small tuft of hair, 68212] that had a bit of texture and allowed it to be posed a little more dynamically.”

Madame de la Grande Bouche receives a new printed round tile in white (6541825), where previous versions usually were stickers or a Nexo shield. Babette also gets a new face on a Tan round brick (6541822). Finally, Chef Bouche features a new face.

These brick-built characters look great, but all of them have already appeared in one or more sets. Ryan discussed other characters being taken into consideration:

“There weren't really any named characters that we felt were left out. There's a hat stand who appears in the final battle when the mob is coming in; he's got a little top hat on and he's sort of boxing. We built him, but he never made it into the model because, thematically, there wasn't a room that made sense to put him in.”

Tim Curry didn’t make the cut either: 

“I have a lot of memories of the Christmas special,” says Ryan in reference to the 1997 direct-to-video animation Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, “that we watched quite a bit with the organ character [Forte]. But then I thought, 'is that just something I like, and very obscure?'”

 

Other elements of interest

Aside from the new elements, there are many others that are worth pointing out, either because they are limited to just a few sets or haven’t been seen in a while.

The set is a great parts pack for dark red slopes, some of which haven’t appeared in a set for years. All of these elements receive a new Element ID:

• 14x Slope 75° 2 x 2 x 3 [Solid Studs] in Dark Red (6546174 | 98560), last seen in 2021
• 6x Slope 75° 2 x 1 x 3 with Hollow Stud in Dark Red (6546175), last seen in 2020
• 4x Slope 45° 2 x 2 Double Convex in Dark Red (6546172 | 3045), last seen in 2020
• 12x Slope 75° 2 x 2 x 3 Double Convex in Dark Red (6546176 | 3685), last seen in 2020
• 3x Cone 3 x 3 x 2 in Dark Red (6546173 | 6233), last seen 2013

Staying in the LEGO Disney theme: Slope 30° 1 x 2 x 2/3 in Lavender (6546182 | 85984) has been used in a single LEGO® Brickheadz in 2018 depicting Ursula. We get 57 of them here, surpassing my will to knoll.

Other elements that have appeared only once or twice prior to the release of this set:

• 4 x Brick Round Corner 6 x 6 x 2 in Sand Green (6417960 | 87559)
• 1 x Brick Arch 1 x 4 in Light Nougat (6522622 | 3659)
• 2 x Wedge Plate 6 x 3 Right in Tan (6469247 | 54383)
• 1 x Window 1 x 2 x 3 Flat Front in Dark Orange (6533058 | 60593)
• 2 x Wedge Plate 6 x 3 Left in Tan (6469249 | 54384)
• 1 x Glass for Frame 1 x 6 x 7 with Bow in Trans-Light Blue (6528176 | 65066)
• 2 x Snowflake / Star 4 x 4 in Trans-Clear (6519647 | 42409, 53972)
• 1 x Bracket 1 x 2 - 2 x 2 in Bright Light Yellow (6503668 | 44728, 21712)
• 1 x Tile 3 x 3 Curved, Macaroni in Sand Green (6516370 | 79393)
• 4 x Bracket 1 x 1 - 1 x 1 Inverted in Pearl Gold (6501308 | 36840)
• 1 x Plate Special 1 x 2 with Handles on Ends in Tan (6472088 | 18649)

The build

We start in the main hall with the large staircase, the first thing Belle sees when she enters the castle. That does cause an issue though: the castle has an open back, and with the stairs facing the doors, you are looking at the backside, while peeking through the doors the staircase is tricky to see. The solution: make it slide out! 

Marcos had the idea: what if what if you just remove it [and spin it around]? That allows us to be accurate: when you look in the front door, you can pose figures going onto the staircase, or you can even pull it back a little so you get more perspective and depth.

– Senior Model Designer Ryan Van Woerkom 

 

The removable section offers another purpose: a display stand for minifigures.

Next to the main hall, where we find the ballroom. A turntable driven by splat gears is built into the floor to let Belle and Beast spin around. 

“I must just really like spinning things, because the splat gear makes its way into a lot of my sets," jokes Ryan. "It's an easy thing to add without compromising a lot of space in the structure… it can just be sandwiched within the structure of the castle and you don't have to add any LEGO® Technic gearing.”

The finished ballroom looks great with the large chandelier hanging above. It does lack that wide grandeur seen in the movie. Instead we get a tight tube: a cramped space to place the dancing figures.

At the front of the castle are two large stone lions with round towers next to them. The towers are made out of a stack of SNOT bricks covered with plates with curved bricks. It looks great, but the build process is a bit standard, and the printed windows feel simplistic. I had hoped for a more intricate build, like the round windows seen in 42638 Castle Bed and Breakfast. See my review of set 42638 for more details.

Ryan explained why the build is not as complex as adult LEGO fans might hope:

“We recognize that a lot of people coming to us are Disney fans first, and might be new LEGO® fans, so we try to make sets that appear detailed, but are not particularly difficult to build. I'm guessing for many seasoned AFOL, there shouldn't be anything that's too challenging or wild. Nothing they haven't seen before, but is hopefully still a very satisfying experience to build.”

While the towers might feel simple, the steeple does come with a neat trick fitting double inverted slopes (18759) to create an octagon. On top, orange rounded plates are placed in between studs to create a large area offset from the LEGO grid. 

More tricks can be found on the ground floor: above the ballroom, the recolored tan plates with handles (78257) hold the recently introduced round plate with underside clip (5264) to create a circle of cheese slopes.

A trick I haven’t seen before is used for the beams in the back of the castle: two SNOT bricks with their studs facing each other hold a plate, with tiles with pin functioning as a stud reverser. This results in a rotated plate that can hold the banners, seen in blue.

This creates a ground floor that looks impressive, although I wouldn’t mind some additional width.

The inside feels a bit bare though. Hopefully the upper floors up the detail.

Above the main hall in front of a kitchen area, Belle is treated to a large meal. Belle seems impressed by the table setting, including the chandelier with forks and the bursting champagne bottles. 

To mimic the best song in the movie, a line of gears inside of the table make all the dishes dance: 

The floor is fully built separately, giving the castle a modular feel. This also makes it easier to build your own additions. 

One of my favorite rooms in the castle is the library. 

Scads of books. Mountains of books. Forests of books. Cascades. Cloudbursts. Swamps of books. More books than you’ll ever be able to read in a lifetime. Books on every subject ever studied by every author who ever set pen to paper.

– Lumière and Cogsworth, Beauty and the Beast

That sets expectations, high expectations.

Indeed, the library in the movie shows a vast room with high walls covered with books. The set’s version, however, feels more like a snug reading corner.

Throughout the movie, Belle wears all kinds of different outfits. That must mean she has a large wardrobe. Unfortunately, Madame de la Grande Bouche feels pretty empty, which Ryan explains:

“We did allocate one of the decorated pieces to make her seated dress, which was then placed inside the wardrobe so it still made sense that you have some storage for clothing. We realised it was very important that Belle can appear sitting in the dining room.”

Just a single sloped brick? That feels extremely minimalist. At least some stickers could have been added to dress up the inside of the wardrobe?

Above the library sits the attic. On one side, a secret compartment stores Beast’s regular hair, and we can store the beast mask and tail here after the transformation.

The attic holds the most precious item in the castle: the fragile rose counting down the days until the curse is final. Behind the rose sits a beautiful stained glass. And with this final section placed on top, we’re done!

Conclusion

Okay, this one is hard to judge. There is a lot to love, but ultimately I feel disappointed with the end result.

First up: the size. I understand the reasoning that the Disney Castle is the flagship of LEGO Disney, and aiming for a lower price tag will make the set available for more fans. But I think the reduced size results in a lot of the wow-factor getting lost. While re-watching the movie for this review, I noticed the massive scale and size of the castle. The camera angles are set so that every room and hallway feels massive, dwarfing the characters and making them feel lost in the building. 

None of that comes across here: the massive ballroom is way too tight, the grand staircase can barely fit 2 figures side-by-side, and the library is barely more than a bookcase. There are enough details to be found: the dining room with the spinning table is a great feature along with the inclusion of the grey stuff, and the updates of most of the brick-built characters are well done. But it needs way more room to capture the castle from the movie. 

As the designer mentioned, that would require the castle to a lot bigger. To keep it the same size it is now while feeling massive, the figures would need to be replaced by nano-figs, which in term would mean all details would need to be scaled down or lost completely.

While I was left craving much more on the dollhouse side of the model, the front side has me feeling more positive. I’m not a big fan of lavender as a color in general but in this color scheme, it works very well, giving the castle a unique, enchanted look. 

Again, I wouldn’t mind it being bigger, but without any minifigure-scale objects to be found on this side, you can imagine the front doors are in a different scale and are actually massive, and in turn they make the whole structure feel grander. Place the minifigures on the loose staircase instead of out front, and you have a great looking castle that captures the on-screen version very well, while being much easier to fit on a shelf compared to the mammoth Disney Castle.

Ultimately, the designers did a decent job within the restrictions they had to work with, but the compromises that needed to be made are surely felt, at least by experienced builders who are spoiled by other large sets. As Ryan mentioned, the target audience for this set is Disney fans first, so customers who are relatively new to LEGO building will probably have a lot less to complain about than me, but I am now craving a model aimed at AFOLs first.

From a New Elementary perspective, there are some nice new prints and recolors to be found, and the return of the dark red slopes are very welcome. With a RRP of US$279.99/ £239.99/ 279.99€/ AU$449.99 for 2915 parts, the price per part is on par with other similar-sized LEGO Disney sets.

READ MORE: Also coming in April: LEGO® Icons The Lord of the Rings set 10354 The Shire 

View the castle on LEGO.com

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