LEGO Kingdoms King's Castle 7946

My wife and I bought this toy for our daughter's fifth birthday. We weren't sure if it would be appropriate for her age/attention span or if she would be ready for it. We realized, however, that even if we waited until she was 7 y.o. instead of 5, we would still have to supervise her closely and teach her how to build the LEGOs anyway. We are very glad we didn't wait. This toy has been a wonderful tool for bonding between my daughter and me, and it has taught her a phrase, "patient and gentle," that we came up with when teaching her to put the pieces together, that has served her in other areas of her life as well.The toy itself comes with several bags that are numbered so that the pieces don't get mixed up and the task of putting them together isn't overwhelming. Only open one bag at a time (starting with bag #1), put all the pieces in it together according to the instructions, and you should be fine to move onto the next bag (in numerical order).Given the age of our daughter (5) and the fact that she had not previously put together a LEGO kit with instructions before, we supervised her very closely and made sure to keep the castle and all its corresponding pieces in a separate place from her other "free play" toys. It took about six weeks for our daughter to complete the entire castle, with every detail, herself. The only thing we provided as parents was the supervision and guidance of how to follow the LEGO instructions and to offer assistance when a piece was a bit tricky (also, keeping the castle and the corresponding pieces safe and put away when not in use). There were several days in between where she didn't work on it at all, but she'd always eventually ask about her castle and go back to building it happily. Overall, the project probably took about ten hours to complete, cumulatively. It is a great long-term project for children to start to appreciate what building something of this magnitude means. It is worth the money. The quality of the pieces and the details on the people and the castle itself are everything you would expect from LEGO: extraordinary.

This is a really nice set, but like most big Lego sets, it is a bit pricey.The castle builds in sections, so you can rearrange them in various formats which makes it interesting. It comes with a lot of minifigures - my kids got tired of putting them all together.My 5 year old was able to follow the instructions - it has multiple books, and multiple numbered bags which makes building a snap. The instructions are one of the most well done sets I've seen in Legos before. Very easy to use.It took 3 of us (myself and 2 kids) several hours, broken up over several days, to build. That enjoyment alone made the set worth having, and the kids love playing with it.If you are looking for some additional castle figures - I recommend the Lego Chess Set - it comes with a lot of minifigures that work really well with this set (and isn't overly expensive for what you get).In its square layout, I was able to carry it up the stairs and it stayed together, so it is rather sturdy.Highly recommend.

My 9 year son eagerly put this together over a couple of days. He says it took about 3 hours total. Completed, it looks like the box. I know he had that initial interest, and was proud of his accomplishment, but since he completed it, it has sat where he left it. He just hasn't found as much use for it as his other Lego collections. He's constantly building and rebuilding space ships, cars and planes, but I don't think medievil characters do it for him.I noticed in Toys r Us this product on the shelf with all the other Lego collections. There is only one other piece available for it; a remote outpost. The King's Castle seemed almost out of place compared to Lego Star Wars, planes, cars, trucks, etc. products. Lego must feel there's still a market for medievil stuff or they wouldn't be making it. I have seen it advertised on TV, too. Maybe it's just my kid?I uploaded some photos of it showing various features.

This set is AWESOME! It has everything you need to have a great time. What I REALLY LOVE about this one is how it was packaged. The set was broken down into a lot of smaller sets. Each one of these was in a numbered bag and had a numbered instruction booklet with it. So instead of having 1600+ pieces all over the place and having to sort through them - as is the case with the LEGO® Castle Medieval Market Village (10193) - we had a much easier time. I could just grab bag #1 and then find instruction booklet #1 and do that one. I highly recommend this along with the add-on sets LEGO® Kingdoms Prison Tower Rescue 7947, LEGO® Kingdoms Prison Carriage Rescue 7949, LEGO Kingdoms Knight's Showdown 7950, and LEGO® Kingdoms Outpost Attack 7948.

My son got this set for Christmas, and I built it for him. I've built many of the bigger sets (Republic Gunship, Power Miners Titanium Command Rig, Dwarves Mine, etc.). For the amount of pieces in this set, it was one of the easier ones to build. What I really like about this one is the fact that each section of the castle is it's own piece of the castle. So if you have tons of legos like my son does, it's possible to build even more sections to make your castle bigger.

The box was a little dented, but everything else was fine. Pretty easy build. It looks nice on my cabinet in my bedroom.It is a fabulous addition to your kingdom.