LEGO® Customer Service at its Best

I ordered the new train set on its release date of 1 July 2020. #10277-1: Crocodile Locomotive was packaged up that day at the warehouse. When I placed the order initially, the gift with purchase set #40411-1: Creative Fun was not added to my order. Then when I received the order confirmation message a few minutes later it was listed. In that time I had emailed customer service asking what I missed when I placed the order to get the gift with purchase. Then I quickly sent a note saying I was good to go. About five days later I received an email saying they were sorry for the confusion and that they alerted the web team of the issue I had to make sure it didn’t happen again to others.

Fourteen days after I placed the order, the set remained in “pre-shipping.” I was getting concerned because that is very unlike LEGO for shipping in the US. I reached out to Customer Service again just to check on the status of my order. I knew it would take around five days for a response to come in and I wasn’t mad about it. I just wanted to make sure it didn’t get misplaced.

Seventeen days after the order was placed, the shipment started moving outside of the warehouse. I was glad to see it was on its way.

Then on 18 July (four days after I sent the message to Customer Service) I received an email from Svetoslav. It said:

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“Thanks for getting in touch with us.

I'm sorry we couldn't reply to your email sooner but as you might imagine we've been busier than usual helping fellow LEGO® fans from all over the world!

Looking into your request, I see that your order has already been shipped. I'm sorry for the delay but our colleagues at the warehouse and our delivery partners are taking extra safety measures to make sure your order arrives in the best condition and safest way possible which adds to the usually longer than residential addresses delivery time frame that applies to your shipping address. I hope this doesn't cause you or your LEGO® fan an inconvenience so I've added 1000 VIP points in hopes you'd give us another chance to earn your trust in the future. You can track your order by visiting USPS.com and using tracking number XXXX. I hope everything's alright now but please let us know if not or if you need any further assistance!

If you need anything else or have any further questions, please don't hesitate to get back in touch! :)
Stay safe and have an amazing day!

We want to make sure we're doing a good job for you, so you’ll always find the link to a four-question survey in our emails. Please tell us how we did today:

Please let us know if you need anything else.

Kind regards,

Svetoslav
LEGO® Customer Service”

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First off, I wasn’t mad and didn’t lose trust in LEGO. I just wanted to make sure the package didn’t get lost. I get it. We’re’ in the middle of a pandemic and warehouse procedures are probably different. No worries there.

Secondly, 1,000 VIP points!?!?!?! I realize with the new VIP system that’s ~$5 off and then points to the next $5, but wow! That wasn’t required at all. I appreciate the gesture though.

Hats off to the LEGO® Customer Service team! I know they’ve had to adjust to working at home and the volume of requests has gone up, but they’ve gone above and beyond to help customers out when the system isn’t working at 100%. Thank you all and keep up the good work!

Have you had any experiences with LEGO® Customer Service worth noting?

Happy building!

Set Review - #71043-1 - Hogwarts Castle - Harry Potter

In 2017 and 2018, I tackled the two largest sets that the LEGO Group had to offer. First off was #10256-1 Taj Mahal, which at the time was the second largest set out there with 5,923 pieces. Then it was #75192-1 Millennium Falcon with 7,541 pieces. Well the previous #2 is now #3 and I got sucked into buying and building the new #2. Hogwarts Castle (#71043-1 ) has 6,020 pieces. It was released on 2 September 2018 or as can be seen below, it was put on shelves in LEGO stores on 1 September. The retail price in the US is $399.99 which works out to be $0.066 per piece.

I used some VIP points, bought during double VIP points, made sure there was a good free offer to go with a purchase over a certain dollar amount, and used EBates (to get $20 back at the time). Still not a cheap set, but not a bad way to get a substantial discount on it.

Below is the box the set came in (it had an outer box to protect the inner box). The tag says it was made in Mexico in August 2018. I bought it in November so it sat for three months after production.

Here’s what the set box looks like. The front shows the front of the set while the back shows the back of the set and some of the details inside the castle that are included.

The contents included 37 numbered parts bags, 3 parts bag with larger pieces and BURPs, and a package that included the instructions and stickers. Some of the parts were in the separate white box shown while some were just in the main box. I’m not sure why they had that distinction.

The first instruction book had a write up about the design team, some info about designing the set, and info about the set designer and graphic designer. Definitely something interesting and out of the ordinary, but cool for a set to have.

There are 3 sheets of stickers. I’ve seen debate on some of the sites about whether to use the stickers or not. There are a lot and I don’t like stickers, but I decided to use them anyways.

The parts box, inside the set box, inside the LEGO big set box, that was inside the shipping box…

Instructions

Set contents

Stickers

The full build is built on two bases if you want to call them that. The first book completes the first base. The bottom portion contains a lot of the BURP pieces as well as a lot of slopes and cheese slopes to make the BURPs look like the bottom base of the castle. The whole assembly is pretty sturdy and it took some time to build as you really had to pay attention to where the cheese slopes went on which part of the BURP. Normally I can just complete each step and move onto the next one, but for this build I had to pull the pieces for that step and then build. That way I knew whether I had done everything for that step or not.

Here are two views of the build from the first instruction book below.

The bags for the first book also included the boats (pictured later). I did some Googling and it looks like the boats are used by first year students to cross the lake from the train station to get to the castle and then return to the train station. They are also used by graduating students. They first appeared in the book/movie “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”

The first book also includes a minifigure for Godric Gryffindor (pictured later). He has the sword of Gryffindor and a wand. The set includes a stand that you build and put stickers on picturing the crest of each house at Hogwarts. That stand is easy to build and I like how they used the stickers to show who each of the minifigures are.

Finally, below the base built with the first instruction book is the Chamber of Secrets. It includes the entrance to the chamber and then the chamber itself with the basilisk inside.

The Chamber of Secrets

The door to the Chamber of Secrets

The second instruction book finishes the first half of the build. It includes the Great Hall, the main tower, and the courtyard. The top also includes a bunch of dementors. It also includes the minifigure for Helga Hufflepuff.

The main tower (is there another name for it?) is built very similar to the building technique of #21309-1 NASA Apollo Saturn V. I’m not sure where, but I thought I saw a LEGO video somewhere where the designers of both sets shared building techniques with each other. Anyone know what I’m talking about?

Inside the Great Hall

Moaning Myrtle’s Bathroom (top)
Moving stairs (bottom)
Professor Dumbledore’s office (not pictured above the bathroom)

Tower

Hungarian Horntail Dragon

The third book is the second part of the bottom base. It is very similar to the first base with a lot of BURPs and slopes to add detail. It includes the minifigure for Salazar Slytherin.

Wizard’s Chess Board

The room on the left is the Room of Requirements and the room on the right is a Potions Classroom.

The Flying Keys room with the broom to ride to catch the right key.

The Mirror of Erised

The set includes a number of small builds within the larger set. I will go through them quickly here.

Boats for crossing the Black Lake

The Whomping Willow with the Weasley car. You can see my review of the Whomping Willow set here.

Hagrid’s Hut to include the garden with pumpkins and Aragog (the spider). You can see my review of the Aragog’s Lair set here.

The set includes 28 minifigures. This includes 4 of the standard sized minifigures. The 4 minifigures are the namesakes for each of the houses of Hogwarts. From left to right they are Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Salazar Slytherin, and Rowena Ravenclaw.

The remaining minifigures are microfigures. There are 24 for some reason my set had 36. The 4x12 plate was not part of the set, but I grabbed it from my spare bricks to put them on.

The fourth instruction book finished the build. As you can see from the pictures, there are a few additional rooms that get finished. The first is the school’s library. The picture I took gives a good view of how the designers gave the windows the stained glass look. Using 1x2 grills and translucent colored plates it gives the windows a pretty cool look. The next picture includes Professor Umbrige’s office from “The Order of the Phoenix” book/movie. It also shows the Defense of the Dark Arts classroom on the right side.

School library (top) with the Room of Requirements (bottom left) and Potions classroom (bottom right)

Professor Umbridge’s Office (top left)
Defense of the Dark Arts Classroom (top right)
Chamber of Secrets Warning (bottom)

So here’s the final set (without Hagrid’s Hut and the Whomping Willow). Was it worth what I paid? Overall, I think yes. I enjoyed the build. It was challenging and fun. There are a lot of great pieces and techniques used in it. I was nervous at first that it would be all small pieces since it is at a smaller scale, but it thankfully is not all small pieces. The stickers were annoying, but not too bad and they do provide some nice details to the set. I think part of the argument is that each book/movie adds different parts to the castle and they weren’t all there at once (like Professor Umbridge was only in one book/movie). In my mind it’s all good. I’m not trying to build the Castle for a specific movie. I wanted to capture it all like the designers built it. So not a big deal. If you want to build the set by book/movie, then go out and buy 7 sets and use only the stickers that apply to each book/movie.

Will this set ever go on sale? Hard to say. Usually LEGO doesn’t discount the really big sets. Sometimes Amazon.com or Walmart will, but you have to be right on the site when they announce the sale to get it because everyone else sitting there and waiting will scoop it up. Using VIP points helped and getting double VIP points was good too.

In the end it was definitely worth the investment. Now I just have to figure out where to put it. Along with where to put the Millennium Falcon and Taj Mahal.

Happy building!

May The 4th Be With You!

A lot of junk shows up in the mail whenever I go to check it.  Lucky for me, on Thursday I received some mail from the LEGO® company.  It was an advertisement for LEGO's® Star Wars™ Day promotions.  From 30 April to 4 May at LEGO® Stores or from LEGO® Shop at Home, you can get the following:

     -Free Exclusive First Order Stormtroopers™ Minifigure
     -Double VIP points on all Star Wars™ Purchases
     -Free Star Wars™: The Force Awakens Poster on all Star Wars™ Purchases
     -A number of Star Wars™ LEGO® sets will be on sale

Also, if you've been paying attention.  The new LEGO® Star Wars™ Assault on Hoth™ (#75098) will be released on 30 April.  It's $249 and contains 2,144 pieces.  I haven't seen too many reviews of the set on any of the fan sites yet, but it looks like an interesting one.  

So if you'e been saving up for some Star Wars™ LEGO® sets, this might be the chance to get a good deal or at least some fun freebies. 

More Bricks on the Way

It's always exciting to get the news that "your order has shipped" and to know that some bricks are on the way to you.  There are a few on their way to me and I'm pretty excited about it.

The first order was from Amazon.  If you missed a recent blog post I had about where to find discount LEGO sets, you can read it here.  In the post I mention a few web sites that consolidate sales from the various retailers.  Brickset has one for multiple retailers to include Amazon.  You can view their Amazon sales site here (for the US).  As of late, Amazon has slashed prices on LEGO Dimensions so there are a lot that are steeply discounted.  There are also a lot of Creator and City sets on discount too.  One of the Creator sets discounted is the Blue Power Jet (#31039)  which I originally bought from LEGO for full price at $69.99.  At the time of this posting and when I purchased it from Amazon, the set is going for $49.38 or 29% off!  I should have waited to order!  I picked up another one at this price.  I'm not sure if I'll sell it or if I'll break it open and use it for the great piece selection.  I thought this set was great, but to see it on sale at Amazon like this and a few weeks back it was on sale at LEGO Shop at Home it makes me think that sales were not as good and they are trying to get rid of it.  Another thought... LEGO overpriced the original set and not enough people bought it at the original "high" price.

What else is showing up to join my brick stash?  As mentioned in my last post, LEGO is running a double VIP point sale.  It is supposed to run from 7 to 22 March 2016 in the US.  Details are posted at LEGO Shop at Home here.  Anyways, I placed 2 orders for some Star Wars sets.  The first were a few smaller sets that I purchased mainly for the minifigures.  They are (with links to their Brickset page):
     -#75143 - Homing Spider Droid (includes 4 minifigs to include Yoda)
     -#75136 - Droid Escape Pod (includes 4 minifigs... R2-D2, C-3PO, and 2 Jawas)
     -#75137 - Carbon-Freezing Chamber (Ugnaught, Boba Fett, Han Solo, Han in Carbonite)
Order #2 included,
     -#75138 - Hoth Attack (Han Solo, a rebel, and a Snowtrooper)
     -#75102 - Poe's X-Wing Fighter (Poe, X-Wing Pilot, Ground Crew member, and BB-8)
I will do some reviews once the sets arrive.  In the meantime I am waiting for them to arrive.  I think that LEGO must be inundated with orders.  I only received a notification for my second order and have not yet received one for my first.  Neither order has shipped.  This is odd as typically you get the order acknowledgement right away.  Amazon acknowledged my order right away and it shipped the next day.  We're at almost 2 days later for my LEGO Shop at Home order and one has yet to even be acknowledged.  Has anyone else had that issue?

I hope you all are enjoying some new bricks this week!

Double VIP Points and Pencils of Promise Update

Everything I've seen is that LEGO will be having a double VIP point sale from 7 to 22 March 2016.  That means that instead of getting $5 in store credit for every 100 points (you get 1 point for every dollar you spend), you will get $10 for every 100 points you earn.  If you've been saving up to buy a big set like a modular building or one of the larger Star Wars items, now might be a good time.  Also, LEGO has released a large number of new sets as of 1 March.  There are a bunch of new Star Wars sets, some new Super Heroes sets, and more.  Definitely check out the LEGO Shop at Home site for more info.  

As for me, I'll be looking to pick up a few of the Star Wars sets, but I can't quite decide.  The Millennium Falcon?  Poe's X-Wing?  Or maybe some of the new Star Wars sets that have some of the new minifigures?  We'll see.  

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If you've looked at the Brick Classifieds items for sales or at this site you know that I am running a Pencils of Promise campaign to raise funds to build schools and support students and teachers in Ghana, Guatemala, and Laos.  The campaign started on 24 January 2016 and we are giving 15% of our profits to Pencils of Promise.  After a little over a month, we have raised $13.86.  The amount is slowly going up and I'm confident at the end of this campaign we'll donate a lot to help them out.  Thanks to all who have made purchases so far!