The Winter Village theme continues with 2023’s Alpine Lodge. This set gets away from Santa and elves and is just a fun winter scene with some Christmas decorations included. The set was released for sale on 1 October 2023 and retails for $99.99. With 1,517 pieces, it works out to $0.066 per piece. LEGO has managed to keep the price of this set at the same range for quite a while now and the price per piece one this one makes it seems like a good deal even with a light brick included.
The front of the box shows the full set built from the front side. The back shows the other side of the set, some play functions of the set, and gives dimensions of the set once it’s built.
The set contains 10 numbered parts bags, two instruction booklets, and a small sticker sheet.
The instructions are designed so that you can build together. One person can work on the lodge itself and another can work on the ice skating area, snow mobile, tree, and out house. I built this set with my 6-year old. I found pieces for him and did some building, but he put most of it together without too many issues.
Only four stickers so not too bad. It could be worse. The stickers add some fun details to the set so I can’t complain there.
The first bag builds some of the smaller items in the set. This includes a snow mobile pulling a sled, an out house, and then a tree. It seems that every year the LEGO designers come up with another way to make a Christmas tree and this year is no exception. The sled attached to the snow mobile can pull minifigures or you can place the tree on top to carry it to the lodge. The outhouse is a simple design and looks like one should with a hole for taking care of business. There is a small tree next to it which is built using the fern pieces. The top pieces are white for snow. This bag contains a female minifigure with gray hair. She comes with a cap and goggles for driving around on the snow mobile.
Bag two builds a small ice skating area. It reminds me of the skating area from set #80109-1: Lunar New Year Ice Festival. There are translucent wall pieces placed on their side for the ice and then you use plates to create a shape around the ice for them. It’s a small skating area, but it gets the job done. There is a small dock leading to the pond. The dock has minifigure snow foot prints on it which is a fun detail. There is a table with some ice skates that I assume you are supposed to rent given the $100 bill that comes with the bag and is placed next to the skates. There are also two trees. One is a small molded tree and the other is similar to the one from bag one with the fern pieces. This bag come with one kid minifigure who has a hockey stick and puck. The minifigure comes with a hat and scarf as well as a hair piece. There is a small snowman like figure in the build as well. My kiddo thought the hair should go on the snowman.
Bag three starts the lodge. You start with the front wall which includes an arched doorway and a window. There are some good details here including the shutters, some plants as decor, the lamps around the door, and the use of textured bricks and different bricks to show details on the walls. This bag comes with a male minifigure who we can assume runs the lodge.
Bag four continues on this floor with the start of the chimney, a stack of logs, and building up some of the wall.
Bag five starts to add some structure on top of the walls so you can get to the next floor. You also get some details on the inside to include some chairs with a table, a drink and cookie area, and a guest sign in log. This bag comes with a female minifigure who we can assume is a guest at the lodge. She has a suit case. There is a small gray cat as well.
Bag six starts the next floor with building up the walls. This is where the use of the new-ish rounded pieces comes into play to create a log cabin effect. I like how they did this and overlapped them to make it look like they are stacked on each other. This bag also builds a small bird house with a red bird on the perch outside.
Bag seven builds the rest of the outside (seen in my picture for bag eight) and then details on the inside to include two beds, some night stands, and a dresser. There is a door that goes out to a balcony area and like the dock at the pond, there are two snowy minifigure footprints where a minifigure didn’t wipe their feet good enough.
Bag eight adds more to the chimney and some structure on top of the second floor. As mentioned, you can see how they finished up the log cabin look on the second floor. The light brick is buried in the chimney and my kiddo was concerned he wouldn’t be able to reach it to turn it on. More to follow there.
Bag nine adds the pitch of the roof, some decorations outside, and a Technic sub assembly that allows the roof to be attached on the front section. On the inside, there is a a bed, some furniture and a gift box with some binoculars inside. This bag also completes the chimney. You build up the outer section of the chimney and then a top to the chimney that you can press in to push in the light brick and light up the fire place.
The tenth bag wraps up the build. You add the roof onto the lodge. The front part of the roof attaches to the Technic sub-assembly from the last bag. The rest of the roof attaches to some Technic parts which connect to the lodge. All the roof is made of white pieces to represent snow.
Additionally, this build includes pieces to add a tree skirt and then put decorations on the tree built from bag one. They are just multiple colors of round 1x1 translucent tiles, but they work for decorations.
Not the best picture, but you can see how the light brick lights up a window on the second floor and then the fireplace on the first floor. This is a different from the usual usage of light bricks that light up one section/area of a build.
This build comes with five minifigures. They aren’t super out of the ordinary, but it’s a good mix for playability. For some context, last year’s set had six minifigures and the previous year’s set had four.
Here is the final build. I like where the design team went with the set this year. The price remained the same from the previous year, there are a decent number of pieces, there is some good playability with the set, and it comes with some good pieces. I definitely recommend this one if you haven’t been sucked in by the Winter Village sets already.
Happy building!
