Review: Mickey and Friends Wave

LEGO recently released a new theme Mickey and Friends, marked as 4+ so directed to little kids transitioning from DUPLO to a more classic LEGO system, picturing some iconic characters from the Disney world such as Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Goofy and of course Mickey and Minnie.

The entire wave includes 5 sets and in this review we’re going to have a look at each one, tested also by the wise hands of my two daughters, the 6-years old builder and the 3-years old tester/smasher!

Overall building experience

I’ve not built any of these sets, delegating all the fun work to my daughter, just to test the 4+ suggestion.

This is an extensive interview with her about the experience:

It was easy to build? 
A little easy, a little difficult when I didn’t understand things
It was fun?
Yes
Which was your favourite set?
The kiosk
Why?
Because is pink and has the girls
Which is your favourite minifig?
Minnie with the yellow skirt

So many interesting insights! Thank you!

Mickey Mouse’s Propeller Plane (10772)

This is the smallest of the wave, priced at £8.99 / $9.99 / 9.99€.

The plane is very sturdy and super fun to play with. Is definitely the best build of the wave to me. 
My daughters played a lot with it and even my little one had no problem in making it fly down the table.

The propeller gear is so smooth that you can almost relax by spinning it.

Included in the set you have a small flag and a maintenance station to keep your plane always ready to fly!

About the minifigure, I’m not a huge fan of Mickey’s pilot version but is a nice diversification of the subject.

Minnie Mouse’s Ice Cream Shop (10773)

This set is priced at £17.99 / $19.99 / 19.99€ and it’s a good value in my opinion.

The ice cream kiosk is small but well thought out, with some flavours choices for your customers. On the back, you have the cash desk and a fridge where you can store your ingredients or toppings.

Included there’s also a comfortable chair with a beach umbrella and a car for your free runs to the sea.

The set includes Minnie and Daisy in a very nice outfit, which is also the most critical part: my little one almost teared the skirts apart trying to remove them.

Unfortunately, there’s not even a print for Daisy’s tail, so better not lose the skirt!

Mickey Mouse & Minnie Mouse’s Space Rocket (10774)

This set is priced at  £17.99 / $19.99 / 19.99€ and also in this case is a good price/value ratio.

The rocket is sturdy and very well done even if it uses few pieces. There’s a fun print of the cockpit with a visitor inside.

There’s a better destination for two mice than a moon made of cheese?

The interiors are well designed, with enough space to sit both characters for their long trip.

The space station is super easy to build and has an exclusive printed screen with information about your space exploration.

The set includes a couple of crystals and a transparent rock with a surprise: an alien!

This alien is named “Planet” (according to what my daughter told me) and is a simple build with a printed piece picturing a funny expression.

What I feel missing here is a small rover to drive for the explorations. It would have been a nice addition.

The figures are identical. The only difference is the print on the faces and the bow on Minnie’s head.

Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck’s Farm (10775)

This set is priced at £27.99 / $29.99 / 29.99€ which to me looks a bit high for a 4+ but includes two minifigures, Donald Duck and Mickey in farmer outfit, and four animals, a chicken, a rabbit, an ovine and a horse, which is the same that we’ve already seen in the 21325 Medieval Blacksmith.

The barn is quite simple, nothing really interesting for the eye, but the winch guarantees a lot of play value for the kids, making them try to lift up literally everything in the set.

The tractor is a funny little build, is extremely cool in my opinion and it plays a lot of value especially in street races with Daisy’s car and the plane.

To complete the set we have a small chicken coop and a couple of white fences which are supposed to be a deterrent for the horse’s desire of freedom.

The elephant sheep in the room

Surely it is not going unnoticed to the watchful eye the presence of a new mould for an animal: the sheep.

Finally! I’m pretty sure there are hordes of collectors wanting a herd of sheep. A herd of tons of sheep. A herd of herds of sheep.

Unfortunately there’s only one in this set, but better than nothing!

The sheep is probably a Suffolk, the same breed as Shaun the Sheep with the black head. I must confess that is very well done, I hope to see more of those in the future.

Mickey & Friends Fire Truck & Station (10776)

This set is the biggest of the wave and is priced at £44.99 / $39.99 / 49.99€ which is very high.

The firestation is very appealing but difficult to place in any city. The two side towers are attached with a clip and can be easily removed, even unintentionally.

There’s also a small pole on the front to make the figures slide down from the top of the building. Never been used by my daughters because the slide was too short.

The fire truck that comes with the set was highly used along with other vehicles of the wave for the already mentioned street races.

This set comes with 3 minifigs: Mickey and Minnie in firefighter’s uniform and Goofy which was only released in the set number 71044 Disney Train and Station.

Must be noticed though that the two minifigs are different, the one in the train set is more detailed, with the legs printed and a different print on the torso.

There’s also  Pluto, Mickey’s trusty dog,  which appears for the first time ever in LEGO sets.

I think that its color is a bit weird to me. Is yellow, but is too bright for me. Probably the right color should have been orange, dark orange, medium nougat or even a darker yellow. Maybe we will see it again with the right tone in another (expensive?) set.

Behind the scenes

Since the beginning I wanted to shoot a picture with all the characters in it.

Having an ice cream kiosk, the best candidate for the location was surely a beach where all Mickey’s friends could relax after an intense photoshooting.

Due to Mickey’s and Minnie’s different outfits I had to choose which character version I want in the picture.

Since I wanted at least an element of every set in this picture, I decided to go with the airplane from the small set (I told you: not a fan of the minifigure), the rocket because is cool, the kiosk, Goofy and Pluto from the firefighter’s set and Donald and a couple of animals (someone said sheep?) from the farm.

Having chosen the rocket I thought it would have been fun to show Minnie and Mickey searching for an ice cream after a long trip in space, so I’ve gone for the version from that set.

For the beach I’ve used some plastic wrapping paper in blue and real sand. I’ve built a small hill on the back to hide to the lens the long table I was using.

As a background at the beginning I wanted to use the real sky, but unfortunately there were some not-removable distracting elements that made me choose an artificial sky made with a simple printed picture.

This backfired a bit because the print was not big enough to cover all the wide setup I’ve prepared, so I had to shrink it a little, but it was not a big deal.

As for the light I relied only on the sun.

Conclusion

Mickey and Friends wave provides an interesting play value along with some cool collectable character and even rare ones. Vehicles are the most interesting and playable part of the builds and you can find one in every set.

Considering the Pirates of Barracuda Bay a 10/10 as a benchmark and the different target of the customers, I will give this whole wave a 7/10.

If you’re interested in some of these sets you can already find them in the stores if you live everywhere except North America, where they will be available starting from August 1st.

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