BRICKED Score: Lego Mini Disney Castle (40478)
Hey there Lego fans! Today I’m scoring the Lego Mini Disney Castle with the BRICKED score.
As a reminder, BRICKED allows me to review different aspects of a Lego set included Box, Retirement, Investment, Creativity, Kid-Friendly, Experience, and Display-ability.
My family recently visited Disneyland and then we saw the Lego Mini Disney Castle at the Lego store. Of course, me being me, I told my kids to wait until I could get a deal on the set, buy it with a GWP, and/or get cashback. So, we picked up the set a few weeks later and then my son and I built it together. Let’s dive in.
Box
The box has a nice blue gradient that stands out as the background to the Disney castle. There are Walt Disney World 50 logos on the box, with images of the set, dimensions and the actual castle in Disney World. It may be a little hard to tell this castle is the one in Disney World, not Disneyland, but both are similar and the logos confirm which castle it is exactly. The fireworks and pixie dust are a nice touch to bring the magic to set. Finally, you see Mickey front and center.
Box score: 4 out of 5 - bright and magical, but if you don’t know the difference between Disney World and Disneyland’s castle it may be hard to tell.
Retirement
Let’s head on over to the BD App to check on the retirement info. The Mini Disney Castle released 5 years ago in 2021 and has a retirement date in 2027. Yikes! I am pretty sure I’ve seen the retirement date move once or twice, which isn’t good news.
Retirement score: 1 out of 5.
Investment
The RRP for the castle is $39.99 and I can’t recall any discount being available. But, if you have seen it go on sale in-person or online let me know in the comments. Combining no discounts and the retirement being more than a year away, these aren’t good signs.
Investment score: 1 out of 5.
Creativity
Starting with the exterior Lego used blue and gold radar dishes, pearl gold ski poles, crowbars, and harpoons for various details around the castle. My favorite element usage is the technic gear that I didn’t notice when looking at the box, but was pleasantly surprised when opening the bags and putting together the castle. The design team did a great job with how the angles are achieved using various bar handle pieces and skeleton arms.
Within the castle there are details as well, but it’s harder to see and it isn’t easy to take apart to view. But, there are two minifigure trophy pieces walking through the castle. On each side of the walkway there is are tiles, one with the Disney Castle and the other features glass slippers, a call out to the fact that you’re building Cinderella’s castle.
Creativity score: 4 out of 5 - fun element choices bring details to life.
Kid-Friendly
This set is in the 12+ age range, which I think is fairly suitable for the design choices you’ll see while you build. There are some areas that I can see kids getting a little frustrated with, especially as my son and I put it together there were times when I took over like with the angled castle walls. There are times during the build where the instructions have you build multiples of the same thing, so I guess it depends on if a kid likes repetition or not.
As far as a play set, well this is more of a display set. Mickey doesn’t really have a lot of space to stand on the castle, but there is a space next to the castle he can stand. Mickey also cannot go inside the castle or stand on the bridge. So, there’s not much play-ability here.
Kid-Friendly score: 3 out of 5 - fairly easy to build, not much to do in terms of play.
Experience
The first thing you do in this build is assemble the Mickey Mouse minifigure and that’s a great way to kick things off. Personally, I enjoyed the different building techniques, element choices, and bright and shiny colors. Unlike when I built Elphaba and Glinda, we did watch Disney and Pixar’s Luca while I built, which added to the experience.
The entire build is 567 pieces, and took my son and I maybe around 30-40 minutes in all to finish the build. One point I have to mention is that there are no stickers! The glass slippers, castle, and clock tiles are all printed.
A tip I’ll share that I like to do when building is try and see what steps you’ll have to repeat. For example, the castle towers you’ll make 5 times, so start all 5 at the same time and you won’t have to flip back and forth between the pages.
Experience score: 4 out of 5.
Display
The Mini Disney Castle is an excellent display piece for every Disney fan. It is easily recognizable as the Disney castle, has bright colors, and Mickey is here! If you browse Lego s@h you can see that this set displays nicely on solid and darker colored backgrounds.
If you’re a huge Disney fan you’ll want the similar Disney display sets that’ll look great next to the castle like the Mini Disney Ariel’s Castle or Mini Disney Sleeping Beauty Castle. But, those are nice to have, not required. The one thing I’ll say I wish was planned better when designing this set is for Mickey to have a clean spot to stand next to the castle.
Display score: 4 out of 5.
Final BRICKED Score
Tallying up and averaging the scores given in each category, the Mini Disney Castle gets a BRICKED score of 3 out of 5.
The retirement and investment scores hurt this set’s BRICKED score. But, the creativity of design and element choices, experience in building the castle, and overall display are all very high in my book. As a Disney fan, I’m happy to have this in our collection.
Thanks for reading Lego fans!
TL;DR and Recap
Overall BRICKED Score = 3 out of 5
Box = 4/5
Retirement = 1/5
Investment = 1/5
Creativity = 4/5
Kid-Friendly = 3/5
Experience = 4/5
Display = 4/5
Great design choices and bright colors
Instantly recognizable castle and nice display piece
Been around for a while and haven’t seen any discounts
Can’t see the interior and I’d like a dedicated spot for Mickey
If you’d like to support us at Brick Dynasty, please consider shopping through our affiliate link for today’s set I reviewed: Lego Mini Disney Castle. Also, subscribe to our weekly newsletter and come say hi during Brick Dynasty Live every Wednesday.
Thanks for reading! Keep building Lego fans.