Set Review: 6416 Poolside Paradise (34 Pics)

[Widdi]

Now for the second larger set, I got at the Bricking Bavaria event one and a half weeks ago. The classic 6416 Paradisa Poolside Paradise, featuring the unique pool baseplate. The model counts only around 234pcs (Modern counting, minifigs for 4 Parts, turntables for 2). Got it complete with box, missing spare parts (needed for some alternates), but very worn instructions.

1. The Box

Got it with slightly worn, but still intact box at a hefty price, due to the Rarity caused by the glass domes included and that para-pink. The box is one of the more modern ones, which had an inner box and were common in the Late 80s- Mid 90s. large and medium City sets from early-Mid 80s, have the box included in the Hull. Sadly forgot to take a pic of the box back, so a link to a large pic on brickshelf: Box back by BS-User mbw

Box Front showing the main model in the common seaside and palmtree background at dawn

The box lid including some more alternate models.

This are all contents, including that great baseplate

2. Lid Alternates

As always when building Medium sets I'll do the alternates first, this time I made all of them. First the two smaller alternates on the lid, which show a dance scene and a garden scene.

2.1. The Garden

That's the garden scene while building, had to replace one needed 1x1 with a grey one

And done. The model is simple at around 110pcs but nice looking with that lounge and the pond

Back view, you can see how the relax area is raised above the plate

Verdict: 7,5/10 Nice design, but a bit flimsy in parts, especially the quite worn palm stems Counts 105 pcs and minifigs with switched parts and no panels

2.2. Dance scene

This is the other lid alternate. All Minifigs are used, altough some parts are switched between each other, making for different outfits. The model counts 114pcs and uses the big panels as a stage. The parrot and the palm are involved.

Front view, the dancers are behind the gateway

And inside, while the DJ is playing on his keyboard, at least I think it's a keyboard

Brds-eye view, the pool is covered to make up the dance floor

Verdict: 8/10 Nice design, quite simple but shows the possibilities, if you cover the pool with the included 6x6 round corner plates, you've an dance floor or whatever you want Counts 114 pcs But the keyboard thing looks strange.

3. Box Alternates

Now on to the 3 box alternate models, which makes up for a total of 5 alternate models. Nowadays you're getting your average play feature pics on the backside, but back in the 90s, you had alternate models to show what you can make out of only the set's parts. A shame, that they don't make them anymore.

3.1. Concert scene

The first of the alternates, showing a dou playing on stage in some sort of club. It's a building, but not enclosed, more like the scene models from the Lid. Build was quite easy, but required some try and error as always with alternates.

A few to the stage, again bad lightning due to fog outside

Complete view the club area is hold up by letters and the palm leaves are the stage's roof

Verdict: 8,5/10 Nice idea to use the Palm stem parts as conga drums and the pan as a ukulele. Intresting stage detail using the big 6x16 plate and some light bricks and looks quite realistic. No panels involved and 108pcs used.

3.2. Small beach House

This is the second largest alternate, but it doesn't use the plate. The model is a nice small house with a lookout on the second floor. The whole structure is just bricks and plates and some plants. Was quite hard to build it.

oops a little mistake, since the staircase is in the right direction, but not the building

The Building is quite modular at three different parts. The staircase with the chairs, the lookout and the First floor

mhh, looks a bit off-season, doesn't it, well it's november

Now back to summer, the little girl is on the lookout and the couple enjoying a drink.

Verdict: 9/10 great design and a modular building at three different parts, years before modular builds were invented (Town Junior, 5 years later). The scene looks really relaxed and no panels on that one. Counts 131 pcs.

3.3. Shoreside Cafe

This is the last and largest alternate featuring a nice little car, which is different to the one in the main model, having an higher rear. The pool is partly covered for the seats and the bar, maybe should resemble an indoor basin, since the third plate isn't used in the model. It looks like a larger version of the Sand Dollar Cafe from the same year.

The alternate car, and driver. "Where is that cafe?"

It's in build mister, will be done for the summer season

I don't know what's the side structure. Maybe it should be the toilets

The model is done, but where the heck is the barkeeper?

Completed model with the barkeeper on his place. Guy: "We'll have two Pina Colada, please"

Verdict: 9,5/10 great alternate. Nice build and a really good looking bar, but I don't know why this antenna behind the building, this wouldn't have been needed. Model counts 190pcs, due to the car, so a little bit more, than the Sand Dollar Cafe set had.

4. Main Model

Now it's time for the main model. This is a sort of villa with modern architecture and a panoramic window upstairs. It's somewhat a cross-over between the Breezeway Cafe released in 1990 and a minifig house. It's got an unique baseplate and the unique glass panels, which were only included in only two sets. The large ones are unique to this set. My instructions were punchholed and beat up (cracked at some pages), but complete and readable. had one palm stem extra, making a larger palm, the original one is only 6 segments (mine 7)

All pieces inside the box, common to this time an inner box inside the Set box and pink, due to the Paradisa theme

The minifigs. They're 4 in total, 2 male and 2 female figs.

The instructions, quite beaten up, but still intact

The car while building at step 4, imagine a modern Racers car on that classic base

And done, classic 90s roadster and even an antenna for the radio

Step one, just the baseplate, parts are added from step 2 on

Step 5 and the lower interior is done

Step 8 with the parrot in his bird house

the birdhouse is done at step 12 enclosed with the small panels

The upper floor is furnished at step 17, and the waiter/butler is still on his workout

And done at step 21, which is quite a lot even for 1992 standards and back in the season

The guy is out for a drive, his girl prefers laying in the sun

Rear view with the complete interior

Bird's eye view of the scene

Final Verdict

Design: 10/10 Great looking house, even that large Stair case doesn't disturb and those glass panels

Alternates: 9/10, altough less high ranks for some of them I'll round it up to 9

Playability: 10/10 You can do anything you want at the main model. Visiting the House with your sigfig, hugging scenes etc.

Pieces: 9/10 Great pieces, but the pink parts limit the variations, since it looks a bit to feminine, if you mix them with manly town sets from that era, but can be fixed replacing them with other parts (minus the staircase)

Price: N/A I'll leave that out, since this is a rare set now, due to some unique parts.

Overall: 38/40 A classic altough that Paradisa theme is only turning 20 next year, but also a classic early 90s City set with high playability and MOC-ing possibilities.

mFg Widdi

Edited December 5, 2011 by Rick
Indexed

[LEGO Guy Bri]

Nice review 'Widdi'. It's nice to see you have the box, and still in pretty good shape. I haven't been able to get any Paradisa sets but, this is one I wish I had, mainly for the car, baseplate, and large windows.

On a side note, I DID have that exact Ferrari F50... Did you buy that new or off eBay? Anyway, thanks for the review

[Aanchir]

I had this set in my childhood. Well, ostensibly it was my mom's (I surely wouldn't have owned a GIRLS' set at that age ), but you can guess who actually built and played with it.

In retrospect the pastel color scheme looks awfully boring, especially since the dominant colors (rather than pink) are white and grey. The pink parts were too few to use the color as a primary color in any MOCs. And I can guarantee it was hard to use the lovely baseplate for much due to its light green color that didn't match much else in my collection.

At the same time, Paradisa carried with it a spirit of leisure and decadence not matched by any other themes I had in my collection. Other beach-related or vacation-related sets tended to deal with outdoor recreation, like fishing, camping, and boat racing. But if I wanted to build a hotel or resort, this set's parts usually formed the foundation.

[Widdi]

No that one is not from ebay. Got it as a birthday present years ago, since then it's sitting on the shelf and polished minimum once every year, with car polish (Since the model is metal, like the real thing, only details are plastic so it still looks quite ok, but the left rear wheel rim is beaten up, since the chrome colour was worn out through the years.

mFg Widdi

[RXBandit]

great review. i had this set when i was little but i always assumed it was "for girls" haha. loved it anyway.

i like your dolphin blanket, by the way.

[Darth Dino]

Hi

beside this is a "for girls"set this is oneof the reasons why i have gone into my dark ages. I hate "single use" parts (sorry do not know the correct word for that) and this set has so many that it feels to be far from Lego away. I would be happy to see the landscape including the pool build with bricks instead of a single part. And if you take a look ate the many mediaval landscape topics you will see that this easily goes. The only reason is to save money, bricks sems to be expensiver than single plastics.

Btw. i do not want to be rude to your review topic - sorry for that!

Dino