Lego Creator Expert 10234 Sydney Opera House

[eurotrash]

You'll look at long enough until, at the end of the day, you'll find the space for it! Maybe not this week, maybe not this month, and maybe even not this year, but you'll find a place. :-)

LOL. You're a bad influence TomLego...

[rollermonkey]

Just called the Lego store that's about 2 miles from my house. The guy answering the phone said I could get one on Friday.....VIP release date. They already have it in the storage area but can't sell it until Friday.

Alas, I'll be in Japan until the following week.

I'm 85% done with Tower Bridge though, so I'm ready. It only took me a day to get that far. I'd finish it tonight, but I have to get up early tomorrow.

[Herky]

Just talked to one of the managers at my local store here in St Louis MO and he had not heard of a presale to VIP's, but does show they will have it Sept 1...which is the same day as minecraft release as well, but he didn't know if they would get those in...if you are in the US and have heard about the VIP presale, which store was going to have those?

[TomLego]

Just picked it up at the local Lego store. They had it on display along with the new Star Wars offering. Unfortunately, I won't start the build for another 10 days or so.

However, I couldn't resist opening the box. Four instruction books with bags numbered one through four. Bags one and two are in a plain sealed box within the outer box.

The first couple of pages (2 and 3) let you know that you have purchased an officially licensed product of the Sydney Opera House. There's also a brief history of the building.

On what I find to be a bit of an amusing note, page 4 has a picture demonstrating how to use the brick separator.

Lots of big pieces, good for someone my age :-)

Edited August 16, 2013 by TomLego

[TheLegoDr]

I completely forgot it was released early for VIPs. Congrats on your purchase. I can't wait to build it whenever I pick it up.

I thought it was officially licensed. I wonder if that added to the overall price?

[Foggy]

I'm a Technic fan, been in Sydney and like so much the Opera House so I think I'm gonna buy this set for sure. I just bought my own house and although I plan to build a showcase for my Lego's and diecasts I must consider Opera House dimensions :laugh: :grin: .

[Legogal]

We just picked it up at the Raleigh LEGO Store. It looks wonderful from the box, which is huge. Hubby schlepped it to the car from the store. No bonuses with it because they have run out of this month's special, so I bought one Friends set to get the free Friends bonus, which now is limited to one set per family.

We are excited about building this set, and probably will do it as a family over a week or two....once we clear the dining room table of my Duplo, which seem to have multiplied over the summer. I pour a few parts bags into small containers and set up the instructions, and wait for someone to begin building. If they don't, I will sit down for an hour and get it started. Then anyone can build for as long as they want, and it eventually gets done. I often sort a lot of the parts by color to make it easier on the others. A great hobby for sure!

[Herky]

Did go last night to my local store after having received the email and they did have it...guess the mgr didn't know or wasn't supposed to tell. This set looks incredible and I will get it, but I think I will wait for the double points promotion. Oddly, it was displayed next to the Tower Bridge set, which has more pieces (4000 to 3000) and does cost about $70 more so maybe the license is the cost difference or possible the different pieces. Tower Bridge has pretty much your normal pieces, but the Opera House has the long curving pieces and of course base plates. I have the TB and it was so fun to put together, it's just huge...unfortunately it came in a ruined box so I have to figure out how to store it if I ever take it apart. The Ewok Village was there too and it was really cool, just like the one in ROTJ. So the display at my store, was a huge display of the Opera House, Ewok Village, modular Cinema and Tower of Orthanc...impressive builds all.

[ghostmind]

Can someone who has picked this set up, post a high-resolution scan of the top of the box. I want to get an idea of the elements and their individual counts.

[TheLegoDr]

Herky - you have to keep in mind Tower Bridge came out 3 years ago and at that time had a lot of new pieces or pieces in New color. Plus it has some base plates in it as well.

I will definitely pick this up, but I'll wait until next year probably since it will have some shelf life on it. Plus at that price I will need to save up. But I agree, best to wait until double points in October or next March.

[Herky]

wow has it been 3 years already, ok, that makes sense, thanks for the info LegoDr, I just like to build them so I don't track colors or uniqueness of pieces like others, but I know how important it is to have colors and piece types to those folks, so I am all for it to see what they end up doing with them

[Brickus]

Did anyone place an order on the 16th and have it shipped, because mine still hasn't been shipped.

[FuzzyBallz]

Did anyone place an order on the 16th and have it shipped, because mine still hasn't been shipped.

You live in Oz, you get your LEGO stuff 2 weeks later like all the people living in Oz.

[Brickus]

You live in Oz, you get your LEGO stuff 2 weeks later like all the people living in Oz.

No, when you place an order through LEGO shop, it is usually shipped the next business day. I placed an order on Thursday and it is Tuesday and they haven't dispatched it from the warehouse. I just wanted to know if anyone else was in the same boat as I. I understand that I will not receive it for 2 weeks.

Edit: Never mind, Shipped.

Edited August 20, 2013 by Brickus

[Kivi]

Can someone who has picked this set up, post a high-resolution scan of the top of the box. I want to get an idea of the elements and their individual counts.

The inventory is here.

[ChefAgf]

Got my set yesterday, ordered it last sunday... Free delivery :) and fast! Netherlands that is. First thing i noticed was the size of the box... Its Fat. The build was very nice. Much more advanced building techniques then the Taj Mahal or the Tower Bridge. It was a nice build and definately worth my money!

[jonwil]

Just finished assembling bag #2 and started bag #3. Best set I have built in a long time (better even than the Haunted House and Grand Emporium)

Well worth the price I paid for it :)

[TomLego]

Question....

There is one 1 x 2 orange and one 1 x 2 green brick in the SOH. They go under the shells and are not visible once the SOH is completed.

Why? To mark reference points?

I'm relatively new at this, so thanks for your patience.

[Rick]

There is one 1 x 2 orange and one 1 x 2 green brick in the SOH. They go under the shells and are not visible once the SOH is completed.

Why? To mark reference points?

TLG uses pieces in "odd" colours on the inside of models regularly. For, example Rufus's review of the BTTF DeLorean shows that they use, later invisible, red and blue pieces to mark the front and back of the car. I think it's safe to assume they indeed do this to create reference points. Some City sets have plates and bricks in odd colours in invisible places too, but I get the impression that's often to get rid of stocks of certain elements.

[TomLego]

Thanks, that's what I thought it might be as far as a reference point are concerned. Now, I just would like to know what makes a certain place a reference point when it doesn't appear to hold any significance, at least to me. For all I know, it could mark the center of gravity. :-)

Probably one of life's little mysteries that will never be answered.

[rollermonkey]

I think the interior of the big R2-D2 is one of the most drastic uses of odd colors where not visible. I opened that box and thought something was horribly wrong when I saw all that green, red and yellow!

My SOH finally shipped today, even though I ordered it last Friday.

[TomLego]

Here's something I don't understand. I've read some reviews around the Internet that describe this as a challenging/difficult build. I just don't get it. Compared to the Eiffel Tower, Tower Bridge, Taj Mahal and several other large sets that I've built, I didn't find SOH to be difficult. I thought it was easy, thanks in large part to the well thought out design of the 'shells' and how they attached to the building.

I mean, the SOH was, as we say, a day at the beach. It took a while to build, looks great when completed but, challenging? No, not a bit.

Your thoughts?

[Brickus]

They probably meant challenging as in sitting down for too long, It was fairly straight forward for me.

[rollermonkey]

Mine arrived today, and I'm just now through books 1 and 2 and I thought the un-numbered bags of Tower Bridge were far more difficult than this. I built that in just over a day, about 26 hours. (I don't sort my pieces and just build from the bags. I start to remember what's in which bags pretty quick.)

I actually have seen a few steps where I thought they could have added more pieces at a time in the SOH, and thus that I was being babied along a bit.

Edited September 15, 2013 by rollermonkey

[jonwil]

I am convinced now that the SOH is on my top 5 best sets of all time. My BTTF set is still on its way from Toys R Us USA so I cant comment on exactly where in the top 5 it sits but its definatly top 5 for me :)

Only way they could top the SOH is if they either did a model of something from my home town (Perth, Western Australia) or if they did a tower-bridge type model of the Sydney Harbor Bridge.