Captain Blockbeard

I ordered the Petshop way back in mid-March, and finally today, I have received the official email that my order shipped. Definitely looking forward to assembling it along with the Detective's Office I received recently!

Similar to the topic creator, I ordered a Petshop along with the new Detective Office a few weeks ago and have since received the latter. I hope that Lego keeps a sufficient inventory of available sets that so long as I ordered the Petshop before it received the permanent "out of stock" label, I will still receive the set. There is no rush to receive it, but I have not received any emails since notifying me of the order status. Recently, I saw the Petshop status on the S@H website change temporarily from "expected to ship in 30 days" to "expected to ship April 4th" (or some date similar to that) before returning to the "expected to ship in 30 days". I had my hopes that the temporary switch meant my order may be shipped soon. Also, I genuinely hope that the Palace Cinema will remain available for a while longer. I've noticed it has been temporarily out of stock just as often lately as the Petshop. It was my intention to purchase the Palace Cinema (and perhaps the Parisian Restaurant) during Lego's other double VIP point event later in Fall 2015. I've only just now decided to enter the modular world and wished to acquire the four currently available sets.

On the rare occasion that I see job postings/openings for Lego, the offerings are either for graphic designers, store managers, and various business-oriented professions. As someone with an engineering background that includes material testing, I have always wondered if Lego ever posts openings for materials testers. I assume Lego performs engineering-style examinations of their plastic parts' tolerances of stress, strain, fatigue life, etc.

After having seen the image of the box and packets on Brickset, I came to see if the "series 12 or not" line of thought had been discussed here...and it clearly has. I'm taking the side of "it's not Series 12," but I don't see that as something about which to be overly concerned. However, I do hope that this collection will be more widely distributed compared to the GB Olympic collectible minifigures that remained exclusive (in an official sense) to Europe. Sadly, I was unable to fully complete a GB Olympic set through third party sellers (without accepting outrageous prices). No matter the naming scheme, I look forward to this series based on the movie arriving, hopefully, in January with Series 12 returning in April/May after the brief hiatus. At least, that seems like a logical release schedule.

That last figure looks great, but it's the face print on the criminal that has caught my eyes. I could make a decent Zorro minifigure with that head.

While I like nearly every modular Lego has offered and wish I could afford one of them, I must say that I absolutely love this particular set over the rest (with the exception of the Green Grocer, my all-time favorite). If I were to buy just one modular, the Parisian Restaurant would be it.

This will certainly undermine my plan to buy last year's Winter Village Cottage when it returns to stores later this month. Typically, I only buy exclusives at the official Lego store, saving coupons and VIP points specifically for those purchases. I can already buy non-exclusives for reduced rates on Amazon or in local brick and mortar toy stores.

Both sets are fantastic, but I'll probably aim only for acquiring the Christmas Tree Vendor. I can't recall what the minimum required amount spent at S@H was in previous years for these holiday limited edition sets, but hopefully, purchasing the Winter Village Cottage this year will be sufficient to nab a set.

I've been holding off on purchasing the Winter Cottage, but after reading this thread, I may have to finally acquire the set this holiday season since there's a strong chance it may not be available holiday 2014. It's a shame that the Bakery (and possibly the post office too) has been discontinued. I would have loved to buy a duplicate as a parts pack to make my own Winter Village shop.

^I agree that Lego Space should have its share of human villains again. In a sense, the Space theme has been a bit racist with all aliens categorized as "evil." My top picks are: Blacktron, M-Tron, Ice Planet, and Spyrius.

Thanks for the excellent review! This is one of the 2013 City sets that I've been looking forward to for quite some time along with the Octan Race Car & Truck.

I must tend towards the opposite extreme since I rarely disassemble any of my MOCs. Some built 15+ years ago still sit on shelves alongside official Lego sets. Lately, I've focused myself on just one large-scale MOC per year to keep the hobby affordable since for each new project, I must place a series of substantial orders on Bricklink. For me, disassembling older MOCs would not help with new projects as I now try to make each new MOC use a fresh palette of colors that I consider "new" or "experimental" since the colors are either uncommon or non-existent in my current collection.

I was skeptical when the earliest image became available, but now that the minifigures are confirmed (and looking quite excellent!), I find myself nearly sold on it. It just depends on the price. For the piece count, I'm hoping for 29.99 USD at most but expecting it to be higher.

The set has a number of fantastic pieces that, individually, are great to see, but the overall set is the absolute worst in the Winter Village line for me. From the pictures, I can't imagine how there are more than 1200 parts,, and the price is ludicrous. Even an earlier rumored estimate of 89.99 USD seemed steep so I expected much more than this. Now, to see a price $10 and for much less, it is disappointing. I realize it is more of a carnival and not a true outdoor market, but the color scheme feels jarring to me compared to the more subdued color palettes of past winter village sets (dark orange, dark green, reddish brown, tan, dark red, etc.). Last year, the light blue color scheme of the cottage was a prominent factor in disliking the set. This year, I feel colors are an issue again. I prefer greater cohesion in my winter village.