REVIEW: 6299 Pirates Advent Calendar 2009

[WhiteFang]

Hello everyone once again,

Christmas is drawing near, and with the recent LEGO 7687 City Advent Calendar released, there is another world out there doing the same tradition as the City lovers. Let me unveil and share this very first Christmas Advent tradition for our Pirates collectors.

Last year, the 7979 Castle Advent Calendar has the honour of having this special advent tradition as well. Now, we are proud to have it continue over to the Pirates realm. Unfortunately, this Pirates Advent Calendar is not available in the United States market as part of the distribution channel. Exact reasons behind this decision were not clear, but some reports state that this Pirates Advent Calendar was not scheduled for release in United States.

Despite this piece of sad news, LEGO Collectors from United States have been seen to scramble across BrickLink and eBay to purchase this one of a kind Advent Calendar before Christmas. Let’s move onto the rest of the review to see if this set is worth getting it.

Name: LEGO Pirates Advent Calender 2009

Theme: LEGO / Holiday / Christmas / Advent Calender

Year: 2009

Pieces: 148

Minifigs: 8

Price: USD N.A, GBP 15.79, SGD$39.90

Resources: Brickset, Peeron, BrickLink

An image of a 6299, Pirates Advent Calendar 2009

Rear box's image

24 pieces of buried treasure loot waiting to be dug out!

For the same price that I am paying, I realised that there is a vast difference in piece counts from both advent calendars. While City Advent Calendar has a higher piece count of 257 pieces, the Pirates Advent Calendar has a miserable piece count of 148 pieces and that’s 109 pieces of LEGO parts difference. I don’t have an exact answer for it, and I will leave it to the readers to decide for themselves whether the 24 bags of Christmas surprise is worthwhile buying.

The minifigures of both fighting sides!

There is a total of 8 minifigures available in the Pirates Advent Calendar. Judging from the variety of the minifigures inside, I can’t comprehend but to ask myself, why there is such poor minifigures’ selection compared to Castle Advent Calendar. TLG could even probably thought of adding an exclusive minifigure in this set to entice buyers.

Practically, all of the above minifigures are available somewhere or somehow in the recent LEGO Pirates set and one of the best surprises installed for any LEGO advent collectors, is to look out for either fantastic minifigures or useful parts. In this case, I felt that the minifigures selection is poor but with the inclusion of the mermaid that is available in the 6243 Brickbeard’s Bounty, it raised my expectations slightly. Let’s continue with the rest of the building process and a mini story scene which I have arranged.

Seafood and Pets' galore!

While the minifigures selection scored badly, but I find that the seafood selection has done well in certain aspects, especially having the swordfish added inside. It has been a long while since we last saw any swordfish. I could remember vividly that the last time we ever had many swordfishes is back in the 1990s where Divers’ theme is introduced.

Apart from the swordfish, other uncommon seafood includes crab and clam. Other iconic creatures such as crocodile, parrot, monkey, fish and rat are also available in this advent calendar. One of the possible reasons for the low piece count could be the insertion of animals and seafood as it does not involved much building since it’s revolved around a single mould part.

Imperial Solders on standby

Both Imperial Solders are standing by, ready to engage the Pirates in the high sea. Take note of their weapons assortment, which include a mini brick built cannon and weapons holder for the pistol and cutlass. You might even spot a shackle lying at the side, waiting to lock down the prisoners.

If you haven’t noticed, could you tell me what is the annoying difference that you can spot inside this picture? If you refer to the tricorner, then you are wrong. I was referring to the shako. Do note that this piece of shako doesn’t have the printed red insignia bearing the Imperial Royal Navy logo at the top of the shako unlike the rest of the Imperial Solders existed in all LEGO Pirates 2009 sets. I find that rather disturbing and annoying, having to own a solder that is not compatible with the rest of the platoon mates.

Captain's Quarters

With Captain Brickbeard studying the treasure map carefully inside his quarters, the beautiful yet dangerous looking wench is at the other side of the room feeding the Captain’s beloved pets. I truly wonder if there is any affair behind them.

Inside this setup, there is a quite a number of useful parts including the chicken drumstick, banana, red cups, and that nice simple looking table lantern. There are not many significant parts, but some parts are merely useful to be added into your respective bins. I truly wonder how many Captains do each of us own.

Mermaid's Cove

Further down the ocean, there is a beautiful siren waving across you. Do be careful and watch out for those hidden rocks. If you are not careful enough, you could have probably hit onto one of those, ending up getting yourself drowned or a tasty delicious meal for the lurking swordfish.

The beautiful looking mermaid and the swordfish is probably one of the nicest things that this advent calendar can offered. There is not much building involved, but merely arranging different elements together to illustrate the Mermaid’s cove.

Treasure Trove

What good use can it be, when you find the buried treasure but you aren’t able to get out of it? Apparently, the sad looking bearded old man is likely together with its mate for a treasure hunting expedition, but ending up one of them killed and left by the ruins while the surviving member is figuring a way to get out of there. I am sure deep within his heart, he is pondering around his thoughts looking at these precious gems. Supposed he could use this to provide him a lavish life, but it doesn’t seem that it will come true after all.

I am quite fond of this little scene, especially having those treasure gems and ores lying down there with the digging equipment. Even the old haggard looking man is a nice addition with that long grey hair unlike the other similar looking one inside the 6241 Loot Island.

Castaway Pirate

Castaway pirate is now abandoned alone in a lonesome island, cooking some fish to warm its stomach. Unknowingly, there is a menacing threat crawling upon him slowly. In this scene, there are a handful of useful parts such as the brown bucket and the raft. It appears this is one of the few scenes that involved a small bit of building on the raft and campfire.

Spare parts

For every epaulette, shackle and cutlass given, there is always a spare followed behind them. There is nothing else worth noting among the spare parts except sorting them out into your bins for future modifications.

The completed scenes!

To conclude, I am not very pleased with this year’s Pirates Advent Calendar especially after having seen the Castle version. There is no exclusive minifigs and involved very little brick built elements for various scenarios. However, the animals and seafood made up of the brick elements but the minifigures inside are just too common, and doesn’t served a strong motivation to buy this in multiples unlike the Castle Advent Calendar.

Overall, this set is not very special or appealing. There is only a few reasons that are worth noted for getting this set which, is either you are an Advent Calendar collector or you are simply a LEGO Pirates enthusiast that need to get one set for the sake of completion. Other than these reasons, I will suggest you to look up in BrickLink to search for the parts you needed.

Summary review

Playability: 6/10 (Limited scenarios but there are some decent ones which is up to your own imagination.)

Design: 4/10 (Poor minifigures selection but average animals variety plus little building efforts.)

Price: 4/10 (It costs much expensive than previous advent calendars compared to the earlier ones.)

Overall: 4.7/10 (Not sure if I am too harsh on this, but I am not very pleased with the overall variety selections.)

I gave it a "2" based on my Review Score Card. What about yours?

Hope everyone of you enjoyed reading this simple review of mine. Comments and Critics are strongly welcomed.

Pictures can be found in My Brickshelf (When moderated)

[Wouwie]

Thanks for the review WhiteFang! I (and I think I´m not the only one) expected more from the set. But still, some of the extras are great.

Also,

[Zorro]

Very good review, WhiteFang, many will be curious for the pictures, especcialy those that doesn't have direct access to buying one of these themselves.

I still think the prize of this set is quite reasonable (I paid it 19 Euros and a bit for 8 minifigs, a bunch of animals and some small brick-build objects).

Thanks, !

[Big Cam]

Nice review, looks like a great way to get all the essential Pirate characters.

[Captain M]

Epic Review, it looks like this set will have lots of parts you don't usually find in most sets from this year. Like the crab, the clam, and that barrel...

but you didn't wait all 24 days to build it. :P

[Captain Blackmoor]

Nice review indeed, not the best calendar ever indeed but I think I should get one of those. But I also think they are almost sold out.

I'm fond of some bricks in it, the orange/yellow crab, clam, large barrel and some minifigs always come in handy.

A very nice review WhiteFang!

[Erdbeereis]

Excellent review Fangy. I'll index it.

This is a very nice set, but I don't like it quite enough to bother with importing one from Europe. It's too bad no new figures were included with the set, but I supposed it makes sense considering the theme is on its way out.

[Commodore Hornbricker]

Oh great now Christmas is ruined...Thanks a lot. I read the spoiler warning but it just didn't take. Those things are as useless as the Surgeon General's warnings!

Great review! I finally got one (thanks Dr. Steve for the tip on a good source at a fair price) despite the fact that Lego totally neglects us Americans and we never get anything good from Lego.

If you don't think this set is OUTSTANDING then either you hate Christmas or you hate Lego Pirates!

[Dr. Steve]

Great review! I finally got one (thanks Dr. Steve for the tip on a good source at a fair price) despite the fact that Lego totally neglects us Americans and we never get anything good from Lego.

Your welcome! I got mine as well, I skipped past the pics, So it will still be a surprise for me.....That is if I don't go back and re-read the review

[Bonaparte]

Great review Whitefang!

I still have to get mine, it's currently at Zorro's place (he ordered one extra when he bought his calender) and I really should go and pick it up tomorrow or this weekend.

[Oky]

Thanks for the good review!

Can somebody please tell me why this calendar isn't available in the US whereas the City one is?

[WhiteFang]

Thanks everyone for all of your kind comments! It means alot to me, to know that you find this review useful and interesting.

However, I noticed that the response from our Pirates fans seemed to like this set even though there are some weak areas that can be improved further, partly because there are some uncommon animals to add into your collection.

Also,

Thanks Wouwie for blogging my review in Classic Pirates. Greatly appericate it.

Nice review, looks like a great way to get all the essential Pirate characters.

It's a great way to get this set, if you haven't bought any much Pirates set, and wanted to get the most of it. Then, you should defintely buy this set.

This is a very nice set, but I don't like it quite enough to bother with importing one from Europe. It's too bad no new figures were included with the set, but I supposed it makes sense considering the theme is on its way out.

Guess your reasoning makes sense. In fact, most of the Pirate sets, one way or another seemed to have more than one minifig appearance in any other sets. Well, I know the Imperial Flagship has one exclusive minifig though

If you don't think this set is OUTSTANDING then either you hate Christmas or you hate Lego Pirates!

Nah. None of the reasons above can dictate my love for LEGO Pirates. Just that, this advent calendar still have room for improvement.

I still have to get mine, it's currently at Zorro's place (he ordered one extra when he bought his calender) and I really should go and pick it up tomorrow or this weekend.

Why wait? Go and get it from Zorro soon, and you can start building it before the advent tradition starts.

Can somebody please tell me why this calendar isn't available in the US whereas the City one is?

Unfortunately, I do not know the exact reason behind it, but I thought I have read it somewhere before in our discussion thread. Perhaps someone with such knowledge could enlighten us on this.

[CommanderFox]

Great Review WhiteFang

I wish i could have goten myself one of these.

The parts are Great and it is overall are very cool set!

Great pics!

Well done!

CommanderFox

[legoman960]

I have to say that the cannon that comes in the set seems more like a mortar to me and maybe could be mounted on small ships.

[Lego12]

Thats a very well written review WhiteFang. I'm dissapointed that the Lego Company didn't sell this in the U.S....but I will look it up on Amazon and such and hopefully find it. Thanks for the review of this well designed set and I appreciate it. Thanks.

[The Cobra]

I have yet to build my copy of this set; as for now, I rate it Average.

Good selection of animals and "buildings", but the minifig choice could have been better.

Why is there no Admiral?

Why is that silly (soldier) face in here again?

Why do many of these figs (if not all) look exactly like some figs from "ordinary" sets.