Review: Hogwarts Castle and Grounds (76419)
When I saw that this set was coming out, I knew that I would be purchasing it. As a big Harry Potter fan, how could I not? It is a fantastic set with a ton of cool easter eggs. The set retails at $170 and has 2660 pieces which comes out to $0.06 per piece. The set has one minifig of the Hogwarts Architect which is a pretty cool idea but I think I personally would have preferred a Dumbledore or a Harry Potter. The build took me approximately 2 Harry Potter movies to build (Sorcers stone and Chamber of Secrets). Check out the build process below that was posted on my Tiktok.
The Build
So now that you have seen the building process, let me talk about my experience. Overall, it was a pretty good build. I really enjoyed the little easter egg items that were added to the castle and the dungeons. I loved that they used printed pieces instead of stickers. It would have been a nightmare to use stickers on that build. The completed set honestly looks amazing and I love it. I did have a few issues with the build that I haven’t experienced yet with Lego. There were a couple of places in the build that showed that we would be using a piece and that piece did not exist. After looking for that piece for a little bit because I thought I had lost it, I realized that it wasn’t even used in set. It was just thrown in there! Later on there was a step that had a piece that I noticed was being added but never showed that you needed that piece in that step. It made me wonder if I had missed other pieces throughout the build. The other issue that I ran into is that there were just parts of the build that seemed really unstable. It could have been really easy to add in a couple of pieces to make it a little more stable but they just didn’t and it felt a little lazy. So giving an honest review… I wasn’t a huge fan of the build.. BUT. The finished product is worth it because as I mentioned earlier, it is a beautiful-looking set when it is done. I do want to mention one thing with the build that I enjoyed was that it had a lot of Harry Potter info throughout the book that explained what you were making and a little more about each part.
The Finished Product
So now the fun part! What kinds of little easter eggs were there? Well to start, the underground areas of the build are awesome! It had a little chamber of secrets with the giant head and the basilisk seemingly sliding out of it. There were different scenes from the Sorcerer’s Stone which included the Devil’s Snare, The winged keys room, the chess board, and finally the Mirror of Erised. There is also a little potions class with desks and printed pieces that show items on the walls.
Moving up to the grounds, you have a little Whomping Willow with the Ford Angela in it, lots of little trees all around, the Durmstrang ship and the Beauxbatons flying carriage. I really loved how they showed the ship coming out of the water. It is a really cool looking part to the build. You will also see the boat house down at the bottom of the build. The castle itself is amazing and I can’t think of anything I would do differently with that part of it. I do think there was a missed opportunity to add in the edge of the forest and Hagrid’s hut. Hagrid is such a loved character, it would have been great to have that little piece in there. The video below shows off the full build and some of those little details.
Overall Score: 7/10
The only downside was the build and feeling like Lego got a little lazy in some areas but the saving grace was seeing the full build in action. Normally I am a firm “I need to build it myself” kind of person but with this one, if you want the set, you could wait and see if you can pick it up used and already built. It would save you the hassle but would allow you to gaze upon its beauty whenever you want.
Is this set a smash or pass for you?
