Back in 2016, LEGO released the #71040 LEGO Disney Castle, which, at that time, was one of the top ten largest LEGO sets with 4,080 pieces. The castle measures over 29″ (74cm) high, 18.8″ (48cm) wide, and 12″ (31cm) deep, and showcases the intricately detailed facade and towers of the iconic Walt Disney World Resort Cinderella Castle. You can still purchase this set at the LEGO Disney section of the Online LEGO Shop.
And, if you don’t have the space or budget for the large castle, starting next month (October), you can also get a mini version. The #40478 LEGO Disney Castle comes with 567 pieces and it measures over 8″ (21 cm) high, 5.5″ (14 cm) wide, and 5.5″ (13 cm) deep. While the mini Disney Castle is much smaller, it still packs in plenty of beautiful details and unique pieces, so let’s take a closer look.
#40478 LEGO Disney Castle comes with a small booklet containing the instructions, as well as a few words about the actual Cinderella Castle at the heart of the Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.
The pieces are divided into four bags to break down the building process into easily digestible sections. First, you’re instructed to build the single Mickey minifigure, unique to this set. Besides Mickey, there are three black micro-figures (one is an extra), which are placed inside the castle hallway (I assume they represent visitors).
The mini castle is built on a 14×18 stud black platform, which makes this set similar to the LEGO Architecture buildings (no nameplate though).
As mentioned above, the castle has an interior, but this is not easily accessible once you assemble the entire structure. It’s too bad as the hallway features two printed elements; a 1×2 tile with Cinderella’s glass slippers, and a 2×3 tile with a print of Cinderella’s Castle. Both pieces appeared in other sets, but they are still considered rare. The third printed piece is the ornate clock above the entry gate. This piece is unique to the set and looks wonderful. I should also mention that there are no stickers in this set.
Most of the walls on the first floor are built of small light-gray bricks, arches, and round bricks in the shape of a cross. The angled walls are then built separately and then clipped in using robot arms and small bars.
The middle tower uses some interesting building techniques as well, using mostly white, gold, and blue pieces. I especially like the three arched windows at the back with opalescent trans-black windowpanes (opalescent colors are called satin on BrickLink).
Speaking of opalescent, a special feature of this set is that the roofs of the round towers are made of opalescent trans-blue dishes and cones. This unique color gives the roofs a special pearly glow. And they look especially nice combined with all the gold decorative pieces.
Overall, this set is a joy to build. It’s small, but it is full of interesting building techniques, and there are only a few repeating steps (mostly the five round towers). I really like all the angles and little details using special pieces. It’s micro-building at its best. The only negative I can think of is that the interior is no longer accessible once the castle is built, so you might want to keep out the micro-figures and printed tiles in case you want to use them for something else.
If you would like to get the #40478 LEGO Disney Castle, it will be available starting on October 1st. The price is $34.99, which I feel is very fair for such a pretty little set. You can find it at the LEGO Disney section of the Online LEGO Shop.
What do you think? Do you have the large LEGO Disney Castle? How do you like it? And are you planning to get the small version? Feel free to share and discuss in the comment section below!
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Is it weird that I like this better than the big one? 😀
This is a very attractive little set. I like pretty much everything about it. And I didn’t realize it has special color roof pieces! Satin,, huh?
I like it. It will be purchased for sure. The girlfriend is a big fan of Cinderella
It looks lovely. And thanks for pointing out that both the scale and the base are compatible with architecture sets.
I could use some of those opalescent pieces for a spaceship. Like others, I like the set. It looks nice. Not too big, not too small, and I see a lot of useful pieces. And rare for a Disney set, but even the price is right.
For a 567 pcs set, it looks quite small, but I guess it contains a lot of tiny pieces. (Maybe I just remember all of these castle sets with panel walls from growing up, and how 567 pcs felt a lot more substantial…)
The castle is pretty dense, similar to the LEGO Architecture sets. Lots of small pieces packed together to form interesting details. No big airy walls like in the larger castles. It’s a different type of construction. 🙂
I’m having a hard time imagining how the satin color differs from regular translucent blue. On the pictures, they sometimes look normal blue and sometimes translucent. Are there any other pieces in this color?
It’s a quite particular color with its own special sheen. I think it could ocassionally feel either milky or glittery depending on how the light falls…
https://www.newelementary.com/2020/01/lego-color-362-transparent-blue-opal.html
Yes, you pretty much summed up how I would describe it. It really depends on how the light hits it, and based on that, it sometimes feels solid, sometimes translucent, and there is also glitter in it. 🙂