LEGO Friends is a LEGO range made for girls. Following the daily lives of five fictional friends, LEGO Friends lets kids make up their own narratives in the settings like luxury ski resorts to schools, music venues, ranches and beaches. Since its launch, LEGO Friends has been a massive hit.
This buyer's guide will introduce the characters and some of its major sets. It will also give shoppers tips on how to buy LEGO Friends at a bargain in the UK and how to make the most out of your LEGO Friends products once purchased.
LEGO Friends was created by the Danish company LEGO in 2012 and became a major departure for the toy giant. At the time, boys' toys accounted for about 90% of LEGO's revenues and the company faced the need to diversify. After a huge marketing campaign, LEGO launched the first collection of Friends toys, giving births to Emma, Olivia, Mia, Stephanie and Andrea.
With its life-like dolls and settings, the LEGO Friends range became an instant hit. According to LEGO, its sales to girls tripled in the first two years since the Friends' launch, as girls across the world started discovering what LEGO can do for them. For LEGO, at first, it was a major risk because before Friends collection it never had to create sets in such detail (one of the Friends' houses featured almost 700 pieces). However, it saw soon that the risk was paid off.
Today, new buildings and activities come out every year as the daily lives of the Friends have become richer and more exciting. It's a great time to start collecting this LEGO range and its number of different characters.
LEGO Friends focuses on the lives of five friends: Andrea, Stephanie, Olivia, Emma and Mia. Of course, it also features a constellation of other minor characters. The Friends live in a town called Heartlake, where they study, play with animals, play music, sports and socialise with their friends and families. Each character has a distinct personality, ranging from being passionate about arts, design, science and sports, giving real world appeal. Here's a quick summary of what each Friend brings to the collection:
Mia — An animal lover and a sensitive soul, Mia works as a veterinarian, is a vegetarian and loves outdoor sports.
Andrea — A major arts fan, Andrea dreams of being a world-famous singer and is a huge fan of Livi, Heartlake's biggest star.
Stephanie — A life of the party, Stephanie is an extrovert who works as a writer for the Heartlake newspaper. She loves cooking and baking.
Olivia — Although less outgoing, Olivia is the brain of the group and adores science and research.
Emma — Creative and artistic, Emma paints, makes jewellery and designs clothes.
Heartlake technically has a variety of suburban areas as well, including a ski resort and beachfront area. These environments are where these Friends characters can head for holidays.
The LEGO Friends range is set in a series of locations where these five friends get together and have fun. At the moment, the locations include a ski resort, beach resort, an amusement park and Heartlake, their hometown, and they come a variety of kits. Most of the sets revolve around Heartlake and create a magical hometown feel while playing with the figurines. Several different options include:
Heartlake Puppy Daycare — A cute little set that features a daycare centre for pets with individual beds and a puppy agility course.
Heartlake Performance School — This is where the friends go to hone their acting and dancing skills. The Performance School comes with a cute school bus, an editing suite and a studio.
The Party Shop — The most popular shop in town, this kit is filled with decorations like balloons with which they can throw lavish parties for each other.
Emma's House — Each member of the friends community has her own house and Emma's is one of the most popular options. Coming with three figurines, including Emma, her mother and father (and a tiny pet bird), this house features a kitchen, bedrooms with bathrooms, an attic and a living room, all furnished and full of tiny details inside and outside.
Heartlake Grand Hotel — Probably the biggest building you can find from the range, the Grand Hotel goes with the town or the Friends beach resort. One of the best things about this luxury hotel is that it comes with three Friends characters (Olivia, Andrea and Stephanie, as well as their friend Nate, the bellboy, and aunt Susan). If you are starting out, this can be a good first product to start the collection.
The Amusement Park features some of the most exciting LEGO Friends kits and it includes:
The Roller Coaster — A full roller coaster ride, with a ferris wheel and a drop tower in the centre, this product is perfect for theme park fans.
Hot Dog Van — Even LEGO figurines want to grab a bite while enjoying the rides. This cute old-fashioned hot dog van provides snacks they desire.
The Space Ride — Add another adrenaline rush to the Amusement Park set with this futuristic rotating ride.
The Arcade — Features a collection of smaller attractions for the Friends characters to enjoy.
The LEGO Friends also loves to go on vacation, whether it's to the beach or the ski slopes. If you want to take them on a holiday, you can choose from:
Mia's Beach Scooter — Help Mia get around the beachfront with ease with this stylish scooter and a sidecar for her dog Toffee.
The Surf Shop — Equip your LEGO figures with the boards, flippers or kayaks they need to enjoy the sea and the sun while they are on their vacation.
Andrea's Speedboat Transporter — Andrea is lucky enough to have this nippy speedboat for her holidays by the sea, which comes with a handy beach barbecue set.
Snow Resort Ice Rink — Located above the slopes of Heartlake, this ice rink features the rink itself and skates for one of your Friends figurines.
Snow Resort Chalet — One of the most popular kits of all, this spacious chalet has plenty of room to accommodate your figures and comes with snowboard and snowmobile kits.
The Snow Resort Ski Lift — The biggest snow resort kit, this set comes with a working ski lift, a slope and even a little bear cub in his cave.
As you can probably tell, this popular LEGO range includes a huge variety of kits to mix and match to play with. If you are just starting out, it would make sense to focus on one particular area first, like the town of Heartlake, the Amusement Park or one of the resorts. That way, you can give each character a chance to express herself in a realistic environment. You can also add stories to the play and roleplay with the figures.
Sets and figures aren't the only LEGO Friends products for UK customers. LEGO also releases a LEGO Friends advent calendar every year near the holiday season, which includes 24 tiny gifts for the Friends figures to send to each other during the festive season.
If you haven't already figured out, LEGO has marketed this range of toys targeting a female audience, usually under 12 years of age (although there are certainly older, adult fans as well). These kits are easy to assemble and play with. However, some include smaller pieces that could be hazardous for younger users, so it's recommended that its audience is over 4 years of age.
Before you start building a LEGO Friends collection, remember that each Friend character can only be purchased with her corresponding house, unless you buy the Grand Hotel that features Olivia, Andrea and Stephanie. These kits can cost from £50 to £80 a piece. Thus, they do not cost little to assemble all of the Friends kits to build the Friends community.
We do not recommend buying them all at once unless an amazing combo deal pops up on HotUKDeals, which sometimes happens. Instead, persuade your daughter to start out with a couple of homes and extra kits. Each house comes with one friend, her family and an extra, usually a pet. So, it will be sufficient to play with in the beginning even if she hasn't accumulated all of the main characters yet.
Find out whether your kid has a favourite character. Each character is slightly different, so it's likely that your child prefers one or two characters to the rest. For instance, Olivia is passionate about science and inventions, so if your child likes Olivia, you might want to get ahold of her house and the Invention Workshop kit to begin with. That way, your child can build her own stories and sense of character and you won't need to spend too much on extra kits.
Alternatively, you could buy a few smaller products from one of the resorts. A speedboat set and Andrea's house will allow you to take Andrea and her family on vacation and provide plenty of activities and stories by the sea and it won't cost too much.
Additionally, try to find the best possible LEGO Friends offers when building a collection. Retailers like Smyths and Debenhams run sales on LEGO Friends on a fairly regular basis and their discounts can always be found on HotUKDeals. Don't buy without plans. If the right LEGO Friends kits are on sale and they can be a great addition to your child's collection, then, do not hesitate to take on them if you can. Check back at different times for better deals and Christmas and birthday gifts and save money on these awesome toys.
One of the best things about LEGO Friends is the way LEGO planned the collection so that it can also provide fun beyond its simple play sets. There's also a range of games that LEGO Friends fans can play online, as well as games through smartphone apps. Here's a quick run-down of what's currently available:
Sunshine Ranch — Help the Friends keep their furry friends nice and healthy at the ranch by feeding them in this fun online game.
Dolphin Hoops — Set in the Friends resort, this game is a little bit like whack-a-mole, but a lot gentler. Spot the dolphins when they surface above the water to earn points and win the game.
Ready for School — Help the Friends get ready for the new school term with this challenging but fun memory game.
Pool Basket — In another vacation setting, you'll help Andrea hone her basketball skills.
The Friends Maker Studio — Available for Android and iOS phones, the Friends Maker Studio is where kids can create their own postcards featuring LEGO Friends with simple art tools. You can even add photos of yourself to the design and get a personalised LEGO Friends experience.
The Music Maker app — Another app for Android and iOS users, the Music Maker brings together the Friends with their pop singer friend Livi and allows players to add their own vocal to the mix.
As LEGO movie fans already know, this Danish company is quite big in the movie industry and LEGO Friends is not an exception. A whole season of LEGO Friends animated series featuring 10 episodes, as well as Travel Video Diaries that develop the characters of the Friends, is available. Anyone who is into LEGO Friends will love the series, which can be found on the Videos section of the LEGO Friends website.
In 2016, a LEGO Friends movie also came out, although it never made it to the UK cinemas. In “Lego Friends: Girlz 4 Life,” the Friends get together with the singer Livi to help her recover a stolen song, while discovering the importance of friendship along the way. Widely available on DVD, you'll find it at UK retailers like The Range, HMV and Tesco Direct.
Other than its games and movies, there are plenty of ways to participate in the LEGO Friends community. The website features a selection of activities based on the LEGO Friends themes, ranging from simple quizzes to pdf downloads for colouring sets and cut-out figures.
Above, we already covered a few ways to acquire and complete a LEGO Friends collection as cheap as possible. However, we will go into more detail about how to save money on this popular LEGO range for girls.
First, don't buy everything too soon. It's easy to control yourself and spend far too much on miultiple kits at first. After all, girls can only focus on so many toys at once. Instead of overdoing in the beginning, start with one house and a few smaller kits and see where your kid wants to take it from there.
When it comes to buying LEGO Friends kits, how can you make sure you find the best possible price? Well, the first thing to do is to decide on a product(s) you want on the LEGO homepage at www.lego.com. Note down their names and product number but don't buy them there just yet.
Instead, check out the HotUKDeals listings and there should be a LEGO Friends discount that you can use to purchase the kit(s) you like. All of the UK's major toy retailers like Smyths, Tesco, Argos are represented, as well as the LEGO shop itself. Browse through the deals. You will realise that prices vary significantly over time and you will get a sense of how to find the best price.
If you want to save even more, you might also want to check out second-hand LEGO Friends products on eBay. However, we recommend going for new boxed items if possible and keeping the boxes in good condition, as this trick will uphold their value. Second-hand kits can be cheaper but can often have missing key pieces or discolouration, which you might want to avoid.
Shopping at the right time of year is also a great way to find good LEGO Friends offers. A lot of stores provide big discounts on Black Friday in November on the larger sets and this is the best time to get ready with kids' gifts before Christmas. The January Sales are always worth a look as they slash prices on items that were not sold during the year(s) prior.
Unleash children's imagination with a LEGO Friends collection. This creative and fun range of girls' LEGO has become one of the most popular toys in the world. However, great things do not always come cheap. Instead of paying the full price for LEGO Friends kits, find discount and promo codes on the HotUKDeals LEGO Friends listings and save more.
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