Pirate Boat Buidling Block Sets (70008)...

My grandson really enjoys building these type toys, so I included this for our recent beach trip (in case of a rainy day). The kit had instructions and over 200 pieces that kept him, his dad and even his poppa, busy for several hours! This is a unique kit that is assembled with instructions, patience, and ample time, but the final product is worth that concentration!

I received this building set in a yellow, plastic bag as shown in the ad's picture. However, even though the kit came with instructions, there was not a picture of what the final "build" should look like. That being said, the rest of the kit had everything needed to make the pirate boat. (To get a picture of the completed project, I went online to ZeeBooth and printed a picture of the boat.) This is a good project for a rainy or snow day to keep a kid occupied for a few hours. They're not Leggos, but they're still a good value--just don't mix these blocks with your others.

This was a fun build, but the bricks are third-party and do not lock together nearly as well as real Legos, which means the pirate ship falls apart pretty easily when being played with. The design makes me think it was originally a Viking ship that was refit to be a pirate ship later. The 'minifigs' are really odd, and you cannot mix and match the parts with other minifigs, which is something my kid likes to do with their Legos. The build was still fun and worth the 45 minutes of quality time with my kid building it, and the day or so we played with it before it needed repairs. The instructions are one sheet and not the easiest to follow, and there is a second side with instructions on how to expand the set if you bought more than one of these.

These building blocks came in well packaged. They included everything needed to make the set, including instructions. My kids mentioned they looked just like the Lego sets they get. Everything came together well and I would recommend.

This brick set was actually a pretty fun build. I really like smaller brick building sets that are one whole unit. A lot of sets right now are buildings or 2 or 3 small units in a set and I think that's really boring. I'm not a building brick brand snob. I'll buy any brand that has a decent looking set design, I just don't recommend mixing the bricks since that usually causes fit issues. A picture of the listing says the set is 225 pieces, but the build is 204 pieces and I had 2 extra pieces in the bag so it was a total of 208. So minus 1 star for that. The build design is ok. The instructions aren't too bad. Easy to follow, just the colors were not represented well. That's not an issue with this build size, but it could be on a much larger set. There was also instructions on the back that said something about 4in1 that didn't make a lot of sense. I'm assuming it was a way to combine other sets but I couldn't find them on ZeeBooth. There are better designs around this price point and count, even from the better known brick set brands. I'm not subtracting a star since you can see the item and compare before buying it. I like the dragon figurehead and canon. The mini figures are meh. The mast only has a one stud connection to the ship and that makes it fall over when barely touching it and almost impossible for kids to play with.some glue might help, but it could make it brittle. The sail is sadly made of paper. Minus a star for that design flaw and the paper sail.