LEGO Wintertime Carriage Ride (40603) GWP Review

A few days ago I reviewed the first of the current Gift With Purchases, Christmas Decor Set (40604). Today it’s time for the other. This is ‘Wintertime Carriage Ride (40603)‘. The spending threshold for this set is €150. It’s announced to be available until December 14th unless stock runs out sooner.

To be fair, I don’t think I should do a regular review, scoring pieces and building techniques out of 10 for this set. I quite like the set but it’s not great on these aspects. So I’d say an average score would be too low and this is an example for the total being better than the sum of its parts.

The set contains 152 pieces. The horse is the rarest piece in this set (included in 3 sets in total) and the newer flat lid for treasure chests is my first set getting it in. The ornamental carriage wheels can be interesting for some but they’ve been around for quite a while. Other than that there’s no bulk of pieces, or anything noteworthy among the rest.

The build process is fast and furious. There’s really not much to it and I was thinking to myself: ‘is this it?’. But you end up with a beautiful horse drawm carriage audiences of all ages can enjoy. It’s suitable for play for children and display for adults. And that’s a quality we don’t often see in sets. Most often one of the two is sacrificed for the other.

There are 3 minifigures included in the set, a driver and 2 passengers. The driver has a carrot for the horse and the passengers have scarves around their neck. So for me this seems to be extra on most GWP’s and makes up for the earlier mentioned shortcomings in pieces and building process.

So overall this is a great GWP to me. In the Christmas spirit I’d happily overlook some details and just enjoy the set as a whole. If you plan on spending this kind of money on LEGO in the near future I’d recommend doing so while this set is available, I’m not sure there will be a better promotion this month.