Fairy Girls Magic Cruise Ship Building Sets 358 Pieces Princess Magic Boat Model with hot air Balloon Building Kit Christmas Birthday Gift for Kids Girls Age 6-12

This building set can't really be played with as designed and has some challenges that will be tough for younger kids, but it does have good potential for kids and families interested in rebuilding, redesigning, and reengineering. In that respect, it may be a better STEM toy than sets that are less challenging.The box is large and attractive, and overall the packaging is much better than the majority of lesser-known LEGO-compatible brick sets. This one is COGO brand from Kowloon, Hong Kong and the back of the instructions feature a handful of their other Girls and Princess sets. This one is from a Fairy line and is stylistically comparable to LEGO Elves.The instruction booklet is excellent. It is staple-bound and well-printed, with steps including more pieces than average, but not excessively many. It's also very good that stickers are added to pieces throughout the steps rather than all of them at the end. Unfortunately, there are some design flaws that pose significant challenges to completing the last steps including installing the balloon masts and the transparent blue waves.The boat is supported underneath only by the edges of the curved bricks of the hull which extend past the bottom plates, which can result in sudden, catastrophic tipping. The waves fit more tightly than any of the other pieces, so it's only possible to attach them by removing the white bricks to attach the waves and then reinstall. Any other method results in additional catastrophe. The ballons make the entire build deceptively top-heavy, compounding the risk of tipping.The pieces are about a B+. Colors aren't perfectly consistent, but they are good enough. Fit is on the easy side, which is generally good, but in combination with the design issues makes it almost certain that every time this ship gets moved around, the balloon masts fall off. Also, when pivoting balloon pieces attached by their upper clip, those pieces detach more often than not. So do the turntable plates beneath their attachment point. Beyond fit, the pieces have several quirks, including underside lips on 1x2 and 1x3 plates, slightly wider than usual vertical gaps between pieces, and chains that come entirely on sprues, needing to be assembled link-by-link. There are also unusually many spare round single-stud plates which appear to be compensation for most of their studs being off-center.The stickers are one of the worse aspects of the set. The background colors are not very good matches for the bricks and all of them would have benefitted from being printed on transparent material instead. A couple apply across two pieces, but the stickers decorating door frames don't. These are challenging to align, having been alternatingly cut off-center.The stickers for the ballons are also problematic. They're die-cut with a detailed shape that makes it possible to apply them to the curved surface without wrinkles, which is a great choice. However, the cuts were not entirely complete and I needed to carefully remove all eight from their sheet with the assistance of a hobby knife. Also, while it's forgiving of repositioning, the adhesive is not quite strong enough to hold the stickers to curved surfaces. I think I've probably applied them too high, making this a little bit worse. It would have been nice if they were longer to better match the length of those pieces.The figures are interesting. Torsos are printed on both sides, although the prints aren't great quality. The legs can move individually, which is really cool, but those were very tough to fit into the hips. Unfortunately, the figures are very unstable when the legs are posed in different positions unless they are attached to a stud. I don't love the proportions of the faces, but their prints look alright.Overall, I really love the design concept of this set. I wish it was less symmetrical and I also would have liked the balloon masts to be farther apart, allowing them to unfold more fully. With the upper balloon pieces attached to turntables, they could have an awesome helicopter play function if they had more room and tighter connections. The whole thing has aspects that can be greatly improved with small tweaks or creative rebuilding. If I were getting this set for a child, I would definitely want to complement it with additional bricks to address its problems and make it into a build suitable for play. As is, it's just not quite there.