So as I was saying, one day last week I came home from work and Lizzy greeted me with a copy of the new Lego magazine, and showed me a contest they’re having where you can win a weeklong cruise for your family by building a Lego cruise ship. While the idea of cruise doesn’t particularly appeal to me, it seemed like a great challenge, so we spent some time over the weekend building ships out of Legos.
A few years back I gave Lizzy most of the my Legos I had from when I was younger, so we have alot of bricks, but they’re pretty random: lots of spaceship parts and some medieval and other themed pieces, plus a few sets she got as presents. Still, there always seems to a shortage of big generic bricks, and you always have to mix colors and make the best of what’s on hand.
We started by making a hull. We had made a boat once before using her house set, so we had an approach that we knew would work. But this one would be bigger and better. The boat would be scaled it for minifigs, so we started stacking on decks. Soon the ship started taking shape, but it was kind of tall and not-so-sleek compared to a real, modern cruse ship. The design of the hull makes the ship a bit wobbly in a good, authentic-feeling way. More than anything it reminds me of the boat from Peter Jackson’s King Kong.
Lizzy started to figure out where things would go: the first class cabin, the restaurant, the pool, etc., and started making furniture. Meanwhile I added a bridge and a crow’s nest, and radio and radar gear and lights and flags and stuff. I guess I got carried away. When I was done she took one look and pronounced it “too pirate-y”. She also said the monkey would have to go.
The pictures you see are from this incarnation of the boat, but then the crow’s nest came down and was replaced with a princess-pink forecastle. I’m sure other improvements on the way, as she want to give the whole thing a makeover. She has until the end of October to submit her entry for the contest, so I’ll be posting an update sometime soon. Meanwhile, enjoy the gallery.
