LEGO®City Wild River Escape 60176

This is a good set . Sadly the boat does not float.

Awesome gift

I got this as a set for Christmas. I always loved Lego. It was fun building it. I think I might buy more :)

60176 Wild River Escape

60176 Wild River Escape is a smallish Lego City Mountain Police set. It consists of 126 pieces, of which one can build two minifigures, a red and gray raft with pontoons, and a mainly blue and white police speedboat. Opening the surprisingly large box means that out tumbles two numbered bags, a dark gray boat hull piece, an instruction booklet for 56 pages, and a small sticker-sheet of three stickers. Bag 1 builds a crook, a skunk, a paddle, and a raft with a detachable chest/loot box with three diamonds/jewels and a red crowbar inside, while bag 2 contains the pieces for a police officer and a police speedboat. The crook has a delightful new-for-2018 dual-sided head, with a printed brown beard, an angry expression on one side and a scared or surprised expression on the other. He also has a new torso with printing on both sides (a red jacket over a prison shirt, a brown over-the-shoulder pouch and a dark red belt). His really cool reddish brown hair is on a small ponytail. The hair is a recolor of an older piece and the same color hair appears also in 60173 Mountain Arrest. Both the head and torso are currently available in three 2018 sets. Also the police officer has a new torso: a sand blue jacket with zippers, a white emblem on the left side, and 'police' written on his back in white, over a dark blue shirt. In addition, his sand yellow cargo pants also have a new print: that of two large pockets. His head (with printed sunglasses) sits a little higher than normal because the straps of his yellow life vest are in the way and prevent the head going all the way down to his shoulders. The police officer's torso is currently in at least three sets, while the legs are in seven sets that I know of. My favorite brick of this set, the skunk, is one solid piece, and its first appearance was in Collectible Minifigures Series 15 back in 2016. The raft is a fantastic design, a really unusual vehicle, quite easy and quick to build, with some repetition because the raft is symmetrical and its four pontoons are identical. There are a total of 14 steps to complete the raft. The skunk does not fit inside the chest/loot box entirely because of its size, but fortunately can either peer out of the box or have its tail sticking out, which really adds another level to the play experience. The police speedboat has all the stickers of this set. Its build is quite easy, stickers being absolutely the most difficult part. There is repetition here as well, because also the police boat is symmetrical. I thought the windscreen looks very nice and sleek, and the outboard engine is both large and good-looking. It takes 39 steps to build the boat. My set had only four spare parts, all in bag 2, including handcuffs and and the parts to build a third front light for the boat (I use it as a flashlight). The outboard engine can be tilted and removed, and both of the front lights are detachable. There is enough space for a hand-cuffed crook at the back of the boat, or if there is no need to transport crooks, the loot box can be wedged between the blue slopes at the back of the boat. However, the fit is rather tight and it might be easier to transport the box in the other way around with the narrow side resting on top of the hinge of the outboard engine. There is little room for improvement in this set, at least in my opinion. The only negative thing I could come up with is that there are no spare jewels. I think this is a problem only because the jewels are among those rare parts in this set that are not connected to anything, so they will be easier to lose. Although there are two holes in the bottom of the loot box that two of the jewels can be attached to (if one happens to have small and nimble fingers, and manages to place the jewels very carefully in the right position so that they fit next to each other), the third one will be loose. I also noticed affixing the jewels to the box means that the skunk will not fit inside the loot box as good as it does with the jewels unattached. A marvelous little set for the fans of Lego City Police, speedboats, or rafting. Or perhaps skunks.