Dive Into The LumiBricks (FunWhole) Turtle Reef Dream F9072

One of the first sets released by FunWhole (now officially LUMIBRICKS) was the Ocean Adventure Ship and I had the pleasure (and slight hesitation) of reviewing the set. The hesitation came from me being an ex-LEGO purist and I was always very skeptical of third party brick sets, especially since my only exposure were LEGO ripoffs and clone sets. I’m so glad I trusted my gut and gave this brand a chance as fast forward to today I can now officially say that I’m flying the LUMIBRICKS fan flag. Plus (which I still can’t quite believe) I have my name in the instructions of the brand new Turtle Reef Dream F9072 which we are reviewing today!

Before we look into the finer details, let me first explain my involvement with this set. I have been a long term reviewer for LUMIBRICKS and I think of myself as a brand ambassador having built an amazing partnership with their marketing team – building sets, posting reviews and interacting with the community. Then recently I was given the opportunity to be a consultant on the design and aspects of the Turtle Reef Dream F9072 set. This involved seeing early concepts of the build, theme ideas, backstory and giving ideas and suggestions of the work in progress! With that being said, let’s take a closer look at this set, what I like and what I think doesn’t exactly work. 

Reef Design:

I LOVE THE REEF! I think the colours chosen are perfect for the look they were going for. The trans blue pieces really complement the underwater theme and I think there is a great balance between the rock work, the sand and the coral elements. Speaking of the coral elements, one of my contributions to the design was to use elements typically used for something else in other sets, which led to the mop brushes being used as seaweed, afros being used as sea sponges and trans purple gears being used for anemones. 

Animal elements have also been included in the design including 2 crabs, a starfish and a school of yellow fish as well as an opened treasure chest however I’m not sure everything quite works given the scale of the turtle, but it’s a nice inclusion nonetheless. 

The lighting elements have always been a key part of LUMIBRICKS sets (hence the recent name change) and even though they are subtle in this set, the blue lights work very well, they install easily and give a nice underwater blue ambience without being distracting.

Turtle Design:

When I shared early images of the box art online, the turtle build received very mixed reviews. Some loved it, some said it was a hard pass as it looked too blocky and not the usual high LUMIBRICKS design standard.

After building the set, honestly I was pleasantly surprised by the overall look and build of the turtle. It uses some very clever techniques to create the round shell, it has good articulation with the flippers and head, and I really like the natural colour scheme they used. I would have liked to have seen some printed elements for the shell as this would have made more of a striking design giving the beige/olive/tan colour scheme of the turtle. The design team also included some floral/barnacle elements to attach to the shell, personally I wasn’t a fan but as they are not structural, I took them off to give the turtle a cleaner look.

Display:

This is when sadly I need to bring the set down a few pegs, as some of the choices made really don’t work for me. First, the stand they include for the turtle is disappointing. The colour is a bland off-white and it comprises of a a large flexible beam to attach to the underside of the turtle, but it’s too flexible and given the turtle is quite heavy, the whole thing bends and many times it has fallen over, leading to the turtle smashing its poor head into the ground. 

But the biggest thing that continues to confuse me, is nowhere in the instructions does it show the turtle actually in the reef itself? It fits perfectly well on the transparent pole included for the minifigure and leads to a very pleasant looking display piece, but it doesn’t ever show how to do this which I think is a missed opportunity.

Minifigure:

It’s a LUMIBRICKS female minifigure in pajamas. Which leads me nicely into.

Theme:

If the theme was Underwater Discovery, Coral Reef or Ocean Adventure then 10/10. But Turtle Reef Dream? I don’t get it, which is why it scores so low. It could have been something that was lost in translation at the concept stage, perhaps they meant ‘Dream like’ as it’s so beautiful, but they have gone with the literal term of ‘Dream’. What throws me the most is that it’s a perfectly executed and realistic coral reef and turtle build, but adding a Minifigure in pajamas and calling it a ‘Dream’ set, then somehow cheapens the whole set as if they didn’t know what they were creating which is a big shame. 

I would scrap the dream theme, remove the minifigures and continue a Coral Reef/Underwater theme. I did notice the two technical pin holes which could hint at further underwater themed sets coming out which you can connect together, but I really hope they focus on the underwater theme rather than dreams as then I think this theme has real potential for younger builders, fans of nature and also those who don’t have space for the awesome big builds currently being produced by the LUMIBRICKS team. 

Final Thoughts:

Pros

• Fantastic coral reef and turtle design
• Subtle but effective lighting
• Great parts usage

Cons

• Display stand is useless
• Dream theme and minifigure is very questionable

A big thank you to The Brick Post for allowing me to share my review with you all and as always thank you to the team at LUMIBRICKS for sending me this set to review. For a 10% discount make sure to use code JAMIE10.