Friends

Canal Houseboat

A little floating home so full of life you keep finding new corners of it.

Brick Rated Score

4.2/5

Set 41702 · 2022

Pieces737

Minifigs4

Year2022

Set number41702

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The verdict

This was the first proper houseboat Friends ever did, and the color alone pulled me in before I even opened a bag.

It packs a garden, a kitchen, a wood stove and a whole cabin into a canal boat that opens right up, and I kept spotting details I had missed. The sticker-heavy hull and the $79.99 asking price are the honest sticking points. If you love a set you can actually play inside, though, this one rewards you.

Best for: Friends fans who want a playable home with real interior life, not just a facade

The full review

What it is

The Canal Houseboat is exactly what it sounds like: a long, low boat you live on rather than sail, and it was the first of its kind in the Friends world. What got me straight away was how much LEGO crammed onto one hull. There is a deck garden with fruit and veg boxes and a little apple tree, a hangout strung with fairy lights, a separate jetty with a market stall, and then the whole side swings open to show a cabin with a kitchen for making cupcakes, a sleeping area, a wood-burning stove, a gaming station, solar panels and a bathroom. Even after I had seen the box art I kept finding details I had not noticed, which is a lovely feeling in a build this size.

The catch

I will be straight with you about the price. At $79.99 for 737 pieces, this is not the fat piece count you sometimes get in this range, and part of what you are paying for is the big molded hull sections that eat up value without adding much to the count. The hull decoration also leans hard on a large sticker sheet, and applying a long row of stickers to curved boat panels is fiddly work that not everyone finds relaxing. If perfectly straight, permanent decoration matters to you, that is worth knowing before you start.

Who it's for

So who is this really for? Anyone who loves a set they can play inside rather than just look at. Because the side hinges open and the deck comes off, kids can actually reach every room, which makes it far more usable than a sealed facade. It suits the recommended 7-plus age beautifully and gives an adult builder enough clever house techniques to enjoy the afternoon. If you mainly want raw parts value or you dislike stickers, you might feel the pinch here. But as a warm, colorful, genuinely playable home, it earns its place, and now that it is retired it has quietly become a set people hunt for.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building it is a friendly, well-paced afternoon. The box splits into seven numbered bags plus an unnumbered one holding the big hull pieces, and the instructions are clear and easy to follow the whole way through. You build the boat from the hull up, then layer on the deck garden and the interior rooms, and because so much of the fun is in the little vignettes, it never feels like a slog of repeated steps. The house-building techniques in the cabin are the part an older builder will appreciate most.

The standout element is the canal-boat hull itself, a large specialized piece that gives the set its whole silhouette and is not something you see in many other boxes. Around it you get a satisfying spread of Friends staples in cheerful colors: garden and food accessories, the apple tree, fairy lights, kitchen and cupcake pieces, and a kitten to go with the four mini-dolls. Just know that the eye-catching hull graphics come from that big sticker sheet rather than printed parts, so the printed-versus-sticker question is really the heart of the parts story here.

Fun facts

01It was the first houseboat ever released in the LEGO Friends line.
02Three of its four mini-dolls (with Mia the returning face) were new to this set, giving it a fresh roster.
03It launched at $79.99 in 2022 and retired at the end of that same year, a fairly short shelf life.
04The whole side of the boat is hinged and the deck lifts away, so the full interior opens up for play.