Friends

Friendship Bus

A double-decker packed so full of play features it practically rattles.

Brick Rated Score

4.0/5

Set 41395 · 2020

Pieces778

Minifigs3

Year2020

Set number41395

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The verdict

This is the Friends set that finally sold me on how much play LEGO can cram into one vehicle.

The pool that slides out from underneath got a genuine laugh out of me, and the whole thing opens up like a dollhouse on wheels. It is not cheap for the piece count, and the sticker sheet asks a lot of you, but if a kid in your orbit lives for imaginative play, this bus earns its shelf space.

Best for: Friends fans who want one big playable vehicle over a shelf of small builds

The full review

What it is

The Friendship Bus is a two-level double-decker that folds open into a rolling playset, and the first time I watched the pool slide out from beneath the chassis I actually laughed out loud. That is the kind of feature that tells you the designers were thinking about play first and photos second. The hinged roof lifts to reach the upper bedrooms, the sides open up, and there is a ladder up the back paired with a bright yellow slide for coming down. It is bigger than Mia's Camper Van and the older Pop Star Tour Bus, and it feels it, this is one of the more feature-dense vehicles the Friends line put out.

The catch

I will be straight with you about the value. Around 120 dollars for 778 pieces is a steep price per piece by LEGO's usual math, and you are paying for the play functions and the mini-dolls more than raw brick count. The sticker sheet is the other thing worth flagging. It is large for Friends, and a lot of the personality here (the Friends symbols, the signage, the little decorative touches) lives on stickers rather than printed parts, so you will spend real time lining them up. Get one of them crooked and it will bother you every time you look at the bus. It is also a genuinely big model once assembled, so it needs a proper surface to earn its keep instead of getting parked on a shelf.

Who it's for

If there is a child in your life who plays stories rather than just builds and displays, this is close to ideal. Every compartment does something, the accessories invite little scenarios, and the storage bays on one side keep the small auxiliary builds from wandering off. If you are after an elegant engineering challenge or a clean display piece for a grown-up shelf, though, this is not that set, the charm is entirely in the play. And since it retired at the end of 2021, prices on the secondary market have crept up, so a sealed one is not the bargain it once was.

The parts story

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

The build itself is friendly and quick for its size. It goes together in a logical bottom-up flow, chassis first, then the two decks, and there is enough variety in the sub-assemblies (the pool mechanism, the fold-out sides, the little garden) that it never turns into a slog of repeated rows. A confident kid can manage it solo, and it is a relaxed evening for an adult. The satisfying part is watching all those play functions click into place near the end rather than front-loading the interesting bits.

There are no headline new molds here, this is a set that leans on smart use of existing parts rather than rare pieces. The value is in the color palette and the mini-dolls: Stephanie, Mia, and Olivia all arrive with fresh printed torsos, and the little hamster is a sweet touch. One detail I loved comes from the stickers themselves, a corner of the sheet hints the bus was once bright orange before its current color, which fuels the fan theory that this is a repurposed old bus given a new life. It is a tiny bit of world-building most people will never notice.

Fun facts

01A corner of the sticker sheet shows the bus in a former bright orange color, sparking the fan theory that it is a repurposed, repainted old bus.
02The sticker sheet carries each Friend's personal symbol: an artist's palette for Emma, a gear for Olivia, a lightning bolt for Mia, a star for Stephanie, and a music note for Andrea.
03A full swimming pool slides out from underneath the bus, and a yellow slide runs down the back from the top deck.
04It released on January 1, 2020 at 119.99 dollars and retired at the end of 2021, making sealed copies steadily pricier on the secondary market.