LEGO City 60366 Ski and Climbing Center review

Prioritising function over form – but never skimping on detail – comes 60366 Ski and Climbing Center, representing another adventurous new avenue for the reinvigorated LEGO City theme in 2023.

The LEGO Group has rebooted three of its core themes to varying degrees this year, including NINJAGO and Friends, but it’s arguably City that’s come out on top. Almost everything about the evergreen theme’s approach in 2023 feels fresh, rejuvenating tired designs and introducing completely fresh concepts.

That’s true too for 60366 Ski and Climbing Center, a 1,045-piece set that calls back to the heady days of the LEGO Sports theme in the early 2000s. Gone are the huge prefab slopes, in place of a brick-built activity centre that you will basically never get bored of playing with.

— LEGO City 60366 Ski and Climbing Center set details —

Theme: LEGO City Set name: 60366 Ski and Climbing Center Release date: June 1, 2023

Price: £94.99 / $119.99 / €104.99 Pieces: 1,045 Minifigures: 8

LEGO: Order now

— Where to buy LEGO City 60366 Ski and Climbing Center —

60366 Ski and Climbing Center is available now at LEGO.com, in LEGO Stores and at various third-party retailers. You’ll have to wait until August 1 to get your hands on it in the US, however.

— LEGO City 60366 Ski and Climbing Center build —

Like the best LEGO City sets, 60366 Ski and Climbing Center takes a page from the book of LEGO Friends, packing plenty of detail into almost (but not quite) every available space. What it doesn’t do is make any of it look especially nice (beyond a few triangular tiles, stickers and a squirrel) – or rather it couldn’t quite fit into the budget… and that’s fine! It’s pretty much what you’d expect from a LEGO City set, which is toy first and everything else second. The piece count is better devoted to maximising its play potential than building an attractive display piece, and any adults picking this up can figure out an interesting way to integrate it into a wider city layout (or hope that the internet does it for them).

Those 1,045 pieces are put to smart use from top to bottom here, with nothing wasted – it’s not the most conservative quantity of elements, but efficiency of plastic and space is still the order of the day. There’s plenty going on inside the centre, with a coffee shop, equipment room and more tucked under the daunting slope, while the rest of the building is dedicated to making sure your minifigures can return to the top of the slope after making their way down, through the most user-friendly LEGO elevator in recent memory.

There’s more economical use of space here too, as the designers have gone beyond a simple ski slope to attach a really neat climbing wall to the outside of the building. The multi-coloured hand grips, inspired use of BURPs – big ugly rock pieces, if you know your LEGO lingo – and rope for climbing and abseiling all feel novel for LEGO City, pushing the boundaries of what we’ve seen before from this theme.

Put it this way: where some LEGO City sets lean into the mundanity of civilian life, and others portray a world in which every minifigure is constantly calling for emergency services, 60366 Ski and Climbing Center deftly cuts a line between the two. It’s an adventurous and active peek into everyday living, while simultaneously sneaking a renaissance of the vintage LEGO Sports theme into… well, the most obvious place for it in 2023, as LEGO City spreads its wings.

And you’ll basically never stop having fun with it, either. Sending those minifigures down the ski slope – whether on a bike, skis, snowboard, in a tube or just on their own, if you’re feeling especially vindictive – is strangely addictive. Will this one make it down in one piece? Did that guy just go flying out of his tube? Are any of these minifigures making it out of this death trap alive? Figuring out just the right velocity to send them down the slope is a game in and of itself.

If there’s one hesitancy, it’s around the connection points between elements on the slope – it would never pass muster in real life – on which the skier in particular often gets caught. Neither form nor function takes precedent for this section of the set, but the building experience, which we’d have been robbed of with a massive prefab slope. You win some, you lose some.

— LEGO City 60366 Ski and Climbing Center characters —

LEGO City sets anchored around civilians need to include two things: enough minifigures to populate their given scene, and fun and interesting parts with which to build those minifigures. 60366 Ski and Climbing Center definitely ticks the first box – there are eight tiny plastic people ready to take part in its various activities – while it has a decent go at the second, too. The dual-moulded hat-and-hair pieces are a winner, and there are some useful face prints, torsos and regular hairpieces in the mix, too.

— LEGO City 60366 Ski and Climbing Center price —

Can you put a price on something so new and different for LEGO City? Well, yes: £94.99 in the UK, $109.99 in the US and €104.99 in Europe. Or, like so many other LEGO City sets, around two-thirds to three-quarters of that price once retailers have shaved a little off the top. At that point, it’s hard to say no to 60366 Ski and Climbing Center – at least if this is the kind of thing you can find a home for in your own city – and for the size of the thing, it’s not an especially tall ask at full price, either. You can’t say that about a lot of LEGO City sets.

— LEGO City 60366 Ski and Climbing Center pictures —

— LEGO City 60366 Ski and Climbing Center pros and cons —

It may not be winning second prize in a beauty contest any time soon, but 60366 Ski and Climbing Center fulfils its premise to a tee: here is a slice of adventure for your minifigures that doesn’t involve deep-sea diving, traversing jungles or signing up for the endless emergency services that once consumed LEGO City.

It’s the very definition of the word toyetic – the endless ways to traverse the slope, the elevator to return to the top, the abseiling rope – and if that’s what you’re after from your City sets, you won’t be disappointed with 60366 Ski and Climbing Center.

60366 Ski and Climbing Center pros	60366 Ski and Climbing Center cons
Unique subject matter for a LEGO City set	Function over form
Endless fun sending minifigures down the slope	Some of these minifigures aren’t making it out alive
Working elevator is simple but brilliant

This set was provided for review by the LEGO Group.

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— Alternatives to LEGO City 60366 Ski and Climbing Center —

Alternatives to 60366 Ski and Climbing Center are difficult to come by, mostly because this set is so unique within the LEGO portfolio at the moment. For similar subject matter you need to dive into the long-retired LEGO Sports theme, though you can get equally adventurous with LEGO Friends’ brand new 41744 Sports Center for a similar price.

— LEGO City 60366 Ski and Climbing Center FAQs —