WREBBIT3D King Arthur's Camelot 3D Jigsaw Puzzle (865-Piece)

I bought two of the Wrebbit puzzles as a Christmas gift for my pre-teen, who is fascinated by architecture right now. She wanted to do the Neuschwanstein Castle first, and we just wrapped up with the Taj Mahal. As others have mentioned, there is a lot of scrap foam in the box that needs to be weeded out as you are laying out the pieces. (We kept the scraps in the box, and sealed it with tape. Combing through the box later turned up two "missing" pieces.) I could have saved us a bit of time if I had simply read the directions before we started on the first puzzle. The directions are mostly in French though, as the puzzle is made in Quebec/Montreal. There is a handy diagram of all the puzzle pieces and how they fit together in the instructions. The puzzles take up a considerable amount of room, so for the second puzzle I made sure we started on a larger table. Give yourself plenty of time to complete these puzzles, especially if this is going to be used for a school project. The Neuschwanstein Castle took us about twice as long as the Taj Mahal to complete, but this could be largely due to having overcome the learning curve by the time we got to the second puzzle. With each puzzle, we found that we were missing one or two pieces. If you are missing any pieces, the instruction pamphlet gives an email and mailing address where you can request replacement pieces. This process worked quite well, and a few weeks later the missing pieces arrived in the mail. In our case, I attribute the missing pieces to our curious puppy. These puzzles really look nice when they are assembled. I am pretty impressed, and my daughter thinks they are fantastic. It is nice to do a puzzle and have something to show for your efforts later. We will definitely be getting more of the Wrebbit puzzles. I would caution parents not to expect a young child to complete these puzzles by themselves. They will challenge an adults patience and fortitude, but stick with it and you will be happy with the results.

Pretty much the most difficult puzzle I have ever done! Got into 3D puzzles, and was doing the little ones that only took a few hours. This one took much longer. But having gotten through it and now having it as a display piece, I can offer tips to make it easier. Sort, sort, sort.1. Get all "scrap" pieces out. Go through "scrap" pieces again as 1 or 2 was probably missed.2. Get approx. 10-15 bags and start separating pieces (greenery, crown molding, red brick, yellow brick, cobblestones). I sorted all the grey ones, then went through and sorted them again to more specific types. This will take some time.3. Once sorted you can start piecing things together! Work one bag at a time. Use the map to figure out what shapes go where. The puzzle "clue map" has the individual shapes of what each "wall" looks like along with how the pieces are shaped exactly. I does not, however, show you what graphics are on each piece. I had to go from looking at the box pictures to the instructions back and forth to figure some things out. Bring a colored pencil with you when doing this so you can color in what you have put together BIG HELP! HIGHLY RECOMMEND DOING THIS.4 Once you have put every thing together (pieces will all still be flat) LAY ON GROUND AS LAYOUT APPEARS IN ILLUSTRATIONS. Then simply follow directions of how to put together, laying them out on ground makes the directions easier to follow.5. This puzzle gives you enough direction to get through, but you will need to possess critical thinking skills to "fill in the blanks".Was a good challenge, some times throughout it I thought it might have been a larger project than I can handle, but 2 weeks later (as I gave up several times for a day or two) it was finished and felt very accomplished. :)

It was not crazy-difficult; it took just the right amount of mental concentration and finger dexterity. For me, it was a pleasant project across 2 weeks in February (39 hours total). If you have not worked on a Wrebbit 3D puzzle before, get Notre Dame first; Neuschwanstein overall was a bit more complicated, yet very satisfying to complete it.

Pro's: Beautiful artwork with lots of fun details. Substantial size.Con's: I'm a life-long regular jigsaw puzzler, but I had trouble with this. Many pieces look almost identical and seem to fit, but actually do not. You need to follow the instructions to make sure that you have the exact right piece for each panel, but the instructions are in black and white! The photo is of step one. How am I supposed to find the right pieces for step one among the hundreds of pieces, many with similar shapes, without a clue as to the color of these pieces??? You also need the instructions so that you attach the panels in the correct order. As you build it, you need to be able to have access to the panels you are adding so that you can push the panels together. One part tends to collapse as you push to attach another part. I finally resorted to glueing it together as I will never build it again!. The photos included in the box do not show every part of the castle.I loved doing a 3-D puzzle, but I will not buy this brand again.

I liked this puzzle - for me, I found it a bit difficult and it took me a whole week to complete - granted I only spent a couple of hours at a time - but it was worth it. The finished puzzle is awesome - I displayed it for several months but in the end I did dismantle it - but it was lovely to look at. and it was a nice bit of a pastime to work on it.