The Lego Love Boat

USA Today: It isn't often you read about LEGO bricks at the Cruise Log. But how often does the Cruise World see something like this?

Created by 36-year-old Australian Ryan McNaught, one of only 12 certified LEGO builders in the world, the "LEGO Love Boat," as it's being called, will be on display this month in Chicago at Brickworld, the world's largest LEGO convention.

Made up of more than 250,000 LEGO bricks, the ship is McNaught's largest creation ever and designed to evoke the Princess Cruises ship that was the setting for the Love Boat television show of the 1980s.

The LEGO ship includes over 450 miniature LEGO people "enjoying a fabulous cruise and the best holiday they have ever had," McNaught writes on his website, thebrickman.com. The vessel measures over ten feet long by nearly five feet high and includes powered functions such as a moving anchor, bow thruster and propeller. The lifeboat also can be raised and lowered.

"The ship of course has all the Love Boat crew on-board as well as a whole series of '80s washed-up TV stars," quips McNaught, who builds such models in his off hours. By day he's an information technology worker in Melbourne, Australia.

McNaught tells the Cruise Log the public can come see the ship at Brickworld in Chicago on June 18 and 19.