Bring Back The Pirates! LEGO Creator Sets Are A Different Kind Of Fun

Reviewing LEGO’s #31109 Pirate Ship set.

This has been by far one of the most coveted sets of my childhood. Well, an iteration of this anyway, as of course LEGO sets, like everything else, have also evolved over the years. Age and cost be damned, I decided that life’s too short to let another opportunity go to waste and bought the LEGO Pirate Ship, set #31109 in December 2022, cleared my weekend schedule and built it over two sessions.

Before I get to the review part of this article, let me tell you a little bit about LEGO’s Creator 3-in-1 theme, and why I think it’s probably the most unique line that LEGO has to offer. The Pirate Ship taught me something about LEGO that I can’t say I ever forgot, but re-experiencing it as an adult left me with some profound learnings.

Back in the heydays of LEGO and most certainly during the 90s, every set would also come with instructions for an alternate build, and this would be very clearly advertised on the reverse of the box. While they were more often than not, a little less interesting than the primary build, LEGO, highlighting the fact that every set can be rebuilt into something else, nudging you to use and train your imagination, is something that today doesn’t apply to every set. In fact, it doesn’t apply to most sets. The LEGO Creator 3-in-1 sets do, however, build on that original idea though and take it further as every set comes officially with not just one, but two extra alternate builds.

I would highly advise parents to get as many Creator 3-in-1 sets for their children as they can afford. They’re the best disguised educational tool out there that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

There is another aspect, though, I had to be reminded of. The fun part of LEGO. As an adult, of course I love building with LEGO bricks, why else would I buy them, right? However, enjoying a build and having fun with a build are two different experiences. With many of the sets that I usually buy, it’s all about building techniques, part usage, the overall design and many other things that as kids we never cared about.

This is where Creator 3-in-1 sets offer a different building experience. The sets are pretty easy to build, while still employing some clever building techniques along the way. However, while building a Pirate Ship, for instance, you get pulled into the many pirate stories you’ve read as a child. You’re having genuine childlike fun seeing the ship come together, accessorising the pirates, looking at what goes into their treasure chest. The entire build becomes so much less about accuracy and fine details, and a lot more about building a toy you know you’re going to play with.

Bringing the bad boys back to life

It’s funny how, throughout history, pirates have become the most beloved villains. They’ll eat the Joker for breakfast any day of the week. As a kid, I remember I was fascinated by pirates, and clearly I wasn’t the only one, as LEGO had a pirate theme going back as far as 1989. My 2nd LEGO set was The Renegade’s Raft, released just two years later in 1991. Sure, it had only 38 pieces, but I loved that set. It came with a shark and a pirate minifig!

Over the years, LEGO kept iterating on all things pirates, and I remember dreaming of owning the Skull’s Eye Schooner, a massive set relative to other System sets of the era. Of course, neither I, nor my parents could afford it, and frankly, even if we could, in western Romania back in the 90s, you only had random sets in random toy shops, and they rarely imported the really large ones, as they wouldn’t really sell. I did see some larger Technic and train sets, but never the pirate ships, or any of the larger pirate sets. Finally, in 2015, even LEGO themselves abandoned the pirate theme, and only occasionally brought elements of it back as part of other themes. One and the very latest such occasion is its resurface in the Creator 3-in-1 theme.

This was my moment to finally get the LEGO pirate ship I always dreamed of. Couldn’t miss a potentially never returning opportunity.

The #31109 Pirate Ship was released in 2020, and I somehow missed it until 2022. But, I could be forgiven, as we were all dealing with this pretty major nuisance, called COVID-19. Now, you’d think that once I saw it, I’d jump on it like crazy, but 2022 was a big LEGO year for me, and I had a long list of sets prioritised to purchase, many of them costly. I knew, though, that at the very latest, by December I will eventually own it. It was going to be either my Christmas or birthday present. You’ll be happy to know, that I did, in fact, buy this on Christmas Eve and built it over the two days of Christmas! I kept my promise to myself, and could not be happier that I did.

It’s a brilliant set. Before you even finish reading my thoughts on it, go ahead, reserve it in your local toy store, LEGO store, online, wherever you can find it, as you will not regret it one second.

It’s been a while since I had so much fun with a LEGO set, as I did building the Pirate Ship.

This is no small set. At 1264 pieces, there is plenty of building to be done here, and a large majority of those pieces are anything but tiny, so you get your money’s worth and then some. At 130 euros, I would in no way consider this an expensive set. Relatively speaking, of course. It also comes with four minifigs, one of which is a skeleton, a brick-built bird and a brick-built shark, which I must admit, looks better than the old one I got with my tiny 1991 pirate set, back in the day. I will say this though, I think my old shark was a bit more size-accurate, as the new brick-built one I think is a tad too large relative to the big ship. But then again, who knows? Maybe sharks do get that big from eating pirates! 🦈🤷‍♂️

This, like many other Creator 3-in-1 sets, the Pirate Ship is packed with amazing play features. Besides the options of rebuilding the set into the Pirate’s Inn or Skull Island, the ship alone will keep any child, and even adults busy for hours, if not days. The cannons have springs inside them, so you can pull on the rear end and shoot cannonballs. Upon need, you can take them out of the ship and roll them on their wheels too!

The captain’s cabin is another really fun area of the build. Not only does it feature a fairly detailed interior, with a desk, map and other accessories, but its side walls can be flipped open for easy access should you want to place the captain inside.

Gotta say I also love the vine pieces holding the masts in place. I remember back in the day when I would build my own MOCs of these ships, I would always resort to using string to hold things in place. These flexible rubber vine pieces are so much more handy. As a rare occurrence, in this set even the sails are brick-built, which, trust me, makes a huge difference in set and parts value. As great the older style flexible custom sails were, they were entirely single-purpose, which one could easily argue, made them very much not LEGO-like. This set does away with all of that, and even the pirate skull is a brick-built decoration with tiles!

The overall appeal of the rugged, somewhat beaten up but great-looking boat, reminding one of yesteryear’s “luxury” travel, cannot be understated. The predominantly wood-brown boat with highlight of red, gold, and black is the perfect combination of colours. Also, let’s not forget the very cleverly brick-built siren (mermaid) at the front of the ship complimenting it all.

In terms of size, this ship is no joke, and perhaps that’s one of the reasons why the 9+ age rating is recommended. At 46 cm length, 38 cm tall and 19 cm width, this needs space to be built, played with and displayed, should you want to leave it intact. If you’re particularly well-off, LEGO allows buying up to 5 of these sets in one go, which means you could have a fleet of three ships, the inn, and the island, all built, and honestly, apart from the overall cost, I see no reason not to go for it. But don’t listen to me, you’ll end up in credit card debt in no-time. 🤣

I can’t think of a single reason why you wouldn’t want to get the LEGO Creator 3-in-1 Pirate Ship. A big box, full of creative, fun awesomeness!

I really hope to see more LEGO pirate sets in the future. Large and small, just keep ’em coming, LEGO. 🏴‍☠️

Attila Vago — Software Engineer improving the world one line of code at a time. Cool nerd since forever, writer of codes and blogs. Web accessibility advocate, LEGO fan, vinyl record collector. Loves craft beer! Read my Hello story here! Subscribe and/or become a member for more stories about LEGO, tech, coding and accessibility! For my less regular readers, I also write about random bits and writing.