Kid-Review of LEGO Creator Pirate Ship Pirate Inn, Set 31109

Lego Creator’s 3-in-1 Pirate-themed 2020 set boasts a Pirate Ship and two alternative builds: Skull Island and Pirate Ship Inn.

With 1,260 brick pieces and three builds, this 2020 released LEGO set provides days of building fun and receives enthusiastic kids’ thumbs-ups!

Pirate Inn Video Highlights

My son is pretty proud of this video – especially the choice of EPIC music!

The Pirate Inn Truly Encourages Creative Play

This is the first LEGO set that my son has created scenes and truly played with the LEGO set as a toy. He walked his Minifigures all around the spacious Pirate’s Inn and made all kinds of sound effects as he played.

My son was excited to discover that if you position the Pirate Captain just right and then swing the Pirate’s Inn shut that this force will catapult the Captain, flinging him onto the floor and definitely out of the scene! He also loved that for the ultimate take-out, you can flick a Pirate Minifigure from the top of the crow’s nest. Watch this flick move and more in our video.

Pirate’s Inn Video – Play Like a Kid

Other fun movements:

• The horse’s legs can be positioned in many ways, allowing you to make the horse appear like it is walking. (This would be neat to capture in a stop-action LEGO video, too!)
• The spinning water wheel — an unexpected dizzy ride for one unfortunate, stuck pirate!
• Use the crane to unload cargo and treasure chests. Once removed, don’t forget to hide the treasure chest behind the Inn’s secret treasure door. (The hidden treasure chest storage was such a neat idea that within a day of building this Pirate Inn, my son had built several of his own MOCs that all included hidden treasure chests, too! Explore more treasure chest fun!)

Better Beds – Even for Pirates!

Playing with this LEGO set led my son to conjecture that the beds at Pirate Inn are probably not very comfortable. He thinks that they should be a bit longer in length to better support the Pirate’s necks and to keep Pirate’s feet from hanging off the end of the bed.

This discovery prompted my son to build several MOC beds that include comfy pillows and are long enough to support the length of a Minifigure.

He loved that the Pirate Inn included a flight of steps and two levels. He laughed about how the roof of level one was also the floor of the second level. Then, he had an Aha! moment and realized that all homes and buildings are built this way. What a cool engineering discovery prompted by a LEGO brick-building project!

Creator 3-in-1 Sets

There is bad news about this set. This set, like all 3-in-1 Creator sets, requires deconstruction and decision-making. It’s tough convincing a kiddo to build his or her least favorite build first. Almost as tough as it is to ask a kiddo to break a build that they just spent hours creating!

I’m proud to say, that I was successful in both. We successfully built all three of this set’s designs without tears or arguments! (Read a review of our first build, Pirate’s Skull Island.) We even started implementing sorting bricks by color. This was nice because it gave my husband and me a task to complete while my son continued building. Our role also included locating pieces and handing the proper bricks to him.

To the Rescue: The LEGO Orange Brick Separator

Introduced in 2011, all LEGO Creator sets now include this tool for taking apart your builds. My husband and I did not understand how to use this tool and so, almost instinctively, we have always resorted to the methods we used as kids (resulting in risky teeth maneuvers and chipped fingernails). During this build, our son showed us the proper techniques for using a LEGO brick separator and we’re very impressed! Let’s put it this way. We’re converts and we will always now seek out an Orange Brick Separator for future LEGO take aparts.

Favorite New Building Technique and Bricks

New Build Technique: Hidden Treasure Chest

We really took to the construction of the hidden treasure chest area. This hideaway concept has been included in several other of our MOCs already!

Here’s an example of one of our custom builds with a hidden treasure chest area, too.

New LEGO Brick: Pirate Map

A favorite new piece from this LEGO set is the Pirate Map. The map serves as a prop held by the pirates, a picture hung in the bedroom of Pirate’s Inn, and the Captain’s desk map on the Pirate Ship.

My son didn’t love that when the map is a picture on the wall in Pirate’s Inn, the map’s placement positions the ship on its side. He feels that the map correctly belongs rotated 45 degrees so that the boat is upright. Still, he imagines that this placement is intentional because LEGO Pirates probably ignore details. Perhaps, the map was knocked down and rehung incorrectly after a Pirate’s brawl!?!?!?

New LEGO Bricks: Ropes

This LEGO Pirate Ship set includes 10 rope pieces. The unique LEGO bricks are a new addition to our LEGO collection, as is the Skeleton Minifigure! I bet we’ll be seeing a lot of this skeleton in our future Halloween builds.

We have fun building with our new LEGO brick ropes. They’re quite flexible pieces, and my son has complained that they aren’t holding the awning tightly enough. He didn’t like that the ropes from the crow’s nest to Pirate’s Inn awning had a bit of slack in them (shown above). He wanted the ropes to remain perfectly taut. But, hey, if that’s his only complaint, then this set is a winner!

Box Recloses Easily

I super appreciate that this set is packaged in a very sturdy cardboard box with closing tabs included on both ends. This allows us to pack away the pieces and keep them safe for rebuilding. I wish all LEGO sets that encourage rebuilding would have this closure feature, too (especially sets like LEGO Chest or LEGO Boost!)

Highly Recommended LEGO Set for Kids (2020 and 2021)

We hope you enjoyed our kid’s review of Lego Creator 3-in-1 Pirate’s Ship Pirate’s Inn alternative build! We think this is one of the best LEGO sets of 2020. We can’t wait to hear what you think, too.

If you enjoyed this post, check out our article about this LEGO Set’s Skull Island build and our other Kid LEGO Reviews, too. Please tag us or reply in the comments about your personal build experience! @artsandbricks

LEGO Set Rating

Happy Building!

Get your hands on this set, available on Amazon.