Kid-Review of LEGO Creator Pirate Ship Skull Island, Set 31109

The 3-in-1 Pirate-themed 2020 Lego Creator set boasts 1260 brick pieces and three build ideas and receives a kid’s thumbs up!

For this 3-in-1, we chose an alternative build first. SKULL ISLAND was our first build and it did not disappoint!

Skull Island:

One of this LEGO Pirate Ship‘s alternative builds is Skull Island. Skull Island has a separate build book that includes 117 steps. Our 8-year old was able to build this set without adult supervision, except for one small hiccup which you can read about in our Skull Island Build Tip below.

Cons of Creator 3-in-1 Sets

All 3-in-1 sets require deconstruction! Lego Creator sets each come with an orange brick separator tool…which helps…but we’ve found that taking apart a newly built creation is painful, and we don’t mean just physically.

For all Lego Creator Sets choosing which design to build first is always a challenge.

In our household, many Lego Creator sets only ever enjoy having one design built because our kiddos hate to take apart their creations. (Just one of the reasons we started making Arts and Brick’s brick-built decals for MOCs.) Over the years, we’ve worked to convince our kids that building their least favorite design first is the way ago. We explain that then they can take the first build apart, build the next one, and finally build their favorite design so that their favorite of the 3-in-1 set can stay built for the long haul. However, to be honest, that’s a lot to ask of a kid and our logic doesn’t always work!

Pros of Creator 3-in-1 Sets

As parents, we really enjoy the good “Bang for your Buck” factor of 3-in-1 sets.

Lego Creator sets allow for hours of building and rebuilding before creative play and all your new bricks are mixed back into the larger collection of older Lego bricks.

Kid-Perspective on Creator Sets

While building this pirate’s paradise island, our son shared how he loved the creativity that Creator sets used to make shapes and items.

For instance, instead of providing formed Lego brick leaves for the tree on Skull Island, you build the foliage out of common brick pieces.

He also really liked how the log-built raft had a pattern of wood pieces, again built from common Lego bricks.

Favorite New Brick Pieces for our LEGO collection from Pirate Ship Set 31109

We love checking out our new sets for creative brick pieces that are new to our collection. This set has some great pieces. So far, we’re especially excited by the Skeleton Minifigure, Treasure Chest, and Lantern.

New Favorite: Skeleton Minifigure

The Skeleton Minifigure is definitely a new favorite! Currently, he’s serving as dead bones on Skull Island. I’m sure he’ll be extra LOVED next Halloween!

New Favorite: Treasure Chest

The kids were excited to score a brown treasure chest complete with jewels and treasure from this pirate LEGO set. (More LEGO treasure chest fun!)

The kids also thought the funny little monkey was cool. It took us a while to figure out what the monkey is, but the kids were delighted when they figured it out and realized that the monkey even stole a leaf from the tree!

New Favorite: Lantern

The LEGO brick-built lantern is created from three Lego brick pieces: the black prongs are brick #4532220, the lantern lid is brick #474026 and the lantern flame is brick #6238674. These lanterns look really great on the boats!

Getting Started

As this was our first build of the set, we opened each of the nine bags and poured the bricks into one large pile on the table. This set’s Pirate Ship build uses the bags in numerical order, but the Skull Island alternative build uses pieces from all the bags, so open away! We searched for pieces completely mixed-up for hours but about halfway through, we started grouping our brick pieces in piles of similar colors. This more organized sorting technique is used very begrudgingly by the kids!

Total Time to Build

We spent the afternoon building Skull Island. It took about 5 hours total, but that included several breaks. We ran into one mistake during our build and one possible error in the instructions.

The base of Skull Island looks like a Cat!

As we were building, we realized that the base actually resembles a wild cat…perhaps a tiger, jaguar, panther, or lion!

Technic Movement

The “extreme cool factor” for the Lego Skull Island build is that the skull moves up and down, effectively guarding the treasure chest that is hidden within its entrance.

Skull Island Build Tips

Be careful that you select the correct brick on build step number sixty (#60). We missed the warning about choosing a circle rather than a plus sign two-peg brick. Later in the build, at step eighty-four (#84), we couldn’t find the black brick with a plus sign in it. After looking for quite some time, I started flipping back through the instructions to find the problem and found that page fifty-nine clarifies the issues. To note, this error also keeps the handle from spinning and the skull from moving.

Possible Error in the Skull Island Build Instructions – Steps 114 and 115:

As we built Skull Island, we realized that there might be an error in the printed instructions. On Skull Island’s Step 114, the blue piece is shown hanging off the base plate and not covering both white pegs. However, Step 115 shows the blue brick fully placed on the white base piece. We found that the correct set-up is what is shown in Step 115, not the placement shown in Step 114.

Thumbs Up – The Skull Island alternate build is Kid-Approved!

We can adamantly share that this Lego set is kid-approved (and provides hours of creative building fun, screen-free!)

Create Scenes

A really cool part about this set is that your kids can truly PLAY with this pirate set.

The design and pieces actually encourage creative play. We’re quite sure that your kiddos will create scenes with this set and that your kiddo(s) will TRULY enjoy PLAYING with this set! #WINNING!

We’ve watched some awesome STOP ACTION videos created with this set. Watch and be amazed. Better yet, create your own stop-action videos! Check them out below.

LEGO Skull Island Videos

Remember this set for later

Pin this LEGO Pirate Ship 31109 to remember as a gift for your Lego-lovin’ kiddo (or adult) later in the year!

LEGO Set Review

We hope you enjoyed our kid’s review of the Lego Creator 3-in-1 Pirate’s Ship Skull Island alternative build! We can’t wait to hear what you think. Please tag us or reply in the comments about your personal build experience! @artsandbricks

Happy Building!

Get your hands on this set, available on Amazon.

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