"I can't say how much I appreciate Lego bringing out so many Pirate based builds this year. As I was building these it took me back to my childhood wanting big Lego sets but not being able to afford it, and just having fun playing with the basic pirate mini-figs and letting my imagination do the rest.
The three builds were really enjoyable with enough different techniques and variations that made each one unique. The Pirate ship was the most straight forward as it went through in bag order using most of the parts. The pub was a little less organised with parts spread across every bag, so basically just dump it all out and go searching. Skull island was about in the middle.
The ship is very cool with a lot of fun playable features for kids, the gang plank into the sharks mouth especially had my mini-figs dreading going overboard. Skull Island mouth opening to the treasure cave was a very cool touch and a half-turn keeps it open so your mini-figs can either find the treasure or store their ill gotten gains.
All in I would say these three sets have been the most fun builds I've done in a while and in terms of display, I'm super happy as they go along with my Pirates of Barracuda Bay set perfectly.
The photo's show the 3 sets and I've started to do some detail work (some using the extra parts from sets), I especially love the switchable face on the striped shirt pirate as the fearful look lets you have a lot of fun (as you can see from the shark photo)."