Captain Pirate Man

From my sets, I would say enlighten are very very close to Lego quality. If a Lego brick is a 10, then enlighten bricks are a 9. If Lego minifigs are a 10, then enlighten minifigs are an 8. Their arms sometimes fall off, which never happens with Lego. But all things considered they are useable minifigs. Plus the bricks themselves are pretty damn solid.

I'm hoping for another round of potc as well. I missed the boat on the first wave, so I missed out on some nice ships, won't be making that mistake again.

I want that gatehouse without the ship. I really like it, I wish I could find just that without paying a fortune for it, honestly I could care less about the ship.

Ya, only marvel superheros will really get her attention. There has to be a strong female characters, in order to get girls interested. Harry Potter had Hermione, hobbit had Tauriel, superhero has many. That's why Bat man, ninjago, and the others won't get many girls, they are to boy driven. Same goes for pirates, she already has some pirate ships and they just sit on her shelf.

I will go ahead and say, if someone took the time to build the kazi black pearl out of Lego bricks, and gave it the same masts that were used on the big imperial flagship, it would be a pretty kickass ship. I would love to see it....

My daughter who is 10, and all of her female friends all love the hobbit and lotr sets. She was sad when I told her "no more New sets". I think Lego is making a mistake here, this line is more popular than they realize, plus they are not bringing in a proper replacement for these fans. My daughter started on Harry potter then went to hobbit and lotr know where does she go? She also loves marvel super hero's, so luckily that's her next stop, but after that I'm betting she goes into her dark ages. I guess my point is that this line does have a pretty loyal fan base, and they are getting dropped. This New elves line could have been her next stop, but she hates minidolls, she wants minifigs. So we won't be buying any of those sets. I just feel a little sad for her, she only has 2 or 3 years left with toys and her favorite toys, Lego, just dropped her favorite line.....

I have a little faith. Think about it, both hobbit and lotr are done, so that leaves a pretty big hole in the Lego universe. We know that castle isn't coming back until next year, so I'm hoping pirates gets a 2nd wave later this year. I really want a proper blue coats flag ship...

It may be blasphemy, but you gotta admit that the castle lines have produced better "fort" type locations than the pirates line. I had the Imperial trading post as a kid, and that one was pretty good, but still not as good as a castle. I knew I would get some crap for mixing the themes, lol. But I figured why not mix? Castles and kings still existed in the 1600 and 1700 hundreds. The only things that were no longer prevelant were the knights and catapults. I just use the knights for castle guards, and give them a musket.

You can't turn their hands, that's my daughter's biggest complaint. They are not as interchaingable as minifigs.

I hope new castles are coming. Castle and pirates are my 2 favorite themes, and to be honest I'm a little disappointed with the current pirate theme. The ship just do much for me. But hopefully the blue coats can get a good flagship in the near future. Even though the last castle theme was unimpressive by most accounts, I kinda like it tbh. But in my opinion Lego has never had a bad castle line. Sure the 2013 line wasn't as good as the 80s and 90s stuff, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have it's good qualities. I'm sure the same can be said for the current pirate line, but I just haven't seen it in the first wave... By the way, does anyone else mix their pirate and castle sets together like I do? I know it's not historically accurate, but having pirate ships and castles in the same "world" makes for a fun time.

My 10 year old daughter loves Lego, but she hates the "friends" style minifigs. She likes regular minifigs better, that's why she likes lotr and hobbit sets over the friends sets. Does anyone else notice this? She would love this line, if it had regular minifigs...

Originally I had my mind all made up, I was going to get 70404. But then seeing 7094 made me lean more towards that One. But I read a comparison between 7094 and the red 2010 castle, and the majority seemed to prefer the 2010 castle. So that got me thinking maybe the newer castle is better again, but most seem to prefer the 2010 castle over the 2013 model anyways....

What exactly do you prefer about 7094? Also what are your complaints about 70404? I'm really trying to make the best desicion possible, especially since my wife just told me that I can only have 1 castle, because I said "well I'll just get the other one for Christmas next year." she then replied "you only need 1 castle!!!" lol. Since 7094 brought you out of your dark ages, you must have a certain affinity to it. But personal feelings aside, you still prefer it huh?

Do you own both?

I glued the rear entry points that give you access to the cabin as well. It still doesn't give you much access to it, but at least now the pieces don't fall a part when I open the back hatches.

http://s1373.photobucket.com/user/CaptainPirateMan/media/DSCN0174_zps2762bf7f.jpg.html?o=13 http://s1373.photobucket.com/user/CaptainPirateMan/media/DSCN0154_zpsb2c8ce62.jpg.html http://s1373.photobucket.com/user/CaptainPirateMan/media/DSCN0158_zps1446b4b5.jpg.html?o=12 Let me start by saying I grew up very much a Lego head. So yes I do consider myself to be a loyal long time “Legoist.” At some point during early 20’s, my (EVIL) step mother, lol, sold my entire Lego collection in a garage sale, without my knowledge… I now have kids and they very much LOVE Lego’s, so my interest in them has returned as well. Every time we really talk about building our Lego collection, I can’t help but miss MY Lego collection. Some of the highlights of that collection were Skull Eyed Schooner, Eldorado Fortress, and the original Imperial Flagship. I also had pretty much every pirate island and Imperial fort along with many Castle and Woodsman sets from the late 80’s and early 90’s. Fortunately many of my minfig’s did survive and are still in my possession, but that is it…. Fast forward to 2014, looking online into Lego’s for my kids, I discovered many knockoff Lego companies. The two things that drew my attention was A. price and B. the sets themselves. It’s no secret that buying Lego brand Pirate ships are VERY expensive at the moment. My wife and I decided to have a “Lego” Christmas. We are buying MANY official Lego products including The Lonely Mountain, The battle of Five Armies and many other large Hobbit sets, along with multiple smaller Hobbit and Friends sets. But for our pirate sets we made the decision to build up our collection (since we pretty much started from scratch, minus the minfigs of course) with Chinese knockoff companies. We are expecting MULTIPLE ships and sets from Enlighten, Kazi, and Sluban. Today I am starting my reviews with the Kazi Black Pearl. The Kazi Black Pearl I purchased for about $100 including shipping (let me add I received it in about 1 week, which is amazing for a Chinese product.) Despite the hefty price tag, I could not pass up this ship for two reasons A. the sheer size and B. the even hefty price tag for the Official Lego Black Pearl (which is typically $200 or more for a SMALLER ship). Let me add, the Kazi Black Pearl is a more of a knockoff of Lego’s Imperial Flagship, than it is the Lego Black Pearl. It does look like the Black Pearl, but it is also more of an original design than it is a complete Lego copy cat. I do not own the Lego Black Pearl, so I can’t do a complete compare and contrast, but as stated earlier, I DID have the Skull Eyed Schooner (which was the biggest and baddest Lego ship on the block for over 15 years.) Plus I have also watched and read many reviews of of ALL of Lego and nonLego “style” Pirate ships, so I feel fairly confident in my opinions. Which having said that, I will get to my point; the Kazi Black Pearl is the biggest and baddest Lego style ship on the market. This ship, along with the Lego Imperial Flagship is the only 6 piece hull ships on the market, so this ship is clearly bigger than the lego Black Pearl and Queen Anne’s Revenge. Does it have all the bells and whistles those other ships offer? No probably not, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its fair share of bells. But having said that, this ship is by no means without flaw, but many of those flaws can be remedy by a decent amount of Lego knowhow. Let me start with the good, this ship is surprisingly well built, designed, and sturdy. It really is a solidly built set. None of the parts feel like they could just give out on a moment’s notice. Now that doesn’t mean that this ship could survive steady play from a 5 year old (because it could not, but more on that later), but as long as you don’t drop it, it’ll stay together pretty well. Also, and I can’t stress this enough, it looks freaking awesome. It really looks like and feels like a BAD to the bone pirate ship. Honestly I wish I still had my Skull Eyed Schooner, they would make for some EPIC high seas battles (although I’m not sure I would bet on the Schooner.) While the overall brick quality of Kazi’s products is not as high as Lego’s, it is by no means bad. If Lego is a 10, these Kazi bricks are an 8. If I put a bunch of these bricks in my kids Legos, I doubt she could pick them out (except for one says Lego and one say Kazi.) The actual quality of the bricks is NOT one of the weak points of this set, it’s actually one of the strengths, hence the sturdy final build. To be quite honest, even the most loyal Lego enthusiast would benefit from adding this ship to your fleet. It will only make you fleet better, impossible to hurt it. Now on to the bad, the minifigs are AWFUL. Honestly you could not ask for worse minfigs IMO. Based on Lego minifigs being a 10, these are a 2. Their only redeeming qualities are their accessories. They do have nice hats and weapons, but the actual figs are terrible. I couldn’t even put the hands on some of them; the holes just didn’t seem big enough. Whatever money Kazi put into making their bricks pretty good, they clearly recouped those costs on the minifigs. But fortunately for me, I just tossed these crap figures aside and put on my Pirate Lego guys, so the minifigs don’t really bother me much. Another thing I don’t like is the sails. They are made of plastic or some kind of vinyl, not nearly as nice as cloth sails. But as with the minifigs, I am making my own sails, and can easily remedy this problem. Another aggravating aspect to this set was the piece count. I want to say I was shorted 5 or so pieces, and was giving the wrong color of another 5 or so. Luckily for me, I can raid leftover Lego pieces, so again I could fix this problem. But honestly I shouldn’t have had to. My final two complaints are more of grievances, not terrible things, but things that could be better. First off, I did have to slightly modify the design a couple of times. As I was building it, I just had a couple of ideas that it would be better if you do it this way instead, so I did. My final grievance is the captain’s quarters. The ship actually comes with a pretty good quarters, with some good odds and ends, but they are virtually impossible to access. It does have a back opening access point, but it’s not nearly as well designed as Lego counter parts. So basically you end up using the windows and doors mostly, which makes it VERY hard to access. But on the other hand, the rear of the ship is VERY solid, and not likely to fall apart, so maybe it’s 6 of one, half dozen of the other? 14 and up Rating: For older kids and adults I have to give this set a 9. The ship alone is worth the price, it is really that beautiful. Again I’m basing this rating upon Lego pirate ships being a 10. The things that lower the score are things like the minifigs or Kazi quality control issues, but not much on the actual ship. But once my small changes are complete, this set will feel like a perfect 10, at least to me. Under 14 Rating: For kids under the age of 14 I would give this set a 2. As a standalone set, being played with often, I would not recommend this set. Without my ability to “fix” the problems or look at the big picture, I would be very upset. If this was the first “lego” set I ever bought for my child, it would probably be the last, because the minifigs make it almost unplayable. Final Verdict: My overall score for this set is a 7.5. It is equally beautiful and ugly at the same time, but at the end of the day the beauty outweighs the ugly, at least for me. Again, not the best idea for a kid, but older collectors should love it. As I stated before, even the most loyal Lego fans would only benefit from adding this set to their fleet. At the end of the day, all of these cons can be fixed even by the most novices of builders. http://s1373.photobucket.com/user/CaptainPirateMan/media/DSCN0158_zps1446b4b5.jpg.html?o=12

I also am a pretty big fan of these enlighten pirate ships, I currently own 5 enlighten ships, with the knockoff bsb being my newest addition. I missed out on many of the Lego originals, so these allow me to build up my fleet without paying a fortune. Plus the "king of the seas" and the smaller one of the same colors are not direct Lego ripoff, so is the adventurer, which I turned into my red coat ship. So basically, of the 5 I own, only 2 are direct Lego copies, the bsb and the armada ship. I also own the kazi black pearl, which needed some help, but is now the prize of my fleet. I also own the biggest sluban ship, which needed a major redesign to become at all usefull. The sluban ship looks ok now, but it was really a crapper when I first bought it, far worse than the kazi ship. The kazi ship had flaws, but it at least looked good, the sluban ship looked down right ugly, plus had many flaws. But back to enlighten, if you are pinching pennies, they are a pretty good alternative to get some classic looking sets.

I hear you, and you are not wrong in your review. I pretty much used the dreaded krackle to address the design flaws, especially the masts. But to be honest, that didn't really bother me, because I just plain love the sheer size of this ship. But once I glued up some of the weak points, it became the pride of my knockoff fleet, which includes every enlighten ship and the biggest one sluban makes. Which the sluban is by far the worst due to it's just plain ugly design. The enlighten are pretty close to Lego quality, but I still prefer the black pearl overall. Once I glued the weak points of course, because as you ssid it does have some major flaws, but they ca be fixed.

I have this set and the Back to the future set. I love them both, but Ecto 1 is better designed than the Delorian. On a side note, when I was a kid I would make my own Ecto 1 and use space guys as Ghostbusters. So this set wasv literally a dream come true for me.

Thanks. I realize this is more of a Lego only type site. Lego are the kings, no doubt about it. But as consumers, competion favors the consumer.

This was my first ever Lego ship. I do miss it, and may add it to my collection again someday.

I'm new here, hello. :)