On our first trip to Mexico we were looking at which excursions to book and the Captain Hook excursion sounded like a good option. The idea is you go out on one of two boats at night, watch a 'pirate show', the drinks are all inclusive and apparently flow freely all night, you can have either a lobster or steak dinner and then towards the end the two boats 'meet' in the water and the 'pirates' jump from ship to ship fighting. In theory it is a great idea.
Now unfortunately for us the trip did not start off well in that we almost double booked ourselves. We had booked our dolphin swim for in the day at 1pm and the Captain Hook excursion was to pick us up from our hotel at 6pm if I remember rightly. We had thought this would be plenty of time given that the dolphin swim lasts around an hour. Unfortunately we did not account for transfer times and we had to wait around at the dolphin swim place for a few hours after our swim till our coach was ready to leave. We had about 10 minutes from being dropped off from the dolphin swim to being picked up for the Captain Hook trip so we literally had to run into our room and put some clothes on and go out - my hair was still wet from the swim!
None of that is a negative about the trip though that was just unfortunate!
Okay so once we'd got changed we got on the mini bus and did the numerous pick ups from other hotels and about an hour and a half to two hours later we arrived in Cancun.
THE EXCURSION
Upon arriving at the dock that the trip departs from there are several 'pirates' walking about that you can have photos taken with etc. There's also lots of things available to buy such as bandanas and eye patches should you want to dress up.
You are put into one of two lines to queue up to board one of the two boats. There is a green boat and a red boat. My memory of this trip is a little hazy in parts due to it being a few years ago now and I can't remember which boat we were on but they are both very similar.
When you get on the boat you are ushered along and given a place to sit. This is on some really uncomfortable stools lined up in rows on either side of the boat with the middle of the boat area clear.
Upon sitting down we were assigned a pirate who would go and get our drinks for us all night. He brought our first drinks very quickly and our second drinks soon again after that. Unfortunately after this he did not come round to take our drink orders again and we were left without a drink for the rest of the night so the trip in our case can hardly be considered "all you can drink". Had we had a little more alcohol we maybe would have enjoyed the rest of the trip more!
So, the first bit of the trip is the show. This deserves top marks. It may seem a little unfair that I gave the excursion two stars if I am saying the show is so good but three stars is rated as 'satisfactory' which overall I did not believe the excursion was.
So, back to the show; the pirates were all really good at what they do and that is - putting on a great show! It was all very entertaining and funny, everyone on the boat was really laughing so much. The funniest part of the show was based around the main pirate making fun of this Japanese couple on the boat that didn't speak English, it was all done in good humour and was really funny. After the trip however me and my boyfriend did wonder if they were actually part of the show rather than genuine audience members as so much of the humour relied on them being there that we wondered what they would have done had there not been some Japanese tourists on the trip. Recently I read a review of this excursion where someone stated that there were a Japanese couple on the boat and mentioned the jokes that our pirate had said when we were on it - this confirmed the fact that it was a set up which somehow in hindsight makes it a lot less funny but nonetheless at the time we really enjoyed the show and it was really funny.
Unfortunately this is where the positives end. After the show they started playing 'party games'. This included taking everyone's shoes off them. We didn't want to give up our shoes. Maybe this makes us sound like spoil sports but I played this game when I was 4 and it wasn't entertaining then, never mind as an adult.
The games are of the 'forced' variety and we had our shoes taken off us whether we wanted to or not. Then as our shoes were thrown in a huge pile with everyone else's our pirate decided to show his face again to inform us it was time for us to go for our meal.
We had both booked to have steak as at the time neither of us had ever had lobster and didn't know if we would like it. We were escorted inside and down some stairs to eat our dinner, still bare foot. The area in which we were to eat what was billed as our 'romantic' steak or lobster dinner was not un-reminiscent of a school canteen. We were put on a tiny little table with a dad and his two sons who we had never met before and had to cram up to eating our tea. The steak was okay, I can't remember what the choice was now of what to have with the steak but it was poor.
After eating we went back up and eventually were reunited with our shoes. My boyfriends trainers, which he had just bought brand new for holiday (and you know how much men's trainers cost) were now all bent and ruined and completely drowned in beer. This of course put a damper on the night already.
Next were some more forced games. They pulled up a couple and upon them shouting different drinks such as "tequila!" "whisky!" "beer!" etc they had to perform a different command. For example, when they shouted tequila the couple had to rub each others noses with their finger, when they shouted whisky they had to turn around and rub there bums together etc. I can't remember clearly which drinks or commands there were but they definitely included them two and more. After the couple had successfully completed this 'dance' they had to break off from each other and 'pick' another person out of the audience to come up and join them. Then when those four people had done it they had to break apart and choose another four to come up etc. This continued until everyone was up doing it.
So imagine the scene, you are completely stone cold sober and a stranger pulls you up and you have to rub bums with them and touch their faces etc. Then you have to pull up some poor other person to join in the torture. I didn't see anyone who actually wanted to do it!
After this was the 'disco' imagine cramming 10 full grown adults into a Ford KA and you roughly have a guide of how much space per person there was. Okay, so maybe I exaggerate a little but all parts of your body were touching other people because the boat was so packed. If you're claustrophobic this is not the trip for you.
So you have a vision of how crammed the boat is, now add to this 'forced' dancing of YMCA, Saturday Night, Macarena, Follow the Leader etc. Every dance that there wasn't enough room to do you were forced into participating in.
After a horrific hour or so off this the two boats met up and they did the supposed highlight of the night; the jumping from ship to ship fight. I'm sure this was very good however I can't comment as everyone was forced to one side of the boat to make room for it, and us being forced to the back could not see even a tiny bit of this show.
After this the boats slowly, I mean slowly, start to sail back and the 'disco' continues only now it is more optional if you join in doing the Cotton Eye Joe :)
Eventually, thank god, the boat pulls back in and you then have your two hour return (including hotel drop offs) back to your hotel if you are staying anywhere other than actually in Cancun.
VERDICT
I don't mean to have come across miserable in this review. I enjoy nothing more than a great night out, I'm always the one up dancing and joining in with anything that is going on but this trip really was horrendous. I also think it's a bad sign if you are having to force people to join in, I prefer a night so good that people join in because they actually want to.
The show at the beginning was brilliant, we really enjoyed that and I'm not going to knock it.
The rest of the night however was awful.
If this sounds like your sort of thing then by all means you may enjoy it, we definitely didn't. What you have to bear in mind is if you do not like it, you are on a boat and you are stuck there all night. It's not like trying out a club and not liking it so being able to move onto the next one. If you don't like it you're there for the remainder and a full night of your holiday could be wasted.
It was a long time ago we went on this trip but I think it cost around £20 each if I remember rightly but I could be wrong. Although it sounds good value at the time when you take into account how little drinks you will actually get and the poor quality of the food and the night as a whole, I wouldn't go back on this trip if they paid me to go on it never mind the other way round.
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