The cheese factor was a little up there for me. Our guide was fantastic and incredibly knowledgeable, but the exhibits themselves needed a bit of improvement. For kids? This is perfect because it's not too "adulty and boring." read more

My kids (8 and 7) enjoyed going to this museum with my in laws. They spent a couple of hours there before getting lunch in town. They took some fun photos (see attached) and even came home with little treasure chests from the gift shop. While I don't think this is necessarily a museum you'd visit multiple times, this had been on their wish list for some time and I'm really glad they got to do it. From what I heard, there were fun photo ops and interactive displays. read more

New England Pirate Museum - photo op in the museum - "wanted" poster - Museums Near Me - Salem, Massachusetts

I have come to this museum for a couple of years and it has always been a fun time. However, I do think they need to update the figures in here. The price is a little steep for what you're getting out of the tour, but you always do manage to get a very funny full of life tour guide. The tour is about 20 minutes long and if you've never done it before, I do recommend it, but don't expect to have a mind blowing experience. read more

Visiting Salem we had done alliance he witch stuff and our last day wanted to see something maritime history. Not aware of the strong pirate history around the area, we were pleased to see so much interesting memorabilia and artifacts. Only takes an hour or so, but a good little museum with some good pirate history!! read more

Tourist trap! Interesting history tid bits and displays but it's way overpriced for the 15 minutes you spend going through the back room- I mean *cough* the museum. Should be half the price! read more

It was "meh" at best. I'm surprised this place is in business. Probably one of the worst tours I've had. Boring, short and not worth the money that was spent. read more

The guide made it worth it. In fact all the guys were great. There is some good information & I love pirates so it was exciting for me. It's not huge, and is outdated - but this isn't Disneyland. So, for the price point I'm not mad. Had the employees not been so great I would've been disappointed. I asked a few questions & was met with intelligence. They deserve props! Buy the pass that saves you 8$, and enjoy the experience. It's not something I'd do more than once, but would recommend to anyone who has an interest in pirates. read more

New England Pirate Museum - Front entry - Museums Near Me - Salem, Massachusetts

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Ok, out of the combined tickets that we purchased that allowed us to visit the Witch Dungeon and Witch History Museums all in the same day, this was my least favorite of the three. Why? Yes, the gift shop is lacking compared to all the others, but that's not the reason. Yes, the tour is short, and the museum has a weird smell throughout, but that's also not it. Yes, the entire place needs dusting and a good revamping, but that's also not it. The main reason was the tour guide. He was a loud, deep-voiced lad who did not understand that the tour is not a race. He spoke as fast as he possibly could and took little care in adapting the script to the listener. Meaning, he used a few words that were not understood by the patrons because he did not provide context or definition. Additionally, he spoke so fast that he never took a breath and, therefore, his presentation suffered in the listeners' ears. The museum is good, and the tour is extremely interesting; however, the guide needs to be educated in public speaking skills and how to connect with an audience. But that was just one guide. Therefore, I say go and enjoy; hopefully, you don't get the guide that I had. read more

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Good cheesy fun. Exactly how much fun likely depends on the composition of your group and the skill of your guide, er, captain. Our captain was quite knowledgeable and was able to respond with aplomb to both questions about history and requests for terrible puns. There are a few real artifacts, but mostly staged scenes paired with tongue-in-cheek narration. If you go in expecting to relax and laugh, or if you have young kids, it'll be great. If you go in expecting Very Serious History, you will be disappointed. (To be clear, the history isn't incorrect. It's just presented in sugar-coated morsels.) read more

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This was cute! A little cheesy but informative and fun. Our captain, Bill, was funny and really knows his history.

How could I, of all people, not go to a pirate museum? I have studied the pirate lifestyle and a few specific pirates for a while now. We had to do this one... We were immediately upsold to 2 more museums (Witch History Museum & Witch Dungeon Museum) both of which (witch?) we were probably going to do anyway. The young man that did the tour seemed well rehearsed and knowledgeable, shared lots of facts as quickly as possible. The scenes themselves are okay, the mannequins could use some work. The overall tour was pretty short I would have loved to see more at the end in a self guided piece showing artifacts from New England pirates, but this wasn't that kind of museum. Not sure it would have been worth regular price. But the slight discount you get for buying all three at once helped. read more

New England Pirate Museum - A few mates from the tour... - Museums Near Me - Salem, Massachusetts

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Great for the younger kids. Very "touristy" and it's doubtful that we'll read adults will get a lot out of it but it's fun for the younger kids. The displays are pretty worn and dated but the narration from the guide was great. read more

Great guided tour by a cute pirate. He was very informative and kept things interesting. All the other museums focus on witches and this one is strictly about pirates from the area. read more

New England Pirate Museum - Pirates gambling - Museums Near Me - Salem, Massachusetts

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I've been there twice and would've gone for a third time until yesterday. First time the tour went well and I thought our guide was awesome at explaining. Second time, was done by a guy who seem to rush through it and not as enthusiastic. Third time, I went in dressed up as a character for that night's parade. I made small talk with one of the staff and I guess she thought I was trying to be part of the museum and told me to leave in an abrasive manner. I leave and thought to use that time to stand between the two statues out front for a while until I can get a hold of my other "crewmates." After two minutes, the same staff came out and told me to leave in an even more abrasive manner. You do know that I was just a guest, right? It is Salem and people dress in costumes all the time. I guess if I dress up more professionally than your staff than that's a threat to your business. Well in that case you just lost some business because I'd rather go to the museum across the street or the one in Yarmouth. Have a terrible day. Definitely not going back and suggest anybody reading this to skip this museum unless you want to be treated bad or loose some brain cells. read more

Tim was our guide and he was a hoot. The whole place is really great, especially for us who are ex-Navy and sailboat owners plus I fancy myself a bit of a pirate. My review is a little bit of a bummer because I really had high hopes for this break from all thinks witchy but it was just okay. I have studied a lot of pirate history, watched every documentary that I could find, read Mitchner's Caribbean and quite a bit of other pirate related books and novels so maybe I could have better managed my expectations. However almost all of the information was pretty basic for me and there just seemed and there's so much more historical and interesting material available that was missing. It just seemed to miss the mark and I was left wishing for more. The exhibits were a little hoaky and even my son remarked that it was like a wax museum only missing the good wax figures :-) The gift shop was nice and I had more fun there than inside the museum myself. It's unfortunate that the gift shop was my modt memorable high pont. If your only pirate exposure is the Johnny Depp movies or if you have geniunely curious kids then this might be okay but it's not Disney quality entertainment and it's not in the same league with a Smithsonian. read more

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This place is very hokey/touristy. A guide takes you around staged pirate scenes. Thankfully, Salem recently added a new pirate exhibit across the street that is newer, brighter and more informative. The new museum also has actual artifacts on display from pirate ships - This museum has costume shop props... save your money and walk across the street! read more

We purchased the museum pass in Salem that saves you $8 per person. New England Pirate Museum was our last stop and it was refreshing to say the least after doing so many witch activities. The set up of the museum was a bit more sophisticated than the other two witch museums we visited beforehand. You could tell that this establishment put a bit more time and care into their area. Our speaker was mediocre and cracked a few jokes here and there. I like how there's a portion where you can walk on your own and explore a bit. But beware! At the end there's someone dressed as a pirate staying real still but moves just a little bit. My bf was terrified out of his mind LOL! Don't come to Salem expecting some beautifully enriched museum that has high quality. The museum is run down and it is creepy and very old. We just appreciated the history behind it. read more

New England Pirate Museum - Entrance of the pirate museum - Museums Near Me - Salem, Massachusetts

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This is definitely a low budget museum. It doesn't look like the exhibits have been updated in years and there is a smell to the whole place. This is the only place where we were charged for my 4 year old to enter. Every other place she was free. On the other side of the coin the tour was very informative. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and you could tell he enjoyed his job. He took his time and didn't rush us through. read more

We were here on the last day of the Museum's season. We were taken through the tour by Dylan. He was amazingly funny and knew his story well. If you're a pirate officionado then you need to enjoy the stories told. There's some information about a wrecked ship that has had die of its treasure found which is interesting. Yes the exhibits are old but it fun and entertaining. The gift shop had some cool items in it and the guys were friendly and accommodating. We all had a great time. read more

New England Pirate Museum - Skeleton - Museums Near Me - Salem, Massachusetts

Wow. I mean I didn't expect a lot but this really takes the cake for "waste of money/tourist trap". The tour is dark and extremely musty. One party on the tour actually walked out because it was so bad. I'd save your money and buy a witch hat from a vendor read more

This is a total waste of money and time!! It smells horrible inside and the "props" are soooooo bad!!! It looks like an 8th grade class put it together..... NO wait.. they would do it better!!!! I don't know where the 98 pictures above came from but it DOES NOT look like that now!!! DONT WASTE YOUR TIME.... read more

We ended up third parting and it wasn't the best tour. I recommend going to the witch or doing your own research and saving your money on this tour read more

ARRRR!!! So ye wants to know what the pirates were?! Step right up to the New England Pirate Museum. Admission is fairly inexpensive and it is child-friendly. You're whisked into chambers full of life-sized pirates decked out in all their piratey gear. The museum has recreated boats and scenes including a tavern and a hung dead pirate in a cage. Times visited: 1 read more

New England Pirate Museum - Museums Near Me - Salem, Massachusetts

Must be more important to eat lunch and play in their Nintendo device than to start a tour. Many people standing here since the place opened 30 min ago. Do not recommend read more

this is more of a gag and a rip off imo. wouldn't recommend wasting time or money here. research pirates or something else and learn more for yourself. coming from a local, this place is wicked lame. read more

it cost 11 dollars for a ticket. keep your money. they have a guy running around with a sword, telling a story. and a bunch of dummies sitting there doing nothing. at least the witch stuff has special lighting, and recordings. now the tour guide did do his best, with what he had. which wasn't much. anyway, salem is known for their witches not their pirates. read more

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If you like raunchy museums with decaying mannequins who sport eyepatches than this is the spot for you! Seriously, we had a great experience at this museum. The staff was incredibly chill and helpful and our tour guide was really concerned with putting on an engaging presentation. You will learn all about the pirates who called these New England shores their territory and what motivated their actions and you will leave you questioning morality. By far the best part of this tour however is when the educational portion is over and you enter the "caves" which will be just another darklit room with more mannequins. At the end, you will happen upon a mannequin that actually is able to move its arms around, and you will be impressed with this high technology! And then you will realize that it is actually a person in a mask and it will scare the life out of you. read more

This place is ridiculously silly at best, horribly terrible at worst. A tourist trap like no other in Salem, this is not worth visiting if you're above the age of, say, 13. It's a wax museum, sort of, but not really. I actually went in expecting this to have a sincere focus on pirate history, considering it's right by the wharves in the old port of Salem. It's not. It's just a series of jokes concluded with one final "gotcha" moment. There are museum-like exhibits throughout but, instead of letting us just read the panels, we were led by a wannabe actor reciting from a script, full of puns and slapstick. If I had been able to just wander through on my own, it might have been different. The very end of the "tour" (more like a "ride" without a vehicle) actually has some exhibits that you can look at without your guide. We spent time actually reading them, trying to make our experience more enjoyable. When we finally emerged, one of the employees actually made fun of us for spending so much time looking at them. Hey, I'd paid admission, and I sure as heck didn't come just to hear their horrible, scripted jokes! Start with low expectations, and bring the kids - clearly, that's their intended audience. I suppose if I'd started out without the idea that this was a "real" museum, I'd have been less disappointed. For what it is (cheesy tourist trap for people who want to just turn off their brains), I suppose it's good. The best compliment I can give? The enthusiasm of the in-character guides seemed sincere, and it must take a lot of effort to sustain. read more

Can't say enough great things about this place. Our tour guide, Bob, did s fantastic job sharing stories and pirate folklore with our group. Went into it with low expectations based on the photos i saw on line of the wax mannequins, but Bob brought our entire experience to life. Had ages 8-mid 70's in our group; fantastic experience for all. (Do not recommended for small children or kids who are easily frightened...pirates were a gruesome bunch!) read more

This place is not a museum. It's more like a theatrical company that puts on a fun, interesting show about New England pirate lore. If you're expecting exhibits and cool little pirate trinkets then you'll be disappointed. However, a modest $8.00 for a pirate play is certainly worth it. The staff was an interesting group and were all dressed up as pirates in full character. They walked us through the exhibits maintaining their best accents and presented an interesting story about pirates that included a ship named "The Squirrel" which is obviously awesome, pirate beheadings which was not so awesome and also about some badass chick that was New England's last real pirate. It was a fun time but I think they could better serve their guests if they picked up and displayed some more museum-like artifacts from New England's pirate past. Maybe a sword or two? Some doubloons or booty? Either way, it's worth checking out the New England Pirate Museum if you're in Salem. read more

This place was incredibly fun. Yes, it pertains more to the maritime history of Salem rather than the Witches, but it is definitely one of the best attractions I've been to in Salem. At first you think, "how interesting is this REALLY going to be?" But it was a good deal of fun! You start with a tour guide at the front of the museum and he is of course a "pirate" and my tour guide was so animated and funny, he was pretty awesome. Now, we walked through the museum, which is set up as a recreation of what Salem would have looked like and such, and your pirate guide gives you a historical perspective on all things Pirate, which is really interesting and they love getting the kids involved. It was fun and the people working there really add to the place. Should definitely check it out. read more

I thought the Pirate museum was fun. our tour guide was great and hilarious, and told us a lot of cool facts about pirates and especially pirates of the New England waters. There were cool displays and also he told us about all the different pirate flags and what they meant and we saw them on display. Before this tour I had always thought Skull and Crossbones was the only flag for pirates. I did not know pirates had different flags. Pretty interesting stuff. Gift shop is pretty cool too. Lots of piratey things for sale matey! Har -Harrrr! Worth a stop if in Salem :-) read more

Everyone knows the story about the Salem witch trials, but you'll be very surprised what you never knew about the pirates of New England. Their story is something you've probably never seen in movies or documentaries. The staff here seems to love the place. My tour guide looked amazingly like Orlando Bloom, and was a talented actor as well. If you're unsure about visiting, stop by and take a look at the gift shop. It's very cool. I recommend going before Salem's busy September/October season. It seems like the actors get burnt out during this busy season. read more

Nice tour with a funny flare twist. We really enjoyed the tour guide, he was funny, witty, and extremely knowledgeable. I have no knowledge about Pirates going in, I left with a great knowledge base about the pirates, their flags, history, and I even learned that there were women pirates as well. I highly recommend everyone to visit this museum. read more

This place is what you'd expect for Salem "museums". It's cute, small, and kitschy. Fun stuff for a Sunday afternoon, but yes, but more old school wax museum than anything else! It would have been great if it was sold as a self led tour; the hungover frat boy who lead the tour just wasn't into it (and could I blame him ? Halloween season in Salem must be a drag). That said, I'd rather have not felt rushed out and have had the time to make my way through the exhibits. If you have mold allergies, beware! read more

I visited the New England Pirate Museum because my family and I were in Salem a few days before Halloween 2011, and my son literally dragged me off the street and towards the actors in costume out on the sidewalk and the diorama of a pirate attack on a village that was in the front window. We spent a lot of time in the water when we visited Salem--including taking the ferry over from Boston and signing up for the Mahi Mahi "haunted harbor cruise"--so it made sense in a weird way to follow up with pirates. Salem's such a wild place right before Halloween, even down to a lot of visitors being in costume already and an actual set of fairground rides being down on Derby Street, that this was just more pleasant craziness for us tourists to jump in on and spend more money. I did enjoy the Pirate Museum, because it was like a 1970s wax museum combined with some performance art. Basically, when you visit, you get paraded by a series of tableaus with wax figures and occasional sound effects that show the history of piracy, from Dixie Bull onward through Edward Teach (aka "Blackbeard") and others. The guides are all in pirate garb and pleasantly hammy and entertaining. The largest display shows an infamous tavern that was a trap for pirates as well as a nearby gallows, complete with an Anglican priest giving last rites to the condemned. The tableaus seem to be older but well maintained and really brought back a sense of nostalgia to me from similar things I recall from my youth back in the 1970s (and those wax museums were likely from the 1960s, at least). Rob Zombie (horror icon) was in town filming a movie while we were there, and I could see him slipping in to this place in disguise and chuckling a bit at the wonderful silliness of it all. My son didn't care for the last exhibit, which featured a severed head as part of a pirate mutiny, but he's very young, and I think most kids wouldn't be bothered. Overall, though, he loved the place, and we wound up buying him a pirate captain's hat, and he spent the rest of the afternoon trying to imitate pirate talk ("Arrr!"). The very end of the museum, although with exhibits, more resembles an honest-to-gosh carnival haunted house full of tunnels and things like pirate ghosts that POP up at you, but it's not too scary. I had a big smile on my face as we left: it was so cheesy but it took me back many years and my son had a great time. It's just a bit educational, mostly entertainment and a sort of fun, innocent, low-tech experience that you don't see much these days. read more

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I wanted to give this place some love. My family and I live in Salem so our kids have been asking us to go here for a long time. My son, who is 5, wanted to go but has Autism Spectrum disorder and we are always careful where we bring him because he is scared of darkness and noises. We took the chance and bought the tickets for all of us and in the first room he became scared (it really isn't very dark at all in the first room, but he didn't like it). So my wife stayed with our other two kids and I took him back out to the lobby. I didn't ask for a refund because we knew the risk, we knew it might not work. So I took him for a walk while my wife finished the tour. When she came back out after the tour she said that they refunded us the money for my son and I. I thought that was very nice. We went back in and bought him a spyglass. Very unexpected but appreciated with a son with special needs. My wife said it was a great presentation and she learned a lot! Maybe hoaky for older kids but I'm sure during Halloween they make it a little scarier. read more

The New England Pirate Museum is a private tourist trap. Tours occur every 30 minutes and each tour lasts about 20 minutes. The waiting area is a poorly stocked gift shop with items like shot glasses emblazoned with the jolly roger and baseball caps that say "The New England Pirate Museum". The museum itself is primarily informational and has very few artifacts. The only historical items are a collection of five flintlock pistols and blunderbusses, and two Spanish reale coins. The tour consists of a guide leading the guests past cheesy, life-size dioramas depicting in an imaginary way various famous pirates from New England history. Each pirate has small poster with a summary of their life. The guide paraphrases these summaries as you go along. The museum is damp and poorly ventilated, so it is noticeably moldy, a possible health hazard. read more

My tour guide had the looks of Cary Elwes in Princess Bride, and the voice and story telling abilities of Hank Green. This was the best attraction we saw. We loved this guy. read more

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Not bad if you don't want to go to the Witch Museums for the 800th time, but not so good either. When we went (2003), I think it had either just opened up or our guide was a bit "green" around the gills cause he didn't seem too comfortable yet. And I still haven't figured out if he really meant to put his foot through that barrel or not. Either way, we had a good time because we weren't expecting much. They had a nice little gift shop that had a bunch of pi-ratty things which could definately be the highlight of a trip to Salem for a little powder monkey ;) read more