A jolly time at Whitby Pirate Festival 2025

This weekend we popped back over to Whitby for our second time this summer. It was great returning so soon after being there only last month for Steampunk Festival. We had an amazing time last visit and you can read all about our trip here.

This time we headed over for our first ever Whitby Pirate Festival! We have never been before but with our 2 year old developing an obsession for pirates we knew it was our time to set sail.

This is what they had in store for us..

We arrived midday on Saturday and were surprised to not see any pirates around. We started wondering whether we’d got the wrong date! After a moment of feeling foolish we finally spotted some then headed straight for the Royal Hotel. Despite several years visiting Whitby, we’ve never actually been inside here. What an awesome bar it has! I had no idea this quirky place existed – The Fat Badger. Given the style of the interior i’m really not surprised that half of the Steampunk events take place here.

I traded my husband for a badger.

We headed for the Ballroom to see what events were occurring and caught Shanties and Scallywags entertaining the little pirates. What a treat that was! It wasn’t very busy but it was perfect for our dog to chill out and us to have a drink without worrying about what to do with our toddler. She really enjoyed watching the pirates and wanted to go join in with the dancing despite being the littlest by miles. She then watched Sword School but unfortunately was too young to join in.

Maybe next time Hilda, you keep practising..

We stuck around for a while and chatted to a lot of pirates including the same pirate we met at Steampunk last month. He was involved in the event and had promoted it at Steampunk so we were glad to see him again. He took a photo of us all together which I’ve no doubt I’ll appreciate having this photo for many years to come!

We loved dressing up for Whitby Pirates Festival, it was a lot of fun and made us feel like we were part of it. It also meant we had to be prepared to have our photo taken! We managed to get a few photos taken in the Ballroom in the corner studio by the same photographers I recognised from previous events. It was tricky getting Newkee to sit still for these so we’ll see how they end up turning out.

After The Royal, we headed over to the wishbones and I had some fun with Newkee and her sword. It was great being able to see Whitby Abbey without a grey sky for once!

We headed down towards the bandstand where we knew there would be some more events taking place. We made it just in time before the RNLI stalls were packed away and enjoyed some of the live music on offer.

It was here we bumped in to Paul of P & K Making Memories who has taken our photograph many times at previous Steampunk events! It was great to catch up and we even got some more snaps, this time in front of the sea. A first for us to not be up at the Pavillion. I look forward to seeing how they turn out.

We spotted hundreds and hundreds of pirates out and about in Whitby today and some of the costumes were amazing. I especially loved seeing all the parrots around and the variety of bright coloured feathers that decorated peoples hats. I think it’s ace how much work goes in to a lot of these outfits and I can only hope that we can do the same in the future! I didn’t take many photos of others but you can find a bundle on Facebook groups such as Thru the lens which has loads of awesome pictures.

Whitby Pirates Festival is taking place all weekend from Friday 29th to Sunday 31st August 2025. Grab your eyepatch, hat and parrot and get yourself down there!

There is still enough time to enjoy all the events on Sunday. Keep an eye on their official Facebook page or website for all the updates.

We won’t be there tomorrow as Leeds is a little far to pop back from but we loved our day and we look forward to the next one!

Until next time… Aaarrrgghhh.