This set is great! The shack is so cool, you can even use it as an Islander's hut. Three minifigs is a good amount for a set this size, and with the boat, shark, and gold, many adventures are possible with this set!

Pros:
Cool Shack
Boat
Shark
Gold
lots of minifigs and accessories

Cons:
None!

This set is just so cosy. Although it isn't big, it comes with an original design, that really fits into the jungle of the pirates' theme. The diagonal tree blades are a perfect camouflage. You get a treasure, two pirates and a red officer. Furthermore you get a shark and a nice brown boat. This increases the playability furthermore.

One of the best medium-sized sets in the lego pirate lineup! Having a yellow baseplate makes for some welcome variety, and it works very well with the black and green of the small building. And what a building! A pirate can hide inside, or sit on top for a better view over the sea. The palm leafs give the place a real secret look and make it a pretty unique hideout. The pirate flag on the high post balances the island perfectly. Nice!

The Imperial officer in his rowboat - a brown one! yeehaa! - adds the playability that some other sets lack (e.g. Shipwreck Island, Sabre Island), and the shark is just icing on the cake. Near perfection, this Smuggler's Shanty!

this is one of my favorite pirate sets. i love the large range of playability for this set. it has an imperial guard two pirates a boat and an island with a treasure chest.
pros: cool leaf fort on the island boat with imperial guard twp pirates treasure chest shark and cool accsesories (although they come with every pirate set this size)
cons: needs a cannon to fire on enemy ships
overall: get it it is a nice addition to any lego collection and a great gift as well.

Having built some of my old pirate sets (after the success of #6235 Buried Treasure) I thought it would be a neat idea to ask my boys which of these small pirate islands they preferred: #6260 Shipwreck Island or #6258 Smuggler's Shanty. Boy No.1 chooses #6260 so of course Boy No.2 decides he likes #6258 best, great. So instead I decided to try and give a short overview of the merits of each set in comparison to the other one, this would work better if there was an option to link one review to two sets though *cough*feature request*cough* .

The good

A nice shack for the pirates, something that was missing from #6260. It's a bit on the small side but it looks pretty good considering the low piece count, and I guess they take turns to sleep below and stand watch on top? Probably, the obligatory palm tree has been sacrificed to make the shack, that roof has had to come from somewhere...

A new pirate (basically a recoloured old pirate, the two pirates here have the same face print in a different colour but it's nice to see a little bit more variety anyway).

A shark! And a rowboat! With a redcoat, even! Compared to #6260, if this is your only set you have some more options right away: three minifigures compared to two and a shark for added danger. The additional weapons help too, and there's even a cup so your pirates can get drunk!

The 'could be improved'

Where's that small island baseplate? I'd have liked that a lot more than I do the yellow 6 x 12 plate here, even though this plate hasn't appeared in a lot of sets either.

There's a redcoat included but again it is an officer, while our bluecoats have a soldier-to-officer ratio of about 3 to 1 the situation for our redcoats is 1 to 1!

The 'half-full' treasure chest, only one coin sprue which was becoming standard in place of the two coin sprues that came with the treasures in earlier sets. The 'gold' (yellow) cup is no replacement.

In short

I like #6260 slightly better than this one, but as mentioned there that could be the nostalgia speaking. On its own this set might be slightly better than #6260 but it fails a bit in bringing more of those nice pirate parts to your collection. Actually having both of them they form an ideal partnership with this set providing the shark, shack, soldier and rowboat while the other set provides the island, tree and cannon. And you can always add one or two of the pirates to the redcoat rowboat as 'impressed' sailors to even the odds...