Warwick Castle

[bekind]

We're thinking of going this summer as a half day break en route to our main holiday - does anyone have any recommendations/comments/thoughts on this? How long is appropriate to stay there, are we giving it enough time? Is it a good place to go?
Any help much appreciated.

It's a good day out. You would easily fill up half a day. It's ages since we went but it's a lot more themed and Disneyfied than the rather worthy English Heritage castles IYSWIM. Consequently the DC loved it!

Yes, you can easily fill a half day, we spent a whole day there and the dc's loved it. The highlight was the firing of the trebauchet but they enjoyed everything really. It is expensive though so I would want to get a whole days worth of visit from it rather than a stop through.

Double check what is actually going on on the day you plan to be there. It varies hugely.

I think it is a great place and will easily fill up your day, however it is very expensive for what it is if you just pay on the gate.

We have Merlin annual passes which make it a great day out for us, but I'm not sure I would pay the gate prices for it. Some of the attractions inside have additional charges too.

Look out for 2 for 1 vouchers to reduce cost.

It's a MUCH better experience if not peeing down with rain.

I like Kenilworth - a castle without the commerce. Very atmospheric and not far off.

I thought it was very overrated and like FrauMoose lurve Kenilworth for the same reasons. Having said that the ramparts at Warwick were fantastic.

You definitely need to book Warwick on line in advance.

It's a full day out really. So if you're going to fork out the admission you may as well have the whole day there to get your moneys' worth.

We went a couple of weeks ago - we had an enjoyable day, but the sun was shining and it was half-term week and they had Horrible History events set up around.
If I had paid gate prices (had Tesco vouchers) I would have been extremely disappointed at the cost.
We had a fullish day there.
I also came away feeling that I had learned very little about the castle and it's history.

We also went to Kenilworth on the way home, we have only recently been to English Heritage places but I am totally enamoured with the audio tour guides they have.
We spent about 3 hours there, could have stayed longer but needed to get back as DS1 had a prior commitment.

Warwick just felt disneyfied.

Thank you all. I shall look into Kenilworth as an alternative as I hadn't thought of that. We have some Kellogs vouchers which will reduce the price for us and I'll check out special activities in advance, however even with discounted tickets we can't manage a whole day there so would still like it to be VFM!

I think you have to pay an additional £6 for parking too which winds me up when the tickets are ££££ even booking in advance or with vouchers.

we went two years ago and while it was nice I think there are better ones. Far too "animated".

We went 10 years ago and it had a far more authentic feeling.

Depending where you are, Arundel castle is great or if you look into August there is a large Medival Festival at Bodiam Castle.

expensive and over-rated - saying that tho, if we had kids then I think they would love it! seemed to be massive queues for everything, and it was raining.