Ad disclosure: We were given tickets free of charge for the purpose of this post.
Yesterday we visited Warwick Castle to check out their Halloween event; The Haunted Castle. We took along the girls’ friend Orla with us, and the three girls had a great time checking out all of the age-appropriate spooky goings on.
Warwick Castle have their Halloween events split into three categories, each with a suggested age range:
- Plucky Pumpkins, ages 0-9
- Daring Dukes, ages 10-12
- Brave Knights, ages 12+
Of course, older children may still enjoy all of the events, but this helps you ensure that young ones can avoid the scarier bits! The girls were determined to try out “everything that is orange” on the map – as the categories are colour coded!
Junior Ghost Hunt
We headed to the Junior Ghost Hunt first, as this is a free timed ticket event and we wanted to make sure we didn’t miss out. Luckily they had space on the next hunt, so we got in line! No cameras allowed – as they interfere with the ghost detection equipment, naturally.
We were led into the castle and left in the hands of the slightly mad Professor, who did a marvellous performance of “we’re going on a ghost hunt” complete with actions and encouragements to the children to join in. He then took us through to the library, where we found three ghosts! It was pretty funny and the girls had a lot of fun.
Check out the video at the end of this post to see the girls do some of the ghost hunt actions and hear their theories about the ghosts.
Witches Tower
The Witches Tower is another free timed ticket event, so we headed there next and picked up a ticket. Again, no “talky boxes or picture boxes” allowed in this event, but I can promise you it was very all very Halloween-ey inside the tower.
The Witches have taken over the Princess tower and one jilted Witch is out for revenge against a filthy Prince. The girls listened to her tale of woe and then helped her to cook up the perfect revenge plot. There was plenty of giggling involved and the girls got involved hunting round the room for the things the witch required.
Dead Centre Stage
We managed to catch two shows on the Dead Centre Stage; Spooky Story Time and Wizard School. Georgie, Lydia and Orla enjoyed both of these short but sweet stage shows.
The two Witches told a fab rhyming story about a visit from the Witchfinder, and the Wizard taught the crowd a few spells, “blew up” a rat, and made a potion for dragon’s toothpaste. They were both very entertaining, and the Wizard School show included a magic trick, a little pyrotechnics, and an impressive looking chemical reaction that covered the table and spilled out all over the stage.
Haunted Hollows
Next, we took a walk through the Haunted Hollows, which is basically an outdoor haunted house in the grounds of the castle. Beginning by the entrance of the Horrible Histories Maze, you walk along a path that is decorated along both sides with spooky props and signs, into the ‘enchanted Hollows’.
The girls had a great time exploring the hay bale maze, checking out all the different scenes that were set up, and talking to the characters that were dotted around in wonderful costumes.
The Falconer’s Quest
This year Warwick Castle has a new falconry show, The Falconer’s Quest. We managed to grab a snack and head over just in time to see the 12:30 show, and it was fantastic. I love birds of prey shows and this one blew me away – and the girls enjoyed it too. Unfortunately James is a bit poorly at the moment so he was having a sit down up at the castle and missed out.
The Falconer’s Quest show combines falconry with theatricality in a way I have never seen before. They tell the story of Hobby who travelled the world in search of birds of prey to bring to Warwick Castle, and as he described each species of bird he found, the bird in question would fly out over the crowd – right on cue. It is a well rehearsed entertaining show with multiple falconers flying the birds, and they are so well trained!
The boathouse that unfortunately burned down in an accident has been replaced with an excellent replica, and towers have been erected either side for the birds to fly to and from, along with plenty of landing posts along the edge of the river. A falconer was on the roof of the birds of prey building too, releasing the birds and helping to fly them.
The finale of the show was nothing short of spectacular. As the voiceover talks about the dream of filling the skies of Warwick Castle with birds of prey, the sky literally fills with birds. I have never seen so many birds of prey flown together at the same time, it was absolutely amazing – I was stunned and the girls were in awe.
Our vlog at the end of this post has about a minute of footage of this as I couldn’t bear to cut any of it out! If you are going to Warwick Castle this half term you should definitely try to catch the show – it’s fantastic.
Horrible Histories Maze
As Horrible Histories fans, a visit to the castle wouldn’t be complete without the girls racing around in, and occasionally getting lost in, the Horrible Histories maze.
It is looking a little tired these days with most of the stampers either missing or damaged to the point of being very hard to use, some gaping holes in the hedges, and one or two of the features being fenced off, but that didn’t stop the girls enjoying their time exploring. They were rewarded for their success in navigating the maze with a special pop badge from the gift shop.
All five of us enjoyed our day out at Warwick Castle, even though James was feeling pretty ill and had to sat some of it out, and the girls were delighted with all of the Halloween events they took part in while we were there.
It is a little pricey for the tickets, but there is lots to do and see, and you could easily spend a whole day there – we headed home after a yummy late lunch in the Coach House Restaurant as James needed to be home in the warm, but the girls would have happily stayed until closing time! The food and drink isn’t too expensive for a day out, with lots of different options available.
Check out our vlog of the day:
