There was something different about Warwick Castle when we visited on Saturday and it had a very funny effect on the Smalls…
For October Half Term, Warwick Castle has been transformed into The Haunted Castle and it is wickedly spooky for all ages as well as being as fascinating and interesting as usual!
It doesn’t matter if you are four or forty four with a fear tolerance of nil or one hundred, there’s something for you to explore and enjoy this spooky season. We took Tori and Arthur who are 5 and 7 and they had a whale of a time with all the activities provided for their age groups.
One of my favourite things of the day was the Spooky Story session with Haggie the Witch out on the Falconry field. She was funny and engaging and her story was full of wit that worked to amuse both the Smalls and the grown-ups in the audience! Sometimes our two find it hard to sit and listen to things when we are out and about, but Haggie had their full attention despite being outside with lots of potential distractions.
The Princess Tower has been hijacked by Witches for the week – there’s no handsome prince in sight now! Just bats wings and rats tails and the grumpy chief witch desperate to concoct a potion to grant her eternal youth. The Witches Tower is aimed at 3-8 year olds and is another story based activity but with much more interaction as the children are invited to search for the missing spell ingredients in the tower to help make the spell. Of course, the Witches are full of mischief and there’s a twist to the tale but I won’t tell you here – you’ll have to go and find out for yourselves!
As ever – we explored the castle grounds and displays, but this time there was a distinct zombie theme to everything. Whenever the Smalls saw a camera they turned into Hallowe’en monsters and they had a lot of fun playing with other castle visitors who had embraced the theme and come in costume too! I say they… I had my face painted too – every pair of zombies needs a zombie hunter guardian to keep an eye on them after all.
The Horrible History maze is always a favourite with the Smalls – they love taking it in turns to try and find their way around to all the history zones and reading all the grisly, gruesome facts dotted around. Made-up monsters are all very well, but people can be pretty creepy too, it turns out!
As it began to get dark, we headed for the Haunted Hollows – a spooky trail through a section of the grounds that has been spooktacularly decorated for the season. There are creepy creatures, ghouls and beasties, bubbling cauldrons, gargoyles and many, many terrible puns that the kids completely missed but kept Caius and I highly entertained!
A Hallowe’en trip to a castle wouldn’t be complete without a jaunt to the dungeons and Tori and Arthur were delighted to discover a man down there with a box full of things that would have been used down in the dungeons long ago. Arthur thought locking Tori up in a special handcuff belt thing and attaching her to a wall was a really good idea.
Luckily, Tori was too busy trying to scare everybody else in the dungeon to be too insulted by her little brother’s scheming plans!
As the day got darker, the castle was spectacularly lit up and even more creepy activities kicked in for the older and braver castle visitors. There’s been a Plague outbreak in the Castle and you can go through a live experience trail of horrors or else visit the Dungeon experience – another live trail of terror. Our two are too small for these so we didn’t go in but they looked amazing for older and grown up visitors.
There are falconry displays, flaming trebuchet demonstrations and fire jousting by night – the Castle is open until 9pm so you can experience everything after dark to make it even creepier!
If you are looking for something to do this half term that will get you all in the Hallowe’en spirit, The Haunted Castle event is the place to go! I love that it has things for all ages and all dispositions – our little zombies loved every second of their visit and so did we.
Visit the WARWICK CASTLE website for more information and to pre-book tickets. The Haunted Castle events are running until 31st October 2016.
We recieved entry to the Castle free of charge in return for blogging about our experience. No other payment was offered or recieved.
Carole Finds Her Wings 