Warwick Castle vs the pandemic

Oh 2020 what a year you’ve been. The pandemic has stopped us in our tracks, created havoc and misery for many. For parents, what to do with the kids has been a headache.

We bought Merlin Premium passes as a family Christmas present last year – yep little did we know what was coming in the following months. We managed to do both a Sea Life Centre and Lego Discovery centre before it all hit the fan, but 6 months later I figured they were really expensive visits.

So once lockdown relaxed and the Merlin parks reopened, I nervously booked a few visits and I’ve been super impressed with the social distancing measures in the parks and venues. The visitors, well I’ve been less than impressed with those but the venue staff definitely did all they could.

Here’s how we got on a Warwick Castle

As a local, well we live half hour away, we’ve visited Warwick Castle many times over the years. This year, our first visit was during half term, for Halloween – a great time to go. Not the best though, Christmas is the best for me but we’ll get back to that in December…

Pre-booked tickets are essential, and there was a queue to get in, an unavoidable consequence of the pandemic I’m afraid. Bags, temperature and tickets are checked on arrival and you’re allowed to wonder about freely. Not as much freedom as before as the indoor areas are very much controlled.

First up is the Hallows, you follow signs to the Horrible Histories maze, left for the hallows, right for the maze. We went back to do the maze but sadly turned back, to combat covid it’s now a one way system so basically a big queue through what was once a maze. Younger kids might be up for this, but my teen and myself were less keen.

But swiping left for the hallows, that was fun to walk through. There’s a few characters about to scare and get you into the spirit of halloween and the’ve gone to loads of effort to scare it all up.

After this you stroll up to the castle for a wonder, the main grassed area is now a huge picnic area all around the stage. There’s entertainment on all day which is great to sit and have lunch with.

I’d recommend getting tickets to the walk around show straight away, and come back promptly for your set time. It’s free but you need a ticket. There’s a queue for this but once inside the castle you go around with your own bubble, and we hardly saw anyone else once in there, except for the characters of course. I’m certainly not going to ruin it for anyone who hasn’t been but it’s lots of fun, not scary, just fun and in my opinion, suitable for little ones.

You leave the castle by the loos, and happily you can get food in the underground restaurant here too. We didn’t eat here on this occasion, not knowing what was available we took lunch with us. We did however buy cheesy chips from a stall, I won’t do that again as at £5 for small bowl of chips with cheese felt somewhat steep.

If you want to see the great hall, you need to join the queue. We didn’t do this, we were in the hall for a short time while waiting for the walk around show, and we’ve been so many times before that we decided not to queue for it on this occasion. But we did do the Kingmaker.

Around the Castle

Back outside, we ventured the spiral path up to the castle motte, I took the snap at the top of this page from almost at the top, the views are spectacular from up there.

You can wonder around the grounds, walk along the river, and right around the outside. We jumped on the end of the birds of prey show which is billed as the biggest in the UK. We’d been to these before at Warwick and have impressed but for this year they have upped their game tremendously.

You also encounter these random characters while walking about too, we saw this pair several times, very funny and in character the whole time. Excellent.

The Falconers Quest

Down by the river is the Falconers Quest area. They’ve created a wonderful attraction showcasing the amazing birds. You learn a lot and you’re literally open mouthed gawping at how they have trained these stunning birds. It’s truly fantastic and well worth the visit alone. Tip – get there early to get a seat on one of the benches. There’s lots available but the show is all around you – this grassed area is the place to be.

Photo credits Warwick Castle.

These are Warwick Castle’s rather superb images, I was too busy watching the show to take any photos, I planned to go back for the later show but it rained! The rain meant we cut our day shorter than planned so we didn’t do all the attractions on this occasion. We have tickets for December though and pandemic-willing we’ll be back.