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Warwick castle

josht

josht

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Would like to discuss merlins attraction, I find it an amazing place to visit

I will add a meet soon during the closed season at towers will be hoping to make a weekend out of it.
 
josht said:
Would like to discuss merlins attraction, I find it an amazing place to visit

I will add a meet soon during the closed season at towers will be hoping to make a weekend out of it.
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It is a solid few hours, although I am not sure about a weekend at Warwick Castle!

The Dungeons are by far the highlight, although I enjoy looking around the State Rooms and Kingmaker.

:)
 
I'd say it was a three hour visit at most. I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped to have done. It just seemed a tad too commercial, and when you pay the standard entry fee, you don't seem to get very much. I mean Nottingham castle is £5.50 for adults and as far as historic buildings go it's on par I'd say.

I demand a wingrider.
 
I visited last December and I loved the aura of the place with the Christmas decor. The Dungeon is amazing with its unique setting, but some of the scenes are very cheap.

I'm very intrigued by the Haunted Castle experience and would love to try that.

However, I do get the impression that Merlin sort of felt they were lumbered with this when they took over Tussauds.
 
It does stick out a tad in terms of their current portfolio. I don't think they've been entirely sucessful in trying to turn it into a family day out.
 
Warwick Castle isn't the kind of attraction you'd find among the theme parks and surburban attractions that the Merlin Annual Pass includes, really if Tussauds had never picked it up then it could've potentially been under a English Heritage ownership of sorts. Then again, it is a bit more than your average abbey ruins with £3 admission.

Speaking of which, when and how did Tussauds get hold of Warwick Castle? I've never known the story.
 
I'd also like to know when ''The Dungeons'' were added to Warwick? Was this when Merlin took over or previous to this?
 
I went years and years ago, and they had a dungeons then. Cant imagine it was a merlin one though, presume they had their own little thing happening?
 
I found Warwick quite boring when I visited. The staff and actors were nice but it's just not the kind of thing that I like.
 
What the hell did I visit then? My visit was definitely during tussauds era.. they must've had something similar surely?
 
There is an actual Dungeon in the castle with an Oubliette, that has always been part of the castle attractions but the "London/ York/ Edinburgh" style Dungeon experience came about when Merlin took over.
 
I've been to Warwick on several occsions but not in years and certainly way before Merlin took over. They definetely had the dungeons then because I remember being too scared to go inside. I also recall stately rooms with wax models wearing armoury and lots of medieval scenes. Then there was the tower with hundreds of steps to climb to the top and the beautiful surrounding castle grounds.

I can easily imagine that Warwick has been spoiled somwhat by Merlin, it is annoying how they feel the need to bring all their brands into individual attractions (Sealife, Dungeons etc) because I think it does take away the uniqueness of some of these places.

I can see why some are puzzled as to why Merlin run such an attraction as Warwick (despite the name associations!) but to understand this you really have to look back to the earlier days of the Tussauds Group. Warwick was the first acquistion by Tussauds in 1978. Up until that point they only ran the Madame Tussauds waxworks from which the company name is derived. Due to the long history at Warwick they clearly saw an opportunity to progress from creating waxworks scenes in a museum to a more real and exciting setting to showcase their work. Bringing 'history to life' if you like. Not long after they bought Rock Circus in London and expanded the concept (see the Themes, Dreams and Scream Machines documentary).

When the company was merged with Merlin they were kind if lumbered with Warwick Castle whether they wanted it or not. This highlights another example of how Merlin's values are very different to that of the original Tussauds. For what it is though, the attaction has always been overpriced.

:)
 
Rowe said:
Speaking of which, when and how did Tussauds get hold of Warwick Castle? I've never known the story.
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Ooh I can answer this one!

The Earls of Warwick started to lose quite a bit of their fortune in the 20th Century, until they got to a point where a lot of the armour, arms and archives of the castle were being sold off. The Earls son convinced him to sell it in 1978.

The thing is, Warwick Castle hadn't even been a 'castle' for the last 300/400 years, instead it had been a stately home designed to entertain and amaze the guests of the Greville family, so it was decided by the Earl to sell the site to an 'entertainments company' as opposed to the Trust or English Heritage. Both of these public bodies put in much larger bids than Tussauds, but the Earl let Tussauds purchase the site for £1.5m. When Tussauds took over the site they spent an incredible amount of money renovating the building and grounds, a programme which would have been near impossible under Trust or Heritage budgets. Since then Tussauds/Merlin have vowed to commit at least £250,000 a year to restoration.

--

In terms of visiting the castle, it all depends on what you want from the place, there is a lot of entertainment, yes, but there is also a lot of history - Warwick Castle has more historical tours per day then most Trust houses, and a lot more free tours than places like Chatsworth House. There are also about 30 interior rooms to explore, some as early as 14th Century - and all in fantastic condition.

It really does have an amazing history, and there is easily enough to spend a whole day there - just to do all the shows and tours would take 4 1/2 hours, and that's before the 3 main interiors, the Gaol, the towers, the grounds, the Dungeon and the Dragon Tower!

I would definitely recommend it...but I am a little biased!
 
Before Merlin took over there was a scare attraction called Ghosts Alive where the Merlin Tower/Princess Tower currently is, and something called Dream of Battle where the Dungeons currently is. Dream of Battle was moved somewhere (not sure where), and the Dungeons opened in its place. :)
 
CoasterCrazyChris said:
When the company was merged with Merlin they were kind if lumbered with Warwick Castle whether they wanted it or not. This highlights another example of how Merlin's values are very different to that of the original Tussauds.
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Warwick does fit into the old style merlin though - remember, before tussauds all they had was pretty much legoland, sealife, old style dungeons and earth explorer. All four are educational brands - merlin was an entertainments & education business. Twas only when they purchased tussauds when the brand and values changed somewhat :).

Once again, this has turned into an interesting topic though - thanks :)
 
I found my first trip to Warwick Castle this year to be very disappointing. I had to pay extra on top of my Annual Pass for all of the attractions and they were all bellow par. The Dungeons are just a carbon copy of Blackpool & London apart from a few scenes and not very well laid out. The actors were very good however, as was The Witches scene. Apart from that it was a yawnfest using the same scripts as the others.

Merlin's Watchtower was a rip off and - again - lacklustre as a pay-extra-attraction. The history of the castle is by far the most interesting but the Merlin money steamroller ruins it with shops after every exhibit selling tat, not just any tat - well overpriced tat. Even the generic Merlin items which are similar in all attractions, like the mugs were £2 more.

The final straw was being refused annual pass discount on certain items which you can get discount on at other Merlin attractions.

This is one attraction that is better off without Merlin's greedy grasp. Overpriced, over-merched waste of time.
 
After several years of elusively missing out on Warwick Castle, I'm surprised to find that I'm having a lovely time with Dave in summery weather. The Undercroft carvery for lunch was particularly gorgeous, roughly £10 for said carvery with a dessert and a drink of choice.

The merchandising, inability to locate a car park (we spent half an hour looking for one in confusing Warwick!) and busy nature of today are the only downsides so far.

We're about to do Castle Dungeon next, sadly no time for the Trebuchet but heh, tomorrow we'll be doing what we're missing today! (So there is a point in visiting twice!)

Sent from my GT-S5830 using Tapatalk 2
 
Spike said:
The Dungeons are just a carbon copy of Blackpool & London apart from a few scenes and not very well laid out. The actors were very good however, as was The Witches scene. Apart from that it was a yawnfest using the same scripts as the others.
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I think this is one of the issues with focusing on the brand image the way Merlin seems to do it...

Whilst it is good to know what you're gonna get (with Sea-Life for example, the only Merlin Midway attraction I've done abroad, it fulfilled the expectation), the similarity can sometimes be way too overboard and hence make it seem unworthwhile to go to them if you've done one before...
 
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