King John's Castle — Attraction in Limerick

I recommend you visit off peak times and leave yourself plenty of time to get the full experience. 3 hours goes by very fast.

We were here yesterday. Since I was a child I have been to the castle many times.

It doesn't matter what weather you get it is outstanding. The highlight of any visit to Limerick City.

The start of the tour is a lot of information and models of how the castle looked. Very educational and interactive.

Once you go through the foundations you enter the main courtyard of what's left of the castle. There is shelter with trained reenactors. They are extremely knowledgeable, offering sword fighting, music, information and storytelling.

You get to roam the towers and grounds at your own pace and there is a lot to see. Beautiful views of the city and River Shannon from the top of the castle.

There is a cafe and gift shop at the exit. It looks good and the staff who welcome you are very friendly and warm. Couldn't say enough about the staff around the castle too.

Only 2 small points for me drop it.

1. I would love if there were slightly more engaging activities while you move through the castle.

2. on a previous visit I had looked to speak with the manager regarding an inquiry I had. He declined coming downstairs to speak face to face and I had to have the conversation over the phone with him at reception in front of the desk and other visitors. I thought it was a poor decision from a customer service...

Again, in Ireland, if you book tickets online in advance, you actually get a discount! King John’s offered a 10% discount for a total of €11.70 per adult. Why, oh why do we get charged EXTRA for booking tickets online in America???

So, the visit starts with a walk through a museum with a lot of exhibits and reading - great for the history buffs out there. You can probably spend 30 minutes in there reading about the history of the castle, which I thought was really cool.

Then, you walk out into a huge open courtyard, and you can freely roam the grounds. You are able to climb up the narrow, winding staircases in the castle towers, and even go all the way up to the rooftop for SPECTACULAR views of the Irish countryside and the River Shannon.

You get to visit several rooms within the castle, and there are live action video exhibits featuring actors explaining what the rooms were used for. This wasn’t really my cup of tea per se, but it was interesting to listen to for a little while. I’d just rather read about it than watch a corny actor dressed in the garb of the day describing how rough it was for them back in the day.

The castle is in pretty good shape, and you can spend a lot of time touring the different rooms, and walking up to the rooftop. It wasn’t the best castle I toured, but it certainly wasn’t the...

The first half of the tour was pretty disappointing. Being inside the castle but only seeing modern walls and modern info signs and videos and only a very few artifacts was really off-putting. Once out in the courtyard, it seemed like there was some potential, but the level of effort and professionalism put in the displays there reminded me of amateur LARP players, rather than a place that charges admission to come look - including lots of fairly sloppily hand-lettered signs. There were games and activities scattered around, but nobody participating in them and nobody in costume. (I did go in mid-October and only saw maybe a dozen other visitors, so maybe they were largely shut down to accommodate the lack of crowd?)

The old parts of the castle that I could go visit and explore were more interesting, but having traveled around Europe for a while now, I didn't find it to be anything particularly spectacular.

Overall I don't really feel like the castle was entirely worth my time or the cost of admission. It might be more fun on a busier day, or going through...