Knight's Village at Warwick Castle — Hotel in Warwick

*edited. After much chasing only received an email repeating what I stated with some sort of an excuse after about them sending me the information in an email before my stay, which never happened. ALSO, please note. The bunk bed states a minimum age of 6 with a maximum weight of 18kg. How is that even possible?? What sort of kids do they expect to sleep up there? Most 6 or 7 year olds are over 18kg!

OVERALL UNDERWHELMING AND UNCOMFORTABLE- Do not stay here. Go to holiday inn, or even travellodge.....it is a million times better in every area!!

Extremely unhappy with the lack of communication here!!!! Feel like it opened in a rush without proper thought.

1. nowhere in my emails or texts did it mention anything about discounted castle tickets.
2. nowhere in my emails or texts did it mention you need to pre book a breakfast slot...we are a party of 10 and are here for one night for mums 60th. It cost us £300 a room for one night!!!! We will now be eating at strange times and separately as 730 and 10am are not easy times to work with.
3. no phone in room so had to keep walking back and forth to reception
4. no signs or proper leaflets or maps showing what bars or restaurants are open until what time, no information on times of warwick castle etc.
5. bunk beds....well.... they aren't single bed size, more like toddler beds with a huge 8inch gap down the side.
6. hairdryer chord is coiled and stretches less than a metre so when I dried my hair near the front door (as kids were asleep) I had to bend down. The hairdryer is only really useful at the desk.
7. no instructions on the fancy shower which has no labels on the knobs so took me a while to figure it out and even get temperature right. The shower head has a button and it took a while to figure that out.
8. the room only has a desk and one chair so for a family it would be nice if there was even a little table with maybe one more chair?
9. no instructions next to the fancy heating and air-conditioning unit. (My parents who are not techy had to ask reception to help).
10. Breakfast was too simple considering "superb breakfast" is advertised .....the "orange juice" is orange squash! No hot drink machines, just simple coffee and tea and hot chocolate available to make yourself. Would have liked a cappuccino or latte or something.
11. asked for hot or warm milk for toddler......but only cold milk available and they said they can't warm it.
12. the pillows.....so large and high, not for kids or even adults (unless you want neck ache!) We had to roll up a duvet and make our own pillow.

Spoke to a number of guests this morning who are equally extremely underwhelmed and disappointed.

Overall I am just really cross that we spent £300 per room per night for 4 rooms. It was for mums 60th so we expected a nice special stay. Premier inn is much more comfortable, has flexible breakfast, evening food, bars, proper beds, larger rooms, amazing information at reception, online and in rooms (Leaflets!!) a phone. ......... and it costs £70 pounds a night. The evening "entertainment" was a lady princess who just made the kids run up and down and play what's the time Mr wolf style games. Kids loved it but just so underwhelming.

The reception were so friendly and helpful but it's a shame that this special night away was ruined by such poor planning and execution of what could have been a great hotel.

The plus side is they gave us our warwick castle tickets free however they want us to go to the ticket office tomorrow to obtain a refund for our 10 full priced tickets we paid for..... so I am not looking forward to waiting in line to do this at peak time...

Our stay at Warwick Castle Knights Village was a bit of a mixed experience, so I've broken it down into two sections.

Accommodation: Check-in was quick and easy and the front of house team were very pleasant and keen to help. We stayed in a Woodland Lodge which was clean and comfortable. We had precooked a travel cot which wasn't in the lodge when we arrived and so I had to ask for one again at reception, but this was dealt with immediately. I founs the bed to be comfortable, not too soft like some hotel beds and I had a good night's sleep. The only negative was the lack of a non-slip mat for the shower, which made washing our two small children a difficult and hazardous ordeal. I even slipped a little whilst I was showering. So for this part of our stay I'd give 4 out of 5.

Meals: We'd pre-booked tables in the "Banquet Hall" for our evening meal and breakfast the following morning. The evening meal options are limited to a roast, either with meat or vegetarian. Quite frankly the food was awful. The only option available includes a starter and a main course for £22.95 for adults and £12.95 for kids. For starters we ordered two portions of dough balls, chicken wings and a scotch egg. The dough balls we very overcooked and tough, but the other items were fine. When our main course arrived, there had been a mistake with our order and the kids meals were missing. The waitress looked to resolve this with the kitchen immediately, but having to wait for the kids meals to be prepared would have meant us missing the Knights Sword Training entertainment that we wanted our 4 year old son to be able to enjoy; so we asked to pause our mains whilst we went for the entertainment and we would return for our mains once this had finished. When we returned, our food was promptly brought out and it was lukewarm and dry - it had obviously been "cooked" and left under heat lamps whilst we were away. When I complained I was advised that the meals aren't cooked to order, but are reheated. Given that the meats are roasted, I appreciate they can't be completely cooked to order, but having worked in food service before I know these should have been part-cooked ahead and then finished to order. The kids' meals were overcooked, dry and greasy. The baked beans had been under the heat lamps so long they'd pretty much solidified. When I complained I was (reluctantly) offered a discount to our bill of about £20, but the bill still came to over £65, which for a such a poor experience still felt very expensive. All-in-all, our meal was a very disappointing experience and really detracted from the lovely day we'd had exploring the Castle. Breakfast the next morning was a buffet affair with the usual choice of cereals, pastries and cooked items available, which was all perfectly acceptable. On the basis of the evening meal, I have to give just 1 out of 5 for the meals.

So in summary (TL;DR), the accommodation was good, but the "Banquet Hall" should be avoided for an...

4.7/5. Amazing place with a gorgeous view and vibe beside the castle, with plenty of convenient places around in the local town to drink and eat at or just explore.

The rooms themselves were very well maintained and presented. My only issue which stops this being 5/5 is the price for a single night, and how a premium "knights lodge" can sleep 7 people, yet there is only one double bed upstairs, a sofa bet for 2-3 people, and a bunk bed with an extra pullout for another additional 2-3 people. For the premium experience you would be hoping for two double beds, but I'm being pedantic.

Another minor not-so-issue is the compactness of the space meaning that going with 5 adults with 2 upstairs and 2 on the sofa bed, is the lack of privacy between those two spaces. There is one bathroom for apparently 7 people, and the only sink is in the bathroom itself meaning any water for the kettle provided or any washing up must be done in there. (But given the price, you won't be spending enough nights there to accumulate any dirty pots anyway).

Overall a very pleasant experience. I just wish the knights lodge package offered additional benefits to make the experience more appealing and financially attractive.

The staff were also very nice and very helpful, and the entertainment was awesome so no complaints there.

A small tidbit that still puzzles me is that you (or at least we) were only able to check into our lodge past 4pm, which made luggage a problem having to leave some stuff in the car and take the rest of it around with us for the entire day. I would have preferred checking in and offloading our luggage first and then starting our day at the castle. Many of the items I had with me were unnecessary for the castle trip and required opening a few bags and cases at the baggage check at the entrance to the castle which I wish I could have avoided.

Overall however; besides the few issues mentioned; a very good stay.

P.S forgot to mention the food; we didn't have the evening meal because of limited spaces, forcing us to eat out in the town instead of at the lodge. Again, this problem was due to checking in at 4pm. Had we had the option to have checked in a lot earlier, we may have been able to eat here for dinner; another thing I wish was included in the knight package was the priority for having a meal included for free or discounted. It's a lot of money to spend for the luxury of having a master "bedroom" on an upstairs balcony with a glorified sofa bed and bunks. Other than that, breakfast was included and had a good variety of breakfast options and even vegetarian/vegan...