13 Sep 2024
Windsor Castle itself was amazing, but read the fine details of the “tour”. We were picked up at our hotel by a private driver. He was nice, drove a very nice car, and we enjoyed chatting with him on the one hour ride to the castle. We arrived at the castle and were dropped off, were told that guides aren’t allowed inside. We were met with very long lines. We showed a guard our tickets and asked which line to be in. He said the time on our ticket was for 12pm, so we couldn’t enter before that. That means we’d have to wait 3 hours to enter, but our driver would be back to pick us up at noon. I messaged Viator and then called me almost immediately to let me know that we had some sort of Golden ticket that would allow us to enter at any time. We were then allowed to skip the line completely and enter immediately. My frustration lies in the fact that there were too many people involved in the process that led to confusion on our part. Lots of details get lost in communication. Had we waited in that long line and then found out we had fast pass tickets, that would’ve been more frustrating.
In summary, we were paying a private driver for driving us (1 hour each way) and then he was just waiting for us somewhere for 3 hours.
I definitely recommend visiting this castle, but find a better way to arrive and just use the audio guide provided with your entry ticket to educate you on your castle tour. The nearby village looked charming and we would have loved to have had time to explore the area longer.