Lovely day out - Very elegant castle. Lovely day out for a picnic or a walk with the dog. Each room had a QR code for the audio guide as well as a person present to give you information if needed. Nice cafeteria and bakery shops.

Super fun experience - It is a super large country house where you can view and photograph everything from room to room. There are people everywhere telling you nice stories about this house. Is also on a beautiful estate which is super well maintained and wherever you may go. There is also a small restaurant where you get good coffee and scones.

A family story for all our futures. - The story behind how the house was saved by the Family for future generations of the general public to share and enjoy. I want to wish them and all their volunteers, who were excellent in their presentations, all the very best in the future.

Fantastic! - Mine is a 2 part review as we stayed in one of their holiday cottages as well. Holiday cottage was fab, a quaint 1 bedroom cottage overlooking a green. So quiet and such a pretty village. Cottage was decorated so well. Just 5 minutes from Castle Howard. So glad we booked it. Castle Howard - I love the approach road, the long straight road with the various arches and the roundabout, so opulent! We did the house tour first once it opened and it was quiet throughout the tour so you could speak to the volunteers and listen to the guide on your phone. We really enjoyed learning about the history of i and the family. We then look around the walled garden and Rays Woods before we took the boat trip. Steve took us around and gave out loads of information. We ate a couple of times as we were there all day. Food was really nice. We spent around 6 hours in total and it was superb. Shame the fountain wasn't on when we were there. Did feel the current art display doesn't work, especially in the house. The grand Hall for instance does not gel with the sculptures. That's our opinion and doesn't impact on the fab time we had.

Beautiful Place~ Bring your own food! - A beautiful stately home with fabulous gardens & plenty of history. The walk around the grounds and garden is a perfect way to spend a few hours. The house is filled with stunning architecture, family heirlooms and is something of great beauty- I came away knowing a lot more about the place than what I had known before. I have to note that it is expensive day out & when it comes to lunch time I found it extortionate. I am well aware that businesses are under a lot of strain with raising costs but the prices here are jaw dropping. Awful coffee made by press button coffee machine that cost £3.95, sub-par food costing £15 per dish on average. Recommend: eating somewhere else!

Beautiful house but a tad pricey - I've been wanting to visit castle Howard for years and finally got to experience the beautiful home. The staff were very knowledgeable of the history of the building and it's surroundings and you are in awe how such things were created and built all them years ago. We unfortunately didn't get to experience the gardens only the house as it started to chuck it down. The reason for 4 stars is it was pricey. It's alot of money to look round just the house. It would've been nice if there was the opportunity to be offered a return to see the gardens due to the weather but it is what it is. We found the gift shops quite pricey too we did buy something but the options were limited due to the prices. We didn't try the cafe. We are undecided if we would return again or not but its a beautiful house and I'm glad I got to experience it's beauty I was kinda expecting some more history too I know that sounds silly. But with it been so close to York and the viking/Roman history there you'd honestly think with the size of the land there would be a touch of that side of history too. But it was just about the family which again I understand.

Beautiful but overpriced - Although we enjoyed our day out at Castle Howard, we felt it was a little overpriced for what was on offer. The staff and volunteers all over were very approachable and knowledgeable. The rooms & areas the public are allowed into are spectacular but we were disappointed not to see more of the house. We do understand the renovation is ongoing and the family still live there. We walked down to the Boathouse cafe for lunch, and although the plates of food we had were tasty, we felt it was overpriced and not good value for money. The grounds, however, are just delightful. We spent most of our remaining time walking around the gardens, woods,(saw the pigs), all the follys,(spoke to the cows), admired the statues, walled garden and Atlas Fountain etc. So although we're glad we went, we do feel that overall the entrance price was not good value for money.

Disappointing - We were really looking forward to visiting, but it got off to a disappointing start when the downloadable tour failed to work due to the poor wi-fi. The guide explained that this was due to the thick walls - what a surprise. They really need to sort this out or provide electronic guides you can hire. Once we started walking round we were met by some lovely volunteers who provided some relevant information on the rooms. We were disappointed by the number of rooms that were available to view given the house is so large. Many of the rooms were unfurnished. We do not feel the experience was a patch on our visits to houses such as Blenheim Palace or Chatsworth.

Electric cars & modern art! - I had so been looking forward to visiting the castle and grounds for years. I made the two and half hour journey in my electric car, 4 charges available for use they said on the website. When we arrived I went to connect the car and it wouldn’t charge due to them being disconnected. I mentioned this as I was entering the site to be told that it’s nothing to do with them and they can’t help, if I needed help ring the company myself, on doing so I was told that castle Howard needed to reset the chargers mentioned this to staff and nothing was done. They didn’t care that I needed to charge to get home. After entering the site we wondered the outside of the castle which is beautiful, some random artwork located about didn’t add anything to the outside. On entry to the castle we were told that we could listen to the info about the rooms on the Wi-Fi, really great if you have headphones yourself otherwise you are told off about having it on the phone as it’s too loud, so unable to understand the room functions. Again amazingly decorated rooms and statues, until you get to the Great Hall which was crowded with the most awful modern installations amongst these great pieces art which you end up not being able to see properly as they obstructed the view! Overall it’s a lovely place but this modern art really ruined it for us.

Bit of a let down. - Average day, nothing particularly stood out. The gardens were an absolute disgrace, i have seen better kept traffic islands. The only thing that really stood out was the fantastic view of the lake. The sculpture exhibition was ok at first until you saw more and more of just about the same thing.