Alnwick Castle: Harry Potter & Downton Abbey Day Tour

If your main goal is to visit Alnwick castle, just do that separately not through the tour. You waste so much time on a bus stopping at random spots for no real reason. You can save sooo much money taking the train there and buy a ticket separately. Plus, you can have more time. They said three hours would be plenty of time there and it wasn’t even close. You could easily spend 5-6 hours there minimum to get to see everything. Very disappointed we didn’t just do that. Waste of time and money if your goal is to visit the castle. This is not to say our tour guide wasn’t great. He definitely made the ride more enjoyable with the stories. But it doesn’t justify the cost even by half.

Tour was great, our guide Nathan was very knowledgeable and told fascinating stories. The Castle itself was very impressive and fun to explore, especially the State Rooms. Overall the tour was very good and I highly recommend. 👍🏼

First, Rabbies is a wonderful tour company, I highly recommend them. The 16 pax coaches are the way to go - more intimate but also the ease of getting on and off the coach makes it worth it. As far as this tour, it was just okay. It honestly is not something I would recommend. The borders they referencing can be skipped, I feel like they were unnecessary filler as there wasn't anything to see. Our first stop was a small town called Kelso with no personality and I feel like we stopped just to give cafe's some business. There is a chapel there that is takes 5 minutes to take pictures. Nothing to see. The next stop is Alnwick Castle and is in a cute village. We had almost 3 hours here, in my opinion too long. Because of stopping at the village prior we were late by 10 minutes to the guided tours (free) and the next one's were after we left. So you were left to wander on your own. The castle was nice, about and hour was plenty for the inside but honestly it is geared towards young fans of Harry Potter as they had things to do like "learn to ride a broom stick". You had to pay extra to go to the gardens - don't do it. An absolute waste and not very pretty at all. The most fascinating thing here was all the sheep. I wandered those for about 15 minutes. That left a good 1.5 hours to kill so I went into town. Cute normal village. Gives you time to eat lunch but for those of us that don't really want to do that it was alot of twiddling our thumbs. Because we had a bit of extra time our driver took us over to Bamburgh Castle as it was on the way back. Now this is something they should add to the stop. Take away the small villages and give us time to there. We had 15 minutes to take pictures but this would have been a great place to go see. I asked our driver why we didn't have this as part of the tour and he said because it takes time -- but again take away all the small silly unnecessary stops and we would have had time. On the way back we stopped again at another border town. The exciting thing here was petting a local cat - seriously there was nothing to do or see (I mean there was a ruin of a castle that is now just something that looks like a chimney sticking out of the ground that you cannot even get close to). All in all it was a long day on the bus, alot of wasted time and the castle was just okay. With so many other castles out there skip this one unless you are running out of things to do.

Penny made the trip fun. She was knowledgeable, friendly and full of information. Even though it rained a bit, it was a fun day.

A wonderful day out, including beautiful Alnwick castle. Our guide Nathan was the best-- so many stories, knowledge of history, and a great sense of humor.

Our tour guide, Sean, was funny, informative, and very personable. We had a great time, had lots to see, and he kept the drive time occupied with fun facts, a bit of history, and humor. The Castle visits were spectacular.

Guide was great, travel was on time, good food suggestions. Knowledgeable guide. Small group. Enough time at all stops

Great day with Penny as our guide! We loved visiting the castle and town, it’s been my favorite day in Scotland so far! Penny gave such good information about different areas we drove through without overloading us. 10/10, would recommend!

We booked out tour through Rabbies and was not disappointed!! We got to see Alnwick Castle, stopped in Kelso, crossed the border into England, and had a lovely stop on the seaside town of Dunbar. Stephen C. Was our tour guide and he was simply fantastic! He was very friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable!!

Our tour guide, Kylie, was fun and knowledgeable. The bus was comfortable. She was there for the group! There was history and entertainment. I would recommend her as a guide!