Escape Alive at Gwrych Castle - 2024
Escape Alive is back At Gwrych Castle with a brand new story for 2024. Entitled The Awakening, the story revolves around the ancient Knights Templar who seem hell bent on destroying the World order with some ancient holy artefacts and a powerful demonic entity. It's quite a crazy backstory for a scare attraction, but plays out perfectly in the haunting atmospheric ruins of the castle, with actors along the way portraying the undead knights of the castle and various demons and other characters.
The attraction covers many different rooms and areas within including an amazing staircase scene that viewers of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of here during Covid, would recognise, as well as some outdoor courtyard spaces. The trail is quite up and down in places, as you would expect for an attraction built in a castle ruin - the floor can be a but uneven at times.
The scenes throughout range from immersive theatrical storytelling alongside sudden jump scares and a number of very confusing rooms where we had to struggle to find an obvious way out in the darkness. All of our group experienced a number of good scares along the way - especially when the actors played around with our group order and sent different people in different directions, or made a less brave guest take the led for the next scene.
As we would expect from the Area 51 teem behind this attraction - the actors were all really strong, and generally older than your average scare actor. This helped add gravitas to the scenes and certainly made the performances feel more believable. The costumes are also very impressive with what looks like real armour used in many of the scenes.
There are also a few impressive set pieces including a novel way of re-purposing the "moving room" we last experienced in Satan's Slammer . Anyone genuinely going into this room with no knowledge of what it can do would have been left very surprised!
All in - Gwyrch is a great venue for a scare attraction and it's great to see the team expand the event with more food and drink options and seating area afterwards. We look forward to hearing what crazy story they come up with for 2025.
The attraction covers many different rooms and areas within including an amazing staircase scene that viewers of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of here during Covid, would recognise, as well as some outdoor courtyard spaces. The trail is quite up and down in places, as you would expect for an attraction built in a castle ruin - the floor can be a but uneven at times.
The scenes throughout range from immersive theatrical storytelling alongside sudden jump scares and a number of very confusing rooms where we had to struggle to find an obvious way out in the darkness. All of our group experienced a number of good scares along the way - especially when the actors played around with our group order and sent different people in different directions, or made a less brave guest take the led for the next scene.
As we would expect from the Area 51 teem behind this attraction - the actors were all really strong, and generally older than your average scare actor. This helped add gravitas to the scenes and certainly made the performances feel more believable. The costumes are also very impressive with what looks like real armour used in many of the scenes.
There are also a few impressive set pieces including a novel way of re-purposing the "moving room" we last experienced in Satan's Slammer . Anyone genuinely going into this room with no knowledge of what it can do would have been left very surprised!
All in - Gwyrch is a great venue for a scare attraction and it's great to see the team expand the event with more food and drink options and seating area afterwards. We look forward to hearing what crazy story they come up with for 2025.
Scary - We were a group of 11 from aged 10 to 82. We had so much fun and thought the actors were brilliant, even the 1 that was walking the queue. That was the only bad part, the long queue to get in, even with a time slot booked. Brilliant setting, well thought out and there were some screams from most of us at some point, and a lot of laughs 😂
Nowhere near as good as 2023. Mainly consisted of stumbling around through smoke and pitch black being shouted at to “Get out” and randomly screamed at. Not as many set ups in the rooms it seemed or presentations by scary actors. Costumes, make up and acting all excellent again. I was mildly disappointed overall. Will try again next year though.
Escape Alive at Gwrych Castle - 2023
Escape Alive is a brand new event for 2023, created by Area 51 and Welsh based record label Escape Records. The event is Based in Wales' most haunted castle, which was made famous as the the home of I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here in 2020.
Arriving at the event itself, we were greeted by the stunning views of the castle, As we queued to get in we were struck by just how big the castle is.
The attraction itself follows a story about finding the Holy Grail and choosing between the white lady and the red witch. The Maze itself contained some fantastic scenes and effects which were hugely enhanced by the castle's grand staircases and huge rooms. They featured a great mix of creature characters, aggressors and funny moments too. In-between each big scene of the maze were winding smoke corridors that made it a real challenge to see your own group let alone the actors within.
The torture scene was a highlight for us, where one of our group was chosen as a sacrifice to "Big Barry" who was in need of a new girlfriend. Upon leaving our sacrifice behind we met a zombie soldier in a large garden area who sang us a lovely little song and promised his fellow supporters of the white lady would keep us safe.
All in all the maze was good fun, filled with some brilliant scares and effects, lasting around 20-30 minutes, we really enjoyed it. It was particularly impressive after being told by the owners the whole thing was built in 2 days whilst the castle was open to the public.
Upon leaving the maze we were led into the courtyard where guets can sit and watch horror films and classic spooky cartoons on a large screen, or enjoy some food from the many food stands and the bar. The atmosphere was fine , with a little DJ desk, but we were told there were also plans to have funfair rides as well but due to the storms the country faced in the weekend leading up to the event they were unable to get those in.
The castle's gift shop was also open but was unrelated to the event.
All in all this event was a lot of fun with some amazing scares and definitely has huge potential for the future. We have enjoyed some of the unique scares created by Area 51 at Whatton House of Horror and Satan's Slammer, and really look forward to what they have planned for thus event in the future.
Arriving at the event itself, we were greeted by the stunning views of the castle, As we queued to get in we were struck by just how big the castle is.
The attraction itself follows a story about finding the Holy Grail and choosing between the white lady and the red witch. The Maze itself contained some fantastic scenes and effects which were hugely enhanced by the castle's grand staircases and huge rooms. They featured a great mix of creature characters, aggressors and funny moments too. In-between each big scene of the maze were winding smoke corridors that made it a real challenge to see your own group let alone the actors within.
The torture scene was a highlight for us, where one of our group was chosen as a sacrifice to "Big Barry" who was in need of a new girlfriend. Upon leaving our sacrifice behind we met a zombie soldier in a large garden area who sang us a lovely little song and promised his fellow supporters of the white lady would keep us safe.
All in all the maze was good fun, filled with some brilliant scares and effects, lasting around 20-30 minutes, we really enjoyed it. It was particularly impressive after being told by the owners the whole thing was built in 2 days whilst the castle was open to the public.
Upon leaving the maze we were led into the courtyard where guets can sit and watch horror films and classic spooky cartoons on a large screen, or enjoy some food from the many food stands and the bar. The atmosphere was fine , with a little DJ desk, but we were told there were also plans to have funfair rides as well but due to the storms the country faced in the weekend leading up to the event they were unable to get those in.
The castle's gift shop was also open but was unrelated to the event.
All in all this event was a lot of fun with some amazing scares and definitely has huge potential for the future. We have enjoyed some of the unique scares created by Area 51 at Whatton House of Horror and Satan's Slammer, and really look forward to what they have planned for thus event in the future.
Links:
Escapee Alive website
You Review
Have you also visited this or any other attractions recently? - tell us what you thought here
The event was a lot smaller scale than the advertising suggested.
We queued for quite a while despite having times on our tickets.
Only the people at the front of the group were getting the scares. The storyline and flow of guests didn't really work. I still know really know what the story was. Actors were good though.
The drinks were very expensive compared to the drinks down the road at the Manorafon farm halloween event.
We queued for quite a while despite having times on our tickets.
Only the people at the front of the group were getting the scares. The storyline and flow of guests didn't really work. I still know really know what the story was. Actors were good though.
The drinks were very expensive compared to the drinks down the road at the Manorafon farm halloween event.
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