Larnach Castle Review

For me it's more a mansion than a castle ... The view is beautiful gardens too.

Great tasty food,beautiful surroundings,excellent service. Recommended a must.

Needs an interested party to do minor repair work on building and furnishings

Beautiful ground, guided tour was great. Food was excellent with large portion.

beautifully restored and oozing with history and interesting stories

Excellent. Beautiful surroundings. Friendly and helpful staff. The host card for being a local is a bonus too.

Great place to visit with the family and plenty to see in the lovely gardens.

The castle is ordinary, but the garden is beautiful, with many varieties of flowers and plants. The water view is spectacular also. I wish they wouldn't allow the tour buses to
drop off tourists in front of the castle, or the staff trimming the bushes and trees during the peak visiting hours.

Very poor value. Its a garden and a house. Hardly a castle by any definition. Save yourself the money and go to the Botanic Garden instead.

Allegedly the only castle in NZ. Small but nice, with a beautiful garden. The current owners go out of their way to maintain the historic ambience.

Really unique accommodation. The breakfast especially was fantastic as was the service for breakfast! Free castle tour with accommodation which was nice to see for the history. The Ottago drive to the castle is awesome too!

Awesome "castle" with beautiful gardens, views, and a great cafe with food and coffee. A great place to get out to on the weekend!

Friendly atmosphere had a great time looking at the history.

About four hours drive from Queenstown, Dunedin is a beautiful coastal city where New Zealand's only castle is located. The castle has a nice garden and look out points. The interior and decoration is interesting to look at. There are three levels and access to the roof top where a lake view can be observed. Overall a nice half day trip from Queenstown. High tea at the castle also recommended.

Such a beautiful building in Dunedin. Highly recommend to visit the castle. The history of Larnach family is tragical, but still interesting

Beautiful place great history. Gardens are stunning.High Tea ia an absolute must.
Great price so worth the visit.

Beautifully restored. A wonderful day out. Well worth the trip.

The castle, accommodation, dinner and breakfast, Wonderful !!!

Nice house in the castle style. Great view over the Otago Peninsula. Food at completely reasonable prices. Admission prices in my opinion too high, but since the preservation of the castle and the garden is good ok ...

A house with some history. It has been nicely restored. We had a great visit with a guide. I recommend you take a guided tour to get the full story. The garden is also nicely maintained with beautiful views.

Wow! A place that takes you back in time. A must visit when in Dunedin.

Way overpriced. Basicly a botanical garden on a hill with a view for $34 (with castle tour). Yes it's a nice garden and the view too but definitely not worth $34. The castle can have as much history as you want but still not worth it, sorry. We didn't do the castle because we were flabbergasted at the gate by the prices so did only the gardens. Just the garden is $17 pp. I wouldn't recommend.

Gorgeous gardens and was great we could take our own picnic along

Fantastic stay great service in a lovely well looked after gardens and castle

Beautiful woodwork but it's such a shame that mr Larnach threw away his money like that. Depressing story

More of a manor house but well presented and great gardens. $31 entry may be a bit steep.

Beautiful little castle and gardens. Plan to stay there 2-4 hours

Friendly staff. A shame some rooms need work, but budget i guess has a case to answer for. I went there 12 years ago and still same same but kids aged 7 and 12 loved it.

What a great piece of NZ history..
New Zealands only castle

A wonderful example of passion..the restoration in progress. The castle is a fascinating old piece of Dunedin history. Well worth a look. The grounds are pretty awesome also.

Was a wonderful experience. Dined in the music room of the castle for dinner. Food was amazing. Service was excellent.

Beautiful morning sun rises. Great view from our room and balcony.

Beautiful castle and gardens, interesting history, and lovely high tea!

Lovely gardens and great cafe with really good coffee

A very interesting story about Larnach and a wonderful job restoring and keeping of this unique piece of NZ history.

I enjoyed my visit to the castle grounds. But if you take the entrance fee in consideration it poor castle-value for your money.

Beautiful building and gardens to visit in Dunedin. Amazing views on a clear day too. Well worth a visit.

4th visit - love to see the renovations and it is just magic to stay there too

Not as impressive as i expected ...the castle was under maintanance .... so may be that's why.. the fee to enter castle is a bit high...

It costs twice as much to enter as Schloss Neuschwanstein.

$30+ to go inside $15+ to look...Dunedin you're a great town but this is extortion.

Beautiful place with great garden and restaurant!!) must do in Dunedin!)))

Not worth a visit. Even the garden are a rip off with an entry fee of NZD 17.00. Definately give this a miss.

They will borrow umbrellas to the visitors free of charge when u want to explore the garden in a rainy day

We opted for the budget stable stay rather than the posher (but far more expensive) estate or lodge rooms, all at the lavish manor-cum-castle on the Dunedin peninsular.

Pros:
Extremely attentive and friendly staff
Great wi-fi
Comfortable mattress and pillows
Breakfast included, and a sumptuous one at that
Access to the castle and gardens. It was too foggy for us to enjoy the gardens, but the castle and the displays explaining its history were outstanding
We dined at the castle restaurant. It was a hosted dinner-for-six, three courses, great food, convivial atmosphere

Cons:
Being a converted stable, it had low ceilings in parts of the room; we both cracked our heads on the rafter beams at least once each
No kitchen, toilet, or shower in the room; it s all communal. The shower facilities were very basic; they didn t even have a shelf. The water pressure was good though
Curtains didn t close together on the main window, and the small knee-high window by the floor didn t have a curtain at all. It wasn t a major privacy issue since the main window looked directly on a turret wall, but if we wanted to sleep in it may have let in too much light in the morning

Incredible .. Beds wonderful staff amazing food 5* Will go again .. Next time stay longer

The high tea experience was great! Castle is nice, but do the combo!

Beautiful place, such lovely gardens and great cafe.

Wow what a story behind this Castle sad, but interesting.

Paying staff to little 10 yrs and still on minimum wage

Great castle to have for public access in New Zealand. It doesn t match the castles in Scotland for magnitude but interesting to walk through and read about the history. I found walking up the spiral staircase and onto the roof was the best part with nice views of the Otago Peninsula. The front garden was nice but a little disappointed on the side and rear gardens. I think overall it is value for money.

It's a grand house with mock battlements rather than a castle built for defence. But it is very grand with an interesting history. There's a display downstairs about the history with mementos and the rest of the rooms have furniture from the period, often the original. There are lots of details like carved ceilings and stained glass.
Outside there are interesting gardens and views.

Very expensive ticket to enter comparing with what you can see, esp when no flowers in the garden, the museum closed down without information

The only castle in the Southern Hemisphere and well worth a visit.

Amazing place to visit. Lovely helpful staff. Coffee is great. Lots of plant milks. Would be nice to have a vegan option other than chips...

Good to visit once. Make sure you check the flower garden.

What a experience, very beautiful inside, and the scenery what a eye opener

A must see stop, very beautiful inside and plenty to see.
In addition to the castle there is a garden and a cafeteria.
There is a bathroom for visitors.
At the top of the castle you have a wonderful view.

Beautiful place. Cost, amazing history. Food and staff are too notch

One of the Best Historical places to visit in New Zealand period.

Building quite good, commentary could have been delivered with a bit more enthusiasm

An extremely low standard of food. Would never eat here again.

Lovely experience -only regret is that we needed to spend more time exploring. ..just not enough time.

Nice lodge, good leadership - unfortunately quite expensive.