Blenheim Palace Avis 

Went here for the first time last night and was not impressed. Although some of the displays were stunning, the whole thing was too big. Some of the displays were very tacky and inappropriate music was blaring out wherever you went. Nothing was ethereal and it reminded me of a circus fairground. It is also difficult for the visually challenged as many areas were unlit or very dark.

My family have been visiting Blenheim Christmas Lights every year since 2017.
My Mum’s third visit was this year.
I cannot believe how poor it was. The trail has been extended-presumably to fit
More
Visitors. There were whole stretches of darkness. Areas for drinks where, previously, visitors would want to stay and absorb the magic were now in darkness. The prices were extortionate-£7.50 for 3 marshmallows to toast next to a wheelie bin; £8 for a single shot of Baileys…
The staff,previously jolly and full of joy, seemed miserable and most admitted that yes…it wasn’t anything like previous years. Apparently the dark patches are where Hallowe’en illuminations were…
Absolute money grabbing. We went to the Christmas lights trail at the Chelsea Hospital on Saturday. One third of the price and honestly a far more sophisticated, beautiful experience.

There were many final straws but for me,with a father who died of MND, was them selling their charity cards for £6.99. I bought the exact same cards today for £3.75 from their website- I’d like to think they would donate the additional £3.24 towards a cure but I doubt it.
Additionally, the Christmas Market which was a highlight last year, was closed by 8pm! So, when we returned from the light trail we were forced to wander through a boarded up and dark market.

Shame on you Blenheim. We will never return

Paid for the palace of Oz and light trail plus parking and ride tokens so £200 in all for two adults and one child, wow my six year old granddaughter was bored with lights and we left asap, palace of Oz was not what was expected as everything cheap and plastic!!! The first half of light trail waste of time and money, second half was better but fed up with walking behind so many slow people as overcrowded, £10 for hot chocolate and a small bowel of chips, hot chocolate taken back as milk sour!!
Overcrowded and overpriced we even gave ride tokens away to leave!!

I paid £40 per person, 3 persons for the Christmas Wizard of Oz experience and because we had two cars £20for parking. That’s £140. The whole experience was awful. Tacky, cheap plastic “things”. No sense of a quality experience which perhaps naively I expected. At least real trees and leaves and wreath etc. the whole short experience was crowded, having to wait too long for the people to move through the dreadful cheap set up, woeful and pathetic and ripping good hard working families off. First visit to Blenheim Palace and will be the last. Shame on your greed.

I will never go to Blenheim Palace ever now! I didnt get there and have been so disgusted at ticket company refundable.me and their lack of compassion....I sadly lost my daughter and the visit clashed with her anniversary and found it too emotional to drive the 2.5hrs to attend. I purchased the insurance to protect my tickets, I could not get a refund! I apparently should have known it was her anniversary! I had to prove her death and prove my relationship to her. The compassion has been ZERO! I wasnt even able to move to another date because I knew! The claim process is almost identical to that when you are trying to get out of doing jury service...not relevant to domestic situations at all! I contacted Blenheim directly who offered to give an alternate day, but the ticket company wont honour that!
Thank goodness for American Express....refunded me in less than 1 hour ....

I have been going to the Halloween events run by Culture Creative & RG Live since 2022 at Chiswick House and every year since at Blenheim Palace. They used to be incredible, one of THE best Halloween events of the year, hence going every year.
I have just been to Blenheim Palace Halloween event this year and the standard has dropped so much. Last year it had lost some sparkle but this year it wasn’t the same at all. Compared to previous events it has halved in magic and production completely.
Which is such a shame. Are Culture Creative/RG Live running out of ideas or budget or just scrimping to give us all less bang for our buck? What is going on? It’s just like a glorified kids party for ages 10 and under instead of the amazing spectacular that it was in 2022 & 2023.
I guess if you are going for the first time you will like it, but if you have been going year on year you will notice the very noticeable decline.

Today was our fourth visit using the annual ticket, so great value for money! Beautiful grounds and lakes. Lots of great half-term activities included in with general every, my entire family loved Thomas Trilby, a very natural and talented teacher in the circus tricks school! Friendly staff around the site, lots of staff commented on my son's Halloween costume which was greatly appreciated! We travel 90 minutes to get to Blenheim, but it's absolutely worth it for a relaxed day out in the countryside! Planning our fifth trip soon!

Too expensive. £41!!
Have to pay extra for specific tours and bus ride around grounds too.
Loos filthy, cafes dreadful with overpriced foods and dirty crockery and cutlery. Had to return 2 cold soups served. Refund eventually as didn't want to wait another 30 minutes.
Experience rooms which were exhibitions really. 😡😡
Don't bother.
My 2 stars are for the knowledge of driver on grounds ride.
Shop doesn't take cash.
Clothing at back of shop near loos so absorbing constant faecal smell. They try to cover that with horrible air freshener 🤮
Generally I'm glad I went to see where Churchill born, but it's basically a money grabbing exercise that isn't worth it.
Seems the Marlborough's always been money grabbing and not changed!!!

Finally managed to find dates for Christmas lights, had to select several times and go through the entire process, only to be told that there were not enough tickets available for the date chosen. Finally found some times where tickets are available, and now cant pay for them and just comes up with an error. Sort your Website out!!!!

Expensive entry for what you get for your money.
Large property but only a few rooms open to the public. No flow and poorly signed for the few things they do have open. Currently under renovation so not much to look at from the outside either.

A good all round day out from the glorious palace to the new coffee van

You ought to feel ashamed. Staying in the Cotswolds as part of my 70th birthday celebrations last week my son bought five full price tickets online for our party to visit and enjoy the house, garden and the walled garden as one of our special days. I am a keen gardener and visit many gardens and was so excited to see yours.

Firstly the house - under a huge renovation project, the beautiful frontage covered in scaffolding and screening so not visible to admire. How can you not mention this?

The gardens were also a massive disappointment - the walled garden horrific, bare ground, mostly dust and unkempt, barely anything growing. Looked neglected. I checked with the staff in the kiosk in case we had wandered into the wrong area. No - they told me we had just come out of it. I visited two RHS gardens only the previous week - the difference was unbelievable. Theirs were magnificent.

My son apologised to me so often and suggested we go somewhere else.

We all live more than four hours away so saying these passes can be used for the coming year doesn’t help. Also, I understand that the renovation work will run until sometime 2026.

The house inside is glorious but overall - don’t go. Our expectations were nowhere near met and we felt misled. Very poor!

Read other reviews.

We had lunch at the Orangery. It was perfect in every way. The food, the service, the setting were excellent. A lovely singer too.

A short walk around the lovely grounds afterwards rounded off a wonderful visit.

I really loved everything here except for the awful customer service when entering. I have worked at customer service for a long time, therefore I am very compassionate towards customer service. Very very rude guy who was working the tickets at the entrance. You are better off buying tickets at the gate. 10/10 do not recommend annual passes! I have never given a one star review before in my life until today…

As local residents, we purchased an annual ticket primarily to access the children’s playground, which is well designed and enjoyable, when the weather is good and the water features are working. Unfortunately, over many visits throughout the year, the water features operated only once, repeatedly disappointing my children. Despite raising the issue multiple times, staff responses felt dismissive and suspect. I suspect the cost of running and repairs is something they are reluctant to cover, despite the high ticket and other prices. We also visited the house, other attractions and the Christmas Neverland exhibition; none met our expectations given the price paid. The exhibition was frankly embarrassing considering the ticket cost. Overall, every visit left us disappointed. It seems the focus is on maximising short-term revenue rather than fostering long-term visitor satisfaction. Friends who joined us and others we met at Blenheim have had similar feelings. We will not be repurchasing membership.

If you're just going for kids Adventure Play - DON'T bother it's a rip off!!!

Better off going Adventure Play in Windsor; 10 times better, half the price!!!

Visited Blenheim Palace specifically for the roof tour. It is incredible, if you can drag yourself away from the incredible views to see the roof and sculptures so close is incredible. There are stairs or a lift, the stairs allow you to explore more aspects of the work that is being undertaken. The tour of the roof was fantastic and that was before I visited the house which is not impacted by all the roof work. A visit is most definitely recommended.

Lovely grounds and very helpful staff. My daughter has a young baby and they advised her of where to go to feed her and where to store the pushcair. Paid for the Annual Pass, which means we hope to go back at Xmas.
Lovely grounds that includes a Butterfly Farm and a beautiful orchard. There is also a Pizzeria in that part of the grounds which we will try next time as they are cooked in a wood fired oven.

Do not visit until 2028 unless you don't mind being completely ripped off. Myself and my husband visited on the 19th June and were were charged £82 to visit a deafeningly loud construction site. At the time of visiting there was NO prior warning of the works being done on the website or at the gates when purchasing tickers. There was also no information regarding the sound checks that was taking place that were so ridiculously loud we couldn't actually believe this was even allowed to take place during the day with paying visitors everywhere.

Our experience was extremely disappointing and not at all in line with what was advertised or expected. There is significant scaffolding covering entire facades and the vast majority of the inside and outside is closed or obscured. Chairs and a stage covered the entire terrace, and an extremely loud, continuous sound check took place throughout the entire duration of our visit. This excessive noise rendered the visit extremely unpleasant — it was impossible to have a conversation at close proximity to my husband. I would also like to mention that we bought a small pot of ice cream from a stand near the main dining area - the contents was open, leaking and half eaten! This was quickly rectified by staff, but this is very poor in terms of health and hygiene.

Whilst I completely understand that works are essential for maintenance, the lack of any advance warning or discounted ticket price felt deceptive and fraudulent. I checked the website a week prior for opening hours, and again on the day of our visit, and at no point was there any mention of ongoing works or disruptions - only that areas would be closing slightly earlier than usual due to the concert. I showed the website to a member of staff who agreed that scaffolding information was not visible. I noticed they changed the website a couple of daylater to show the works and scaffolding - this should have been added weeks earlier for guests planning future visits. If you look back at reviews from mid June you can see others were in a similar situation and angry for being so blatantly conned.

I spoke with a member of staff about our issues during our visit and she agreed with us wholehartedly - she advised us to email for compensation which of course we did immediately. We received a watery response with no refund or compensation offered nd we are furious at Blenheim Palace management for this shameless money-grab and underhandedness.

It is clear from recent online reviews that we are not alone in our disappointment, so I strongly suggest you do not visit until 2028 when the works are complete.

Visited on our way home from weekend away. Didn't realise until we paid on the gate it was £41 per ticket. We were expecting 20% discount for English Heritage membership but didn't get it. Maybe because there was going to be an event on that night? But this wasn't explained to us at the ticket kiosk. House covered in scaffolding, limited rooms available to see due to internal renovations-again, not told this before paying. Supposedly you can now go up to the roof and also see 'below stairs' but neither available on the day. Parkland was lovely. Café seemed understaffed-not everything available, cutlery not replenished, sugar had run out. Tables not cleared. Event on in the evening meant courtyard in front of house was full of seating. So disappointing.