Windsor Castle from London: the ticket, the train and the day trip

Windsor has two railway stations and buying a ticket to the wrong one is the most common self-inflicted wound of the trip. They are on different lines, run by different operators, from different London terminals, and they leave you in two quite different places.

Great Western Railway runs from Paddington with a change at Slough, on platform 1, to Windsor and Eton Central. Nothing goes through: the change is compulsory, and the twenty-two minute figure quoted in a lot of places is only the fast leg from Paddington to Slough, not the whole trip. Reckon on about thirty-five minutes end to end, with departures roughly every twenty minutes. Central sits inside the Royal Windsor Shopping Centre on Thames Street, at the bottom of the castle wall.

South Western Railway runs from Waterloo straight through to Windsor and Eton Riverside, no change at all, in about 55 to 60 minutes, first train 06:33 and last 23:33, with a published fare from 13 pounds. Riverside is on Datchet Road. Both stations are inside a ten-minute walk of the entrance, but the Royal Collection Trust says in its own words that the castle sits at the top of a steep hill, and the hill is the bit between Riverside and the gate.

One more thing that catches people out: the Elizabeth line does not reach Windsor. It serves Slough, Maidenhead, Twyford and Reading, so it can replace the Paddington to Slough leg, but the last few minutes are still a Great Western train, and the Transport for London fare zones stop at West Drayton.

The ticket carries an entry time and the Royal Collection Trust is blunt about what happens if you miss it: admission is not guaranteed, it depends on a later slot coming free that day, it is at their discretion, and there is no refund. Arriving late, on the wrong day, or after closing all produce the same result.

The same ticket also has an unusual afterlife. Print and sign your name on the paper ticket before you leave the castle, on the day, and it becomes a one-year pass with free readmission to Windsor, Buckingham Palace, the Royal Mews, both King's Galleries and the Palace of Holyroodhouse. Two pounds if you want to book the return visit in advance. It cannot be claimed later, online, or at all if the ticket came from a reseller or a tour operator, and one pound tickets are excluded. Anyone booking Windsor through a third party is giving up that option without being told they had it.

Windsor does not keep museum hours. It is closed every Tuesday and Wednesday through most of the year, and only on Wednesdays from July to September. Opening runs 10:00 to 17:15 from March to October with last admission at 16:00, and 10:00 to 16:15 from November to February. On top of the weekly pattern the Royal Collection Trust had published these 2026 closures on the day we read the calendar: 8 to 12 January, 19 March, 14 and 15 June for Garter Day, and 25 and 26 December. It is a working royal residence, so more can appear at short notice.

Now put the guard change next to that. Windsor holds its own Changing of the Guard, separate from the London one, at 11:00 on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. London runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Which means that for nine months of the year, one of Windsor's three ceremony days falls on a day when the castle itself is closed. You can watch the guard change on a Tuesday in February and not get through the gate, and nothing in the way this is usually written would warn you.

Holders of the London Pass and Go City are included at Windsor, but not on the same terms as everyone else. Their entry band opens at 10:00 from September to May and at 11:00 from June to August, while general opening is 10:00 all year. In the busiest months the pass holder starts an hour behind the person who bought a normal ticket, and no live guide comes with it either.

A castle visit at an unhurried pace, the chapel, the Dolls' House and the Precincts is the three hours that experienced visitors keep quoting. The Royal Collection Trust does not publish a recommended length of its own; second-hand summaries citing it put the minimum at 90 minutes to two hours, which is the figure a coach schedule is built around. After the castle the town gives you the river, Eton across the bridge and the Great Park, and that is where the difference between a train ticket and a coach seat shows up: one of them lets you stay.

The catalogue agrees, in its own way. Every Windsor product with a declared duration runs at least 390 minutes, and there is not a single listing under two hours. Nobody in this market sells Windsor as a morning. Two of the 24 confirm instantly, 22 of the 24 carry free cancellation, and the practical consequence for a British booking is that you can hold a seat and drop it if the weather turns.

One last thing the ratings say, and it is the sort of remark a catalogue can make and a single-castle site cannot. The best rated Windsor product here scores 5.0 across 61 reviews at 103.02 EUR, and it visits Stonehenge and Windsor. The worst rated scores 4.1 across 99 reviews at 148.02 EUR, and it visits Buckingham Palace and Windsor. Same castle, same city of departure, a 43 EUR difference and almost a full point of rating between them. What separates the two is not Windsor.