I was out geocaching late into the night while vacationing in PEI when I spied a huge Tudor…read morebuilding in the middle of Kensington. As the weirdness of this sunk in, I turned around and drove back and I was introduced to one of the most interesting sights in PEI. I got out of my vehicle and toured the grounds and I knew that I would be returning with the kids very soon. The next morning I spoke to the kids about the attraction and the question was "Is it scary or cheesy"? I had done some simple research on the computer and I honestly couldn't answer but I told them what I knew from the pictures. They decided that they had enough information to go. Twenty minutes later we were walking up the stairs.
I had four kids with me, two of them teenagers and fearing that this wouldn't be scary enough, I went a bit overboard in the first room, pretending that something grabbed be from inside the couch. Immediately, they were terrified. They wanted me to lead, they wanted to hold hands in a chain, and my eldest really wanted my smart phone to use as a flashlight. I obliged every once in a while, but we mostly wen sans flashlight.
There is a single path through the mansion and every 20 meters or so there's an escape route for the most timid folk and although the kids were seriously considering escaping at the first exit, they pushed forward and made it through the whole house.
The first 5 or 6 rooms are the scariest in my opinion; if you make it past those, it gets brighter (quite bright upstairs). The main floor are mainly dark rooms/scenes with a few automatons and very cool moving 'portrait'. Upstairs is laid out like an apartment with windows, so there was natural light throughout and the kids were able to handle this area with no fear. The basement is setup like a Tudor town (very much like the shambles in York). It also has a couple 'attractions' with the bottomless pit and the revolving room; both really fun.
If you successfully emerge, you come to the gardens which is split into two sections. The largest is filled with interesting things like ponds, walkways, an automated fortune teller, photo op areas and the smaller area has a few rides (tilt-a-whirl, plane ride, wagon ride) and some games. We spend just as much time outside as we did in.
I paid about $55 for four kids and myself for about 3 hours of fun. It wasn't cheap, but I think it's good value for the money. So much so that the kids begged to come back the next day, and we did.