Feeling brave this Halloween? Then why not skip the terror rooms, the theme park zombies, and the haunted hayrides and try something a little more exciting — namely, a night in Count Dracula’s castle. What’s there to be scared of, a little blood draining? You can handle that! (Unless you have a dust allergy, since no one has slept there since 1948.)
The AP reports that the Halloween nightmare (read: very special experience you will be telling everyone about if you survive) is a promotion being run by AirBnb and will include both airfare to Romania as well as luxurious coffins for beds:
The site’s actual name is Bran Castle, and two people will get to sleep there Oct. 31 thanks to a promotion by Airbnb. The guests will be wined and dined, then left alone to lie down in red velvet-trimmed coffins just as Dracula did in the Bram Stoker horror novel that popularized the legend.
But that’s not all. The two people chosen to spend the night will also be met at the castle by a descendant of Bram Stoker, Dacre Stoker, who will be on hand to play Jonathan Harker (and conveniently be implicated should a mysterious murder take place).
“I want to make it both realistic and show the legend in the wonderful country that birthed the whole thing,” Stoker said in a telephone interview. He’ll play the role of Jonathan Harker, a character from the novel who encounters Dracula at the castle. When the winners arrive in a horse-drawn carriage, he plans to greet them using the same words Dracula used in his ancestor’s story: “Welcome to my house! Enter freely. Go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring!”
If by happiness he means “literally all of your blood,” then we’re going to have to take a pass. Still, the prospect of enjoying a delicious chicken dinner and a night without selfies may be enough to get you to forget your misgivings about spending the night in a castle once owned by Vlad the Impaler — who like to invite noblemen over for a feast and then have everyone in attendance impaled.
The winning pair will tour the castle, then be treated to a candlelight dinner of chicken paprikash, the same meal described in the novel. Airbnb’s rules for the night are simple: no garlic or silver jewelry — both believed to ward off vampires — and this reminder: “The count is not a fan of mirror selfies.” (According to legend, a vampire’s image cannot be seen in mirrors.)
No word on whether guests will also be treated to bread dipped in buckets of blood, but we can hope!
If you want to spend a night in the castle, you’re going to have to prove you’re worthy by entering AirBnb’s contest and letting the decision-makers know exactly what you’d say to Dracula if you met him (“Love what you’ve done with the place, please don’t kill me?”).
Better come up with something better than that, the blood-sucking count is also a delicate flower.
