Winchester Mystery House Review

Dante our tour guide made our experience fantastic. He was informative and entertaining.

Awesome place to visit. The history in this house is the best

Fun tour but the groups are somewhat too big to fully follow along. Also pretty expensive even for the regular tour.

Mildly interesting but not enough to justify the cost

It's a nice place to visit if you don't have anything else to do in San Jose. My 13-year-old sister liked it. If I were with a group of adults, I could probably skip it.

Our guide Gene was excellent! Funny and informative. We did the regular tour and it was plenty. Enjoyed thel gardens afterwards.

Eslie was an awesome guide. She did a fantastic job.

Disclaimer: I've been to Eastern State Penitinerary in Philadephia.

I came to Winchester Mystery House around Halloween in 2012.

I thought this mystery house was just okay. It wasn't very scary, and the parts where people jumped out to scare you, seemed very fabricated. The house itself isn't very scary either, which didn't add to the 'booo' aspect.

I would come here with kids, or on a date, but once you've been, I don't think you need to go back. The good thing is that this place is extremely close to Santana Row so you can stop by and grab a quick bite to eat before going.

Absolutely beautiful, well laid out, and very friendly staff. I am definitely glad I went. However, no photography is allowed inside which is very disappointing. Thought it was a little pricey for what you got to see and the gifts in the gift shop were mediocre. If you bring your children, please make sure they are respectful so others can hear the tour guide.

Fascinating and convenient spot for history buffs who are also on business travel.

The place is amazing and the tour guide new her stuff and was a pleasure the whole time to tour with!

I got to walk the grounds and gardens. I was disappointed that they closed the inside again but i will definitely be back after they reopen. Hopefully soon

What a cool experience! I've always wanted to go and it did not disappoint!!! The house is so interesting. With the price of admittance, you get an actual tour guide which I love. Our group was kind of large, but for the most part I heard everything our guide said. Speaking of our guide, we had Zack. He was awesome!! His enthusiasm was contagious. His puns were delightful.
If you are hard of hearing, stick to the front of the group and I think you'd be fine. The stairs are very doable, but you will have to do stairs. No air conditioning in the house, which makes sense. Bring a handheld paper fan. Thank me later. Overall, I would go again!!

Abstract home built with (@ its time) top of the line technologies makes for an interesting tour. Guide was informative & comedic. A little pricey & not a feeling of being haunted. Museum was awesome displaying numerous Winchester made weaponry.

Definitely a mystery house and feels haunted. We get to see Ginger Bread version of the house too, it was great.
We took both Mansion and Explore more tour. Mansion tour walks almost all the rooms, it really amazes staircases and doors leading nowhere. The real reason why there were many doors and windows is still a mystery. I wish there was more information on why the house was built with so many doors and windows. Many rooms with 13 windows, 13 doors, 13 ceiling blocks makes it evident that something has happened related to spirits/haunting.
Explore more tour takes to special rooms that are preserved and takes us to history. Definitely worth visiting, we sure are going back again.

This place I worth a long ride and the money it takes to get in if your a person that loves history and paranormal activity like me I think you should check it out

Such a strange, cool place! The mansion tour is completely worth the price, but you can skip the Even More add on- you will see more of the property, but nothing strange or particularly beautiful, which is the true charm of the main house.

Took the original tour. Absolutely loved it. Beautiful home with a fascinating history.

I was very interested because it was a mysterious place many times in Korean broadcasting.
It was possible to shoot a photo without flash. I thought it was because some bloggers were banned from photography. I can not take a video, but I can shoot any number of flash snapshots.

!!! AVOID !!!
Don't waste your money and time. Insanely overpriced ($44/person) and nothing really interesting to see. A big disappointment especially compared to our visit of the Hearst Castle (compare to $25/person). There is nothing really mysterious or cool there. The guide Daisy tried hard to give us the spooky feeling, but failed. "There are goose bumps on my arms, because I am telling you the truth and somebody's hugging me". She repeated the above phrase more than 10 times.
The poor Sarah Winchester was mourning all her life and didn't know how to spend the wealth. She was the largest local employer at the time, paid good wages and taxes, but honestly could spend the money with much greater purpose.

!!! AVOID !!!

We completed 2 of the tour guides. Very informative and the guide were knowledgable. I plan to come back for the flashlight tour.

The place is bizarre by its own history, totally original. However expensive and without support minimally reasonable for those who are not fluent in English. They offered me a little guide in Spanish who would have forced me to return at the exit!

It has an interesting history that you cannot experience unless you go yourself. I wish we would have done the extra tour... much more to see if you want to pay extra. For the record even though it's only a $10 extra fee ..... when one person pays for everybody which was a party of 10 that $10 adds up. Hence why we decided not to do the extra tour. But for those that are wondering it's a $10 difference.

It is a very interesting place, with good history, people are very nice.

Well let me just start off by saying I think this place is a little pricey and that's the reason why I'm taking 1 star off. With that being said though the history and the architecture here is very interesting, and if you're okay with splurging a little bit it's worth a visit. Now the reason why I took the second star off, your overall feel of worth for this place I think is highly based upon the tour guide that you get. Our particular guide wasn't the greatest, she was nice but lacked quite a bit of information about the actual location, and I think should have still been assisted by other guides. We did hear quite a few other guides that were very knowledgeable about the architecture and history, but it's kind of a luck of the draw. Normally if I only paid 10 or 15 bucks to get in here then I wouldn't really complain about this but with the high asking price of Entry I had to mention it. Now my final pet peeve really comes to the fact that you are not allowed to take pictures while inside this guided tour. You can take pictures of the outside of the house but you are not allowed to take pictures of the inside of the house. Due to the fact that they sold the rights to a movie company, to make the film "the Winchester House", I believe it's going to be a horror movie. Now once again I probably wouldn't complain if the price was lower but considering how much we paid I think it's total BS. Restating my original point, if the history and architecture of this place draws you in then it's worth the money but there is still room for improvement.

Good tour guide. Be prepared to wait for a tour. Purchase tickets in advance

Very interesting part of history. This landmark has so many sides of information to hear. My only complaint is the price. We have been to museum, attractions and landmarks all over, this was definitely a little pricey for it was. They now have ax throwing as well.

This place was so cool. So much history and strange all in one place. Sarah Winchester was a BOSS!! She took care of her people and her community. Some of the wealthy Americans of our current age can learn alot from the Queen Winchester.

Over priced and overrated. Not cheesy enough to be funny and not architectural enough to be intriguing. Crowded since the movie. Went on a Thursday and too many people in the group to really enjoy it. The guide was pleasant, tho.

I have been wanting to come here for quite some time now and was so excited to have the opportunity. It was really cool to see and learn about Sarah Winchester.
Our tour guide Steven was very fun, knowledgeable, and informative, and did a great job at immersing us into the experience. Definitely going to return for the explore more tour soon!

Overall good experience but overpriced. Took a mansion tour, it was interesting and the house is really cool and unusual

I attended for the first time and I purchased a membership. I'm not sorry that I did that I look forward to returning. Justin was our guide through the house and he was very proficient full of knowledge of the home. These people working there are very friendly and helpful. If you're a local and you're looking for something different to do I recommend taking both tours.

Awesome night visiting for their Unhinged event! Great night!

Beautiful villa with garden - fairly expensive entrance

This was awesome and amazing. Get tickets in advance. The"Explore More" tour was well worth it, helps with smaller groups.

This destination was extremely disappointing. The main tour is $40 and only includes two mysterious and wacky attractions. They were just shallow cabinets... And a very brief view of the stairs that go nowhere. The rest of the wacky architecture was in a second tour for an additional $15. Additionally, apart from the walls and some windows, nothing was originally of the house. None of the furniture was original. I would not recommend it AT ALL.

Very interesting and the tour guides are obviously well versed in the house not just reciting a script.

Was worth the time and money to play tourists for the night.

Its a good fun spot, tour guides make it fun to learn about. Great piece of history!

Some of the rooms were closed due to covid, but it was still a wonderful tour.

I thought it was a great tour. I would recommend it for all to go see. I thought it was weird to be in a house listening how the person did all these things and died in the house as well. Just go tour it for yourself you will enjoy it.

Great historical attraction! Tour guides are fun and knowledgeable.

The price is way to high. I wanted to take my granddaughter and I couldn't afford it and we came down from Oregon

Great place to visit, worth the stop if you are in the area

Interesting place with a lot of history. Our guide make the tour very enjoyable. Jett was excellent and very funny.

Tour of main house was good & the tour guide Alan was good. We did the extended tour & it wasn t that great & the tour guide Cora was TERRIBLE.

Very beautiful creepy house. Took my wife here last week for her birthday and she loved it.... I'm not going to lie i also loved the house but i was so scared the whole time. I try to walk behind my wife the whole time so she didn't see how scared I was but I think she caught me a few times freaking out. It was so cool walking through the house at your own pace. My wife said when we got close to the seance room something brushed her hair and made it move I told her she was tripping but she said no she felt it. So since she said that I was even more scared the rest of the time so I hope you guys enjoy yourself on a tour and just watch where you go cuz you never know when somebody's going to be there no I'm just joking no one will be there.

It is a very intriguing piece of history that should be experienced. Thought the tour was pretty thorough & a good value. You get to see 110 of the 160 rooms.

The tour was a bit boring. Interesting house though.

Love this place... Always something more to learn about it and more to see.

Great experience! I learned a lot about the eccentric Sarah Winchester

Probably the best place to ever tour, which makes their "no pictures" rule during the tour that much more aggravating. Pictures can't take away the experience of actually walking through the place, so lighten up.

Great place to visit if you're into peculiar things, or even just for the interesting architecture. Houses a fantastic gift shop as well.

Great tour but people need to respect others and look at what the guide is showing eed everyone and move so others can see it too

Our tour guide was super friendly and have a really detailed, fun tour. Very witty and friendly. The staff all wears period clothing and seems to be into the right mindset. The house itself is a really cool place to visit. It has gorgeous architecture, with 160 rooms of interesting and varying themes and uses. Go early and pay the extra ten for the extended tour. They do push the movie that's coming out at the end, but otherwise it was a solid time.

Though my family and I didn't get to see the inside of the house (due to covid), we had a lot of fun looking around the garden.

Highly recommend! Our tour guide, Tyler was great! So many windows and rooms. It had a lot of pretty views. We bought our tickets via groupon and got tickets via the cashier at the gift shop. Garden area was beautiful to walk around, too! My husband took all the photos, so I only have the few I took to post here.

If you're around it's worth a visit. Do the standard and the vip basement tour!

Its a good tour of an old mansion where no rooms was built on standards.
Our tour guide was quite knowledgeable about the history of the mansion.
Too bad we came a few days before the movie was released so they did not allow any photography inside.
They only have one souvenir photo they allow and it was way overpriced like a typical tourist spot.. but of course, i bought it!

The best time to come to this attraction and beautiful mansion in San Jose is in October for Halloween! Friendly staff, beautiful environment and definitely a place to go check out when you have the time

We had am exceptional tour guide for the mansion tour. About an hour long tour with our son, but if you have the extra time, try the explore more tour.

Abe (mansion tour guide) and Kristen (explore more tour) were great!!!! Friendly and informative, I traveled from Mesa Arizona to see this beautiful estate

Such a cool place! The history is better than the haunting.

Fun place for there kids. Went for Halloween. 15 - 20 min. To get in.

Worth every penny to visit. A stunning example of the architecture of its period, with so many twists, turns, and oddities it is amazing to imagine someone actually lived there.