Castle Hill on the Crane Estate, Massachusetts, United States

4smac 5:00 PM Jun 4, 2022

Lovely estate but experience marred by mismanaged event
We took a guided tour of the estate which was lovely. The tour was lead by a house staff member in character, which he did a great job at! Beautiful estate with beautiful views and the lawn, while a bit of a hike, is worth it to the casino and the ocean view at the end. My only complaint was that we walked the half-mile to the ocean which includes stairs at the casino to go down one of the steep hills. Upon our return, there was a play rehearing at the casino area and we were told we could not use the stairs to go up. Instead, we were directed to a very steep, grassy hill that we would need to climb to get back to the house. I broke my kneecap two years ago, so this was difficult but the only available option. As a paying customer, I would have liked to have been warned about this prior to going out as far as we did. The individual from the play who was directing tourists seemed annoyed that we were there and was yelling at everyone that they couldn't use the stairs, which didn't make sense as that is how we got there in the first place. Upon returning to the house, we informed the women at the desk of what was going on but they just confirmed that it was a play rehearsing for an event later that night. We told them they might want to warn their patrons, especially if they might not be up for hiking up a hill...

4Colleen C 5:00 PM Jul 2, 2022

Nice Stop
The Crane Estate is beautiful inside and out, but we were disappointed that for the cost of the ticket, you still had to purchase additional tours to be able to see the rooms upstairs. The grounds are awesome, though, and we really enjoyed walking around and seeing everything. We also had a stunning, clear day, which made the views even that much better. One of the more interesting points to the stop, however, was that on that day, the second room of the gift shop was just being opened to the public, and I was the very first person to see it. While this in and of itself was fun, it was made even better because the gal in the gift shop that day gave us the history of the rooms we were now able to see as a result and get a little bit more of the story of the estate. She really was the icing on the cake for this stop.