George Washington’s Mount Vernon museum, home, outbuildings, gardens, tomb and property was very well done! Loved the small handheld audio tour remotes; simply hold them next to audio box on each sign. They fit in your pocket easily when not in use. Visited May 16, 2021 – masks required in all indoor buildings, but not outside. Tour guide for garden tour was well informed and made good use of the hour tour, giving lots of information, although the garden tour did not grant access to areas that aren’t already allowed with the ground-pass. So you could just listen to the audios next to each sign to gather the info without having to pay extra for the garden tour. House visit: docent gave info prior to going into the house about what “not to miss” but without someone to give info in each room, it means you could miss seeing something they talked about. Only ground floor rooms are on tour but it’s enough to get an idea of the home and the Washington’s life. My husband and I very much enjoyed the house tour.
Museum is well done. A great movie inside museum, but they only were handing out 22 tickets for the 100-seat theatre, so go get your ticket once you are in that area of the museum. Tickets are not reserved but you get them for the NEXT viewing. Hopefully they will soon allow more people into the theatre. They offer sanitizing wipes to wipe down the arms rests on the theatre seats.
They have done a fantastic job of providing signage info and audio info for each out-building (wash, spinning, overseer, shoemaker, slave bunks, smokehouse, gardener).
We spent 6.5 hours total for both tours, lunch, museum, tomb and outbuildings. Could would have stayed longer to stroll the grounds; but we just got tired and departed after 6.5 hours. We did the 11 AM garden tour (55 minutes), lunch at Mount Vernon Inn at 12:15 PM, and house tour at 2 PM, which took about 20 minutes from time we got in line until we exited. We didn’t arrive in time to do the museum first, but wish we had done the museum first. Then had garden tour, lunch, and house tour and then spent an hour looking at outbuildings, walking over the hill to the tomb, then back to the museum. I have a bad hip and two bad knees, so I walk at a slower pace, which seemed to be about the same pace as families with small children, if that helps you gauge your time. If you are age 11-65 and no handicaps, you could cover the property more quickly than we did.
Compared to other presidential homes we’ve visited, we felt Mount Vernon was the best value for all there is to do and see there. They do have a snack area offering food or the Mount Vernon Inn and the day we were there, they had a food truck with seats under a tent up near the lawn by the house. After parking, you can access the Mount Vernon Inn or the gift shop without a ticket. Once you enter to purchase ticket or show your pre-purchased online ticket, they do a quick bag check, you enter museum and can tour it then or go onto the property. If you exit to go to Mount Vernon Inn, you just re-enter with your ticket/pass. We were too tired to visit the gift shop; however it appeared it is well stocked.