Accessibly Designed Tours

To reserve a ticket for the accessibly designed/wheelchair accessible tours, please call Hearst Castle directly 10 days in advance or make reservations online. These tours are offered at least 3 times daily.

The Accessibly Designed Tour is an option for visitors who have difficulty with climbing up and down stairs, or who have difficulty with standing or walking for lengths of time. Visitors may use their own wheelchairs providing the chairs can enter doorways 28 inches wide. Visitors may also borrow wheelchairs at no extra charge. A specially equipped bus takes visitors to the historic hilltop estate to meet the guide for the tour. Trams are used to escort visitors along the tour route.

Visitors should arrive at least 20 minutes prior to their tour time and pick up their tickets at the Rangers Office located in the Visitor Center. The length of the tour is approximately one hour and forty-five minutes, which includes the bus ride to and from the estate and Visitor Center. It is highly recommended that a person strong enough to safely move an occupied wheelchair up and down long, steep inclines and narrow ramps accompany the visitor.

Accessibly Designed Tours are available for the ground floor only and may be modified to accommodate visitors during inclement weather. All other areas are inaccessible due to the many flights of stairs in the historic structures. Outdoors, the tour includes the gardens, views of the guest cottages and a glimpse of the outdoor Neptune Pool. Indoors, the tour covers a guesthouse, the ground floor of the main house, Casa Grande, including the Assembly Room, the Refectory, the Morning Room, the Theater, the Billiard Room or the Kitchen, with the tour concluding at the indoor Roman Pool.

This tour also includes the Hearst Castle Theater companion movie, "Hearst Castle - Building the Dream," which is shown in the theater adjacent to the Visitor Center. The movie is 40 minutes in length.

For more information, or to make reservations for an Accessibly Designed Tour please call . From outside the U.S. call (805) 927-2115. Reservations can also be made online.