Salem Witch Museum
add photosClosed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day.
The Salem Witch Museum will be closed on Christmas and New Year's Day and will close at 3:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. The Salem Witch Museum will also be closing at 4:30 p.m. on July 17th only.
9 Reviews for Salem Witch Museum
46
33
'11, '12
1 family found this helpful
"Good Overview if You Want to Learn About the Salem Witch Trials"
Back in high school you may have read The Crucible and learned all about the seriously heinous Salem Witch Trials that took place in 1692.
I can condense the happenings to this: a few very bored and bratty girls thought it might be silly fun to hurl accusations of witchcraft at fellow townspeople. Consequently 20 innocent people ended up being put to death after being convicted of witchcraft. After the fact, the girls did admit that they made the whole thing up – total tragedy.
Salem, MA is a quaint little town that was really quite lovely to explore. We started our visit to the town with a presentation at the Salem Witch Museum first.
The presentation consists of a retelling of the witch trial story. You sit in the middle of the auditorium floor - there are also some benches along the edges of the room. The lights go down (might be scary for little kids) and one section of scenery lights up at a time. Mannequins portraying various key players in the trials are set up to depict different parts of the story.
Not only does it get pretty dark, it gets loud at times.
After the initial presentation, you are led to the back of the building where you walk through a history of witchcraft lore. The end shows you some info on current day Wiccans.
After all of this, you are dumped, of course, right into the gift shop. (Gift shop sells anything and everything that can loosely tied to the witch theme.)
When we left the museum, we took a short (5-10 minute) walk through town to find the old cemetery with a memorial section dedicated to the victims of the witch trials. This graveyard was OLD OLD and had several different notable graves, including a passenger on the Mayflower.
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It's helpful0 families found this helpful
"Awful, just.... awful. This is a mockery of the word museum. "
There's no information other than general information that you get simply by walking into the door. The mannequins are HORRIBLE. I mean, they're mannequins, but they literally look like crap and need replaced. The tour guides appeared to all be around the age of 16, and I doubt they have any knowledge beyond the memorized scripts they use. The initial room is kinda cool, with different scenes being lit to illustrate the narrative, but as I said, the mannequins completely ruin anything it had going for it. After that you enter a 40x40 room with 4 "scenes" where the guide gives a brief scripted intro, then pushes a button for a very cheesy monologue to play. Overall, save your money and time and go to the Witch Dungeon, Pirate Museum, and the Witch History Museum.. PLUS the tickets are good for two days if you miss anything you can go back. The Salem Witch Museum really is a joke.
0 families found this helpful
"Salem Witch Museum"
This is definitely the best place to go in salem to learn about the salem witches. they take you into this huge room and everyone gathers around a circle. You are then told the entire story of the salem witches and their trial. There are displays all around the room of figurines impersonating the story. so when the person speaking gets to a certain spot in the story a light goes on in that display. the ticket prices are also really great. you have to go here if youre interested in the salem witch trials.
0 families found this helpful
"Witch museum"
This is a guided tour and I remember it chilling me to the bone. It was almost like you could just close your eyes and imagine it all happening, that's how vivid the details were that the guide told. The whole thing was just very dramatic and unforgettable!
1 family found this helpful
"Interesting & creepy"
Salem is fun, anyway, just for the creep factor. This museum does a scary re-enactment of the trials & burnings. DON'T take the little ones - it is a bit scary. The historical accuracy is there & you will learn some stuff! There are lots of great things to explore around here, too, like Wiccan shops & cemeteries.
1 family found this helpful
"Not worth it"
It was very pro Wiccan. The entire museum is in two rooms. The first room you sit and have to crane your neck to be able to see the mannequins above and around you. You have to get up half way through the presentation, in the dark, to move to where you can see.
The dark was scary for the kids.
The second room was boring the my kids ranging in ages from 8-14. 5 minutes into the presentation they were asking if we could leave.
There was a timeline on the wall comparing Paganism to Christianity. But they didn't give you time to look over it.
The gift shop was so crowded that we almost lost kids trying to get through.
Very disappointing.
Also, we had gone to two other "Witch Museums" that day, and they all had the same information. Choose one out of the many and don't bother going to any others.
0 families found this helpful
"entertaining"
We enjoyed our trip to the Salem Witch museum. I must admit that as a kid I was fascinated by the witch hunts and enjoyed reading stories. These places are usually better in the "spooky season" of October but we have had fun here at the end of summer too!
0 families found this helpful
"Fun with the Family"
Can’t keep the kids away from the witch stories? Head for the thirty-minute multimedia presentation about the witccraft hysteria that gripped seventeenth-century Salem. The show is a bit scary and disturbing, and it is definitely not appropriate for kids under 7. A new exhibit—Witches: Evolving Perceptions—looks at the different meanings and interpretations of the word witch over time, the practice of witchcraft today, and the phenomenon of witch-hunting.
4 families found this helpful
"Can be scary for little ones"
Best with kids 8 and up who can sit still and listen in the dark. Good information, but nothing interactive, so kids could get bored easily. Nice gift shop!
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