If you want to experience a real haunting, don't bother with the Winchester Mystery House.
Upon checking in we knew it was going to be a budget stay but that was fine. We wanted to check out Santana Row on a Sunday night and this was the only place with room available. Now we know why.
The decor is dated and reminded us somewhat of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining in the fact that the hotel seemed completely empty, there was no activity at the hotel, the only human souls we ever saw were the receptionist and two female guests leaving. On first appearances, the place is spooky but we got over it. The amenties seems basic enough, decent king size bed, clean, noisy AC positioned right underneath the curtains so they would blow everywhere that we had to nail them down with the remote control and other paperweight objects. Jacuzzi works but it's pretty old.
After we checked in we left to visit the Winchester Mystery House which wasn't frightening at all, from what our tour guide was telling us Sarah Winchester sounded like an eccentric and charitable lady who didn't see the point of pulling anything down in her house and just kept building. We left in high spirits to Santana Row, had dinner, came back to the hotel and that's when things got weird.
Upon returning by cab we saw 3 stationary cop cars parked in the motel carpark. Headlights on, and complete silence. Couldn't even see if there was anyone in the parked cars. Weird, but there was no indication that we shouldn't go back to the hotel so we went back to the room and settled for bed. After a few minutes we noticed the mood in the room turn solemn and depressing and we turned the lights out. We heard incessant banging on the walls that seemed repetitive and happened every 30min, at first we thought it was the plumbing but we're still not sure what it was. We heard the sound of running up and down the hall and thinking about the cop cars downstairs my boyfriend asked if I locked the door. I didn't (stupidly) and he got up to lock the door and what he saw out the peephole made his hair on the back of his neck stand on end. The peephole was designed to look all the way down the corridor and he saw one dark shadow moving up and down the hall at a rapid pace, like the way the shadows move from the streetlights inside your vehicle when you're driving down a highway at night.
We tried to go back to sleep and at one point I got up to go to the bathroom and felt like I wanted to be sick and found it difficult to walk back to bed. We tried to go back to sleep, but maybe an hour later we heard creeping around the bed and what sounded like a wet dog shaking at the foot of the bed. That was the last straw. We checked out at 4am in the morning and got out of there as fast as we possibly could.
Now to those who think we brought a ghost back to the hotel from the Winchester Mystery House, I don't think it is possible. Hundreds of visitors go through that tourist trap a day and at this rate, i'm sure all the ghosts would have found a new home way before I turned up. Also we didn't feel spooked until the lights turned out. As soon as the lights were on we were fine.
I would only recommend this hotel for those interested in supernatural visitors, if that's your cup of tea.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
