Hearst - Evening tour or The experience
 

This will be our first time at Hearst Castle in September. I favour the evening tour except for not being able to see the view and the grounds.
The advantage being that we can spend longer travelling down from Monteray and it covers some of the other tours highlights.
Has anyone done both. Which would you recommend for a first visit.

The evening tours are seasonal. They stopped in April, and I'm not sure when they resume.
I had wanted to do the same thing, but ended up taking a first thing in the morning tour instead. That way you won't have to rush down from Monterey - which you really can't do anyway. ("Rushing" along Rt.1 would be impossible - especially the hour north of San Simeon.)
"Tour One" was really lovely, and I highly recommend it. The views, and the gardens (in April) were just incredible.
I'd suggest that you enjoy your drive, stay over-night locally, and then take in the Hearst Castle first thing in the morning.

Kiwis2, We just got back from California last week and did the drive from Monterey to San Simeon and did what Dreamer2 suggested. We alloted an entire day to driving from Monterey and stopped at a few parks, spent the night in a hotel, and did the 10:15AM experience tour. They mentioned that the evening tour was going on now, but I don't know about Sept. They mentioned that the evening tour would have people with period costumes which sounded nice. We enjoyed the experience tour by day. You could probably get from Monterey to Hearst in time for an evening tour as we left at 12 noon and arrived in San Simeon at 5:30 after stopping many times for the views to take pictures etc. You might want to press on the link with my name and it will take you to several TRIP REPORTS that I posted the other day, that may be of interest including SF,Monterey,driving Big Sur Coast,San Simeon etc.
Have a great trip!!!

I am looking to do the tour as well, if you go to their website http://www.hearstcastle.org/ you can see which tours are available for your date and you can book online too.

nytraveler10, great trip report. We want to be on our way fairly early the day after we go to Hearst. We will be leaving Monterey fairly early in the morning so if we do similar to your trip, we should be able to either do the Experience tour in the late afternoon or do the Evening Tour.

Has anyone actually done the Evening Tour.

I did the evening tour in spring 2003 after reading earlier posts on this board (try a search for more opinions--I seem to remember someone who has been on every tour). It was my only visit to Hearst.

The ideal seemed to be to schedule the one just at sunset so you can still see the view as you arrive, but you get the evening, the characters, etc. Mine was the next one, so it was getting dark as we rode up and was completely dark by the time we got off the bus. The nighttime atmosphere at the lighted pool set the mood well, but we could not see a view when we stopped at the windows in the guest house. Can't have everything, I guess.

Our group enjoyed the talk with the chef and the general atmosphere of the evening tour. I thought that we saw a good sampling of the house. All in all I enjoyed the experience.

Thanks for your input. I have booked the First Evening tour. Thanks Kay2 for your suggestion. Hopefully it wont be fully dark when we arrive. I'll post a report when we get back.