Martha's Vineyard Museum

"Such a beautiful space with the most amazing and kind hearted staff. The museum offers so much more than the typical "museum" exhibits. Friday night they have fun "Friday Resets" which is a great event they put on for adults weekly. Live music, games, food and drinks are available as well as the opportunity to win fun prizes."

"The best part of the museum isn't in the museum. It's in the barn that's filled with artifacts from the shipbuilding era. Every time we took another look there was something else to see. The museum itself was filled with fascinating aspects of MV history. And outside is a marvelous rock garden."

"Beautiful museum and exhibits. The jaws exibhit was very small but they are planning to extend it in 2025. We learned so much about Dorothy West, her life, legacy, writing and the Harlem Renaissance."

"It’s a beautiful museum, with a high ticket price and lackluster items. The staff is friendly but even the Jaws exhibit was reprints and third rate material. Who is Martha, and where’s is the vineyard that John Belushi died for ?!"

"Terrible management. 1. Walking down along Lagoon Pond Rd from the ferry, you’ll see these stairs and a sign that welcomes you to the museum. If you manage to climb up the stairs, the pavement stops right there. You’ll need to go across the grass and get your shoes dirty. 2. Then there are no signs or posts or anything. Look at this grand building, obviously the smaller building on the right is the visitor center you need to go through before entering the fancy house? Wrong, no entrance there, and you won’t know it until you get there. 3. They also administer the East Chop Lighthouse. Last year, it was open on Sunday evenings in summer but as of July 17, 2023, the website still says “Check back soon for 2023 hours”. Obviously, something is not right this year. Maybe they really struggle to find a volunteer to open it or maybe they are just horribly slow in updating the website. So we asked the front desk, who told us the lighthouse is open until 4PM. I urged him to double check, as it was open in the evening last year, and he then said “I THINK it’s open Sunday 7PM”. I don’t need you to THINK. I need you to look for the schedule or contact someone to make sure you give the correct info. Do they not understand how big a stake it is to wait until 7PM only to find that it’s closed? Not everyone can stay on the island until that late and rush back to the ferry or to stay overnight on the island. 4. Giving up on the lighthouse, I asked him if I could use the locker. One locker is wide open with someone else’s bag in it for no reason. And, yes, the front desk can see it clearly from that angle. Anyway, he just gave me the go ahead so I just put my bag in the locker and closed the door. Then we wanted to go to town to have some lunch and come back to continue, so we checked with someone else at the front desk to confirm that’s OK. She offered to keep the key to the locker for us so that we didn’t have to carry the bag and wouldn’t risk losing the key. So, I guess they got annoyed by me asking for the opening hours and decided to give me a hard time by not offering the key when I asked about the locker? 5. The website says there is a guided tour at 2 PM on Sundays, so when we arrive at 11 AM, we inquired about it. The docent arrived at 1.30 PM and offered to start going through the exhibits with just us right away. We offered to wait until 2 PM in case other people plan to arrive on time for the guided tour and see the exhibits afterwards. The docent offered again to start right away, so we obliged. Yes, we did get some special treatment, but on the other hand, what if we planned to arrive at 2 PM for the tour? Would we get a partial tour or no tour at all?"