That’s the shape of it: $20 is the standard adult trolley price across the themed tours, and the combination tours that add a house visit run higher.

The comparison table: every Cape May tour in one place

Every named tour we can identify running in Cape May in 2026. Prices we’ve confirmed are shown as figures. Prices we haven’t are marked Check at booking rather than guessed — see the note under the table.

How to read the 'check at booking' rows

We could have filled every cell in that table with a plausible number. We didn’t, and here’s why.

‘$20 (standard)’ means something specific. MAC’s confirmed trolley price is $20 adults and $15 children across the tours we checked, and it appears to be the standard rate for themed trolley tours generally. Treat those cells as very likely correct and still confirm at the window.

The non-MAC operators publish even less. Cape May Food Tours, the Carriage Company, the ghost walk operators and the rental businesses all price individually and seasonally, and several of them change rates between July and October.

If you find a price we’ve marked unknown, tell us and we’ll add it with a date.

The 2026 trolley lineup

Fourteen named trolley tours plus ASL departures, all on the same vehicles, all leaving from the same stop. The difference is entirely the script.

The general ones. Historic District is the default first tour and the one to book if you’re booking one. Welcome to Cape May does the orientation job. History of Cape Island goes deeper on the history and lighter on the sightseeing.

The specialist ones. Mansions by the Sea: Then & Now is 60 minutes on the big houses and the best pick for a second visit. Cape May’s Maritime covers the working harbour side of town, which most visitors never see. Natural Habitats runs with the Cape May Bird Observatory and is the one serious birders should take.

The two Black history tours. Underground Railroad, run with the Center for Community Arts, and Black Legacy in Historic Cape May. These are the most substantive tours MAC runs and they are consistently the least booked. There’s also a combination ticket pairing the Black Legacy trolley with the Harriet Tubman Museum.

The ghost ones. Ghosts of Cape May ($20/$15) is the mainstream evening tour. Spirits & Oddities is the alternative if you’ve already done it.

The specific ones. Picture This Selfie Ride stops for photographs, which is either exactly what you want or exactly what you don’t. Children’s Trolley Ride is 30 minutes for ages 3 to 7 at $15 adults / $10 children — the cheapest ticket MAC sells and the right call with a four-year-old. Cape May Beer Trails is 21-plus, visits four breweries and includes lunch, and it solves the real problem that no brewery is inside Cape May City and you’d otherwise need a driver.

One warning. The Doo Wop trolley departs from the Doo Wop Museum in Wildwood, not from Cape May. Every other trolley on this list leaves from the Ocean Street stop. This one doesn’t, and people get it wrong.

House tours at the Emlen Physick Estate

Seven of MAC’s named tours all happen in the same building: the Emlen Physick Estate, 1048 Washington Street, an 18-room 1879 house by the architect Frank Furness.

The Emlen Physick Estate Tour is the standard one — $20 adults, $15 children 3–12, with MAC members getting 25% off. The others are the same house with a different lens: Strange Victorian Obsessions on Victorian domestic habits, Clueless at the Physick Estate as an interactive whodunnit, Voices From Beyond and Phantoms of the Physick Estate on the paranormal side, plus the Victorian Weekend Historic House Tour during October 9–12 and the Gardens of Cape May Tour outside.

Two practical notes that matter more than the theme: the first floor is fully accessible, the first and second floors are air conditioned, and parking on the grounds is free and RV-friendly. On a 83°F July afternoon that combination makes this the most comfortable ticket in town.

The Carriage House on the grounds holds the museum shop and the Carroll Gallery, currently showing “Cape May — First and Only,” May 1 to November 2, 2026.

Combination tours, and when they're actually worth it

A combination ticket pairs a trolley ride with a house visit, or two trolley routes back to back. Eight of them run in 2026.

The one we can price is Haunted Tales of the Cape — trolley plus the Physick House — at $30 adults / $20 children. Against the standard trolley at $20 and the house tour at $20, that’s $40 of separately-priced product for $30, so the combination discount on MAC tours is real and it’s meaningful, roughly a quarter off.

The general rule that follows: if you were going to do both halves anyway, the combination is the right buy. If you were only ever going to do one, it isn’t.

The Combination Trolley & Physick House Museum runs 2 hours, which is the longest confirmed duration of anything on this page and the best single-ticket overview of Cape May we know of.

Historic District & Abbreviated Mansions and Historic District & Abbreviated Welcome are the two double-trolley options — useful if you have one day and want maximum ground covered, less useful if you’d rather do one thing properly.

Walking, cart and self-guided options

The Architectural Walking Tour is an hour on foot covering Hughes Street, Ocean Street and Columbia Avenue, departing from the Washington Street Mall Information Booth rather than the trolley stop. If you actually care about the buildings, this beats any trolley — you can stop, and you can ask.

Painted Ladies / Porches & More is the porch-and-paint version. Fisherman’s Wharf Walking Tour takes you round the working harbour. Ghost Walk with Craig McManus is led by a named psychic medium and author, and it’s the one the serious ghost-tour audience asks for.

Backstreets & Byways City Tour is a 90-minute electric cart tour. Small group, no stairs, no long walk — the practical answer for anyone who can’t do a trolley step or an hour on foot.

The self-guided options are the value plays. The Explore Cape May Self-Guided Tour Book covers more than 90 stops and you walk them whenever you like, which suits people who hate groups and people with unpredictable toddlers equally. The Cape May Family Scavenger Hunt, the Physick Estate Scavenger Hunt and Story Stops at the Physick Estate do the same job for children.

And the genuinely free option: walk the Historic District yourself. We’ve published a free eleven-stop self-guided route with real streets and addresses, and it costs nothing.

Dinner experiences

Channeling Dinner at the Inn of Cape May, 7 Ocean Street — dinner with a medium working the room. Not a subtle evening, and it books out.

Murder Mystery Dinners run at the Marquis de Lafayette Hotel, 501 Beach Avenue and The Chalfonte Hotel, 301 Howard Street. The 2026 production is “The Woeful Widows Society,” on September 16 and October 21. Two dates only, so if you want it, book when you book the room.

Both are ticketed through Cape May MAC and neither price is published. Call 609-884-5404.

Tours not run by Cape May MAC

MAC runs most of what happens in Cape May, and most guides stop there. These are the alternatives.

Prices for all six are unpublished and seasonal. Call before you plan a day around one.

Departures: the Ocean Street Trolley Stop and the 15-minute rule

Almost every MAC trolley leaves from the Ocean Street Trolley Stop, directly across from the Information Booth at Washington and Ocean Streets on the Washington Street Mall.

Two things that eat those 15 minutes:

Parking. Ocean Street is a $2.00-an-hour premium meter street, as are Congress Place, Congress Street, Decatur, Jackson, Perry and Carpenters Lane. Meters run 10am to 10pm with a five-minute grace period. The free alternative is the Cape May Elementary School lot at Lafayette Street and Madison Avenue — free until 11pm, daily in summer — and it’s a walk from there, so add ten minutes.

Evening tours and the free shuttle. The Cape May Free Shuttle runs 4pm to 10pm only — daily June 19 to September 7, 2026 and Fridays to Sundays in the shoulder periods. That’s exactly the ghost-tour window, it’s free, it’s air conditioned and it has a wheelchair lift. For an evening trolley it’s the smartest way to arrive.

And again: the Doo Wop trolley does not leave from here. It leaves from the Doo Wop Museum in Wildwood.

Where to buy tickets

Three staffed Cape May MAC outlets sell tickets in person:

Tickets are also sold online through MAC’s ticketing portal, which is where the prices live.

Book ahead in July, August and October. Ghost tours in October and any trolley on a Saturday evening in summer sell out.

Accessibility

MAC runs ASL and Deaf & Hard of Hearing tours. Dates are limited and scheduled in advance, so call as far ahead as you can.

If stairs or standing are the issue: the Backstreets & Byways electric cart tour (90 minutes, small group) and the Emlen Physick Estate’s fully accessible, air-conditioned first floor are the two easiest experiences in town. The Cape May Lighthouse is not — 199 steps, no elevator.

Service animals and ESAs are welcome on the free city shuttle, which also has a wheelchair lift.

Boat and nature tours

Cape May’s water-based tours — whale watching, dolphin trips, sunset cruises — are run by independent boat operators, not by MAC, and they’re covered in full on our whale and dolphin watching guide, with prices.

Worth flagging: Cape May MAC’s own boat and nature tour page currently returns a 404 error, so we can’t confirm what, if anything, MAC is running on the water in 2026. Don’t plan around it without calling 609-884-5404 first.