I'd suggest going before 3pm, that way you could possibly see the whole grounds since there are three tours. The lab tour is very short (~15 minutes) the estate tour is an hour and a half, and the gardens... i'm not sure. You can do self guided tours with audio keys pushing in numbers to hear the facts at each sign, though i'd expect this to be a little boring. The main thing is to NOT do this event if it looks like rain! The day we went.. we signed up for a guided tour at about 3:30pm, but since the sky was looking a little rainy, they cancelled all the tours on the other side of the street, leaving us to look at the small museum and do the lab tour. We did get our entrance fees back (I believe were ~$20 a person) but since we were staying on Sanibel, we only planned one day in Fort Myers (since every time you cross into Sanibel it is another $6). It did seem interesing. The lab was fun to look at. Bob was funny and a great tour guide for the short time we were with him. I'd recommend going on a sunny day!

I have been here several times. It is the winter homes of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. It is amazing all that you will learn about their lives here. It is really nice in the winter because they decorate that houses and streets with lights.

You can see the second largest Banyan tree and sort of tour the winter homes of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. You can't enter most of the houses. Visitors are only permitted to view a single level from roped off areas. Also, parts of the property are under construction and cannot be viewed. It's interesting to see how advanced Edison's inventions were. You get to see a variety of trees from all over the world. I agree with another reviewer that stated it's a $5 tour for $20.

Henry Ford bought some land in Fort Myers to experiment with semi-tropical materials and get away from the Michigan winters. He later talked Thomas Alva Edison, a friend and personal admirer, to move into the house that Ford owned next door. Both are lionized as geniuses and paragons of the American Industrial age (as is typical of such exhibits). Their weaknesses and nastiness are largely ignored (but in all fairness, their distain for their workers, Ford’s brutal treatment of his son, etc. are mentioned). If this scenario is of interest, you may like the estate.

The tours (optional with a guide or with a speaker phone…I suggest both since there appeared to be little overlap) are not dramatic or extensive and the tour guides, who were mostly friendly, seemed harassed by the volume of visitors and somewhat “burnout”, did an OK job. As nearly everyone had commented earlier, it is expensive. There was a long wait for tickets as we watched earlier groups try to negotiate there military status (active duty only) and various hoped-for discounts, only to be rejected in some ways. Some just left. Our sole request for a AAA discount was rejected because that “could only be done ahead of time at the office that was closed”. The grounds were lovely, but the homes were sealed off to keep the pubic out. Picture 3 dozen tourists straining to peer into little houses though dirty windows as the tour guide prattled on for 2 minutes. The lab, in which Edison was supposed to have made major inventions, looked and smelled like someone’s attic with a jumble of filthy bottles, reflex tubes, and junk. The Guide stood outside the building (no room inside, he said) and told the story, then the group was herded through like cattle. The museum was uneven, with some very interesting presentations, and some confusing and disorderly ones. They need a good museum curator with the power and money to get things done and a better plan of exhibition.