At $3 for a car full of people, or a buck for a pedestrian, the ferry is a helluva bargain, which may be why it was recently on the chopping block in the state transportation budget. It got a stay of execution after the locals got up in arms about eliminating the second-oldest continuously-operating ferry in the country (dating back to the early 1700s, if you can imagine it, although the oldest one, up in Glastonbury, dates to the mid-1600s!) but I advise visiting it soon, just in case the wisdom of state budgeting decides to steamroll this little slice of a previous era.
The ferry can take 9 cars, fewer if there are oversize vehicles aboard. The trip across takes less than five minutes and is a little exciting if you haven't been on a river ferry - the boat slides down river so it can dock coming up against the current - but the seamanship is really expert and the ride is quite smooth. You may have to wait a while to get your car on board - up to 15 minutes if you hit the road just as the ferry's leaving full for the other side, more if there are more than 8 cars in front of you - but there's no schedule or reservations so just show up when you want to show up. Hours run basically dawn to dusk from May to October.
Gillette Castle's obviously the main attraction on the east bank and the reason to take the ferry for practical purposes; you can do a nice loop by crossing back across the swing bridge at East Haddam. (We did a threefer by first going by both the ferry and the bridge on the Deep River "steam"boat, which we then saw from both the ferry and the bridge on the way back.)
It's a pity there's no parking area on the west bank, as it would make some sense to park there, take the ferry as a pedestrian, and then walk up the trail to Gillette Castle on the east bank, but instead there's a dirt parking area on the east bank and a whole lot of nothing on the west side.
In any event, I heartily recommend the detour here if you're tooling around the countryside. Ferries were the dominant means of river crossing for hundreds of years in this country, and particularly with river crossings, there are precious few of them left. Educate and entertain yourself and/or your kids about what a major undertaking it is to get across a river, and even if you don't have as much fun as we did, I guarantee you, you will not take car bridges for granted again. read more