Haunted District Ghost

I wish I could give 0 stars. We booked and had our tour confirmed and we showed up right on time. We waited and waited and waited with several other people and shockingly no tour guide showed up!!! We emailed the company (no phone number available) and got an auto reply saying tours stopped running on ¹¹⁄₂₂. Why in the world didn’t you tell your booked tour that it was canceled!!! What a waste of a perfectly good Saturday night.

We purchased tickets for four people to take the NYC– Central PArk ghost tour– we showed up on Saturday night (so did 12 others) and the guide never showed up!!!
we all were there for over a half an hour– this is totally unacceptable– I will never use this company again and will tell others not to!

My wife and I went to the Haunted District Ghost tour in Charlotte. We bought the tickets through Living Social. The entire thing is a scam… and not just because it is a ghost tour. Based on the reviews of this from others on here, it’s obvious this company is hiring local thugs off Craigs List who are looking to make an easy buck. I suspect my tour guide was on drugs.
Our tour guide showed up at the wrong location, and our group actually had to find him by walking a block over from where we were supposed to meet at. He wasn’t dressed as the Haunted District Ghost Tour company promised.
Our tour guide, Matt, was entirely unprofessional and poorly educated. Our «tour» consisted of going to 3 locations in uptown Charlotte. Matt clearly didn’t know much of anything about the city (which I’ve lived in most of my life). And clearly, Matt didn’t even pretend to believe the stories he was telling. He simply mumbled the script he had folded up in his back pocket. He showed zero enthusiasm for what he was doing, and after reading the first page of his script, he told us all that he thought this was «boring.» Some in our group murmured and walked off. Matt said he didn’t take it personal, and that he was just reading to us the script he was provided. He said he understood if we wanted to leave. Things were going so bad that people in our group were begging our tour guide to simply make stuff up that sounded scary. Within about 20 minutes of starting our tour, about 20% of our group had already left… then we ultimately bailed.
If this company were smart and wanted to provide a good service to their customers, they would hire local history/​theater students or actors. These people would be at least capable of memorizing a short script, and hopefully, tell ghost stories with some enthusiasm. I’ve been on a ghost tour before in another city with another company, and our tour guide dressed up in a long black robe and carried around a lantern, and was enthusiastic about what she said, and told her stories all from her heart. That tour was conducted by a person who actually was a local historian and actually believed what she was saying. Our tour guide for this event by Haunted District Ghost clearly did not care, and knew nothing. If I were his boss, I would have fired him. But based on the reviews I now see for this tour, it seems like Haunted District Ghost tour likes to hire these types of deadbeats. They obviously are not concerned with providing a good service. They simply hope to take your money and have you show up.
Oh yeah, and good luck getting a refund. Living Social won’t process one. Haunted District Ghost doesn’t respond to their e-​mail, and they leave no phone number. And your bank won’t provide a charge back merely because you are disappointed with the performance. If you sign up for this tour, you might as well kiss your money goodbye.

Wish I read this review before paying for this tour. We ended up leaving early during the walking tour because it was that bad. The only interesting thing on this tour was the «Exorcist» house and stairs. And then, we weren’t told anything scary. «There’s the house. It’s nowhere near the stairs like they portray in the movie.»
Boo. As in booo, that sucked.
First, the group was HUGE. The guide also told us that there was supposed to be another guide so that there would be two (still very large) groups. Yet, he had no clue where the other guy was. The second guy showed up late. We were all waiting around forever.
The Old Hill Cemetary? Seemed spooky to me. We learned that some rich people, senators and congress were buried there. That’s all.
We were taken to the scenic view spot behind the Library to see where there would be a great view during daylight. Exactly. What?
We saw a school where some kid threw himself out the window. We don’t know why. O-​kay.
Old Stone House — something about a candle in the window sometimes… sometimes there’s a woman standing at the kitchen fire.
Literally, no story telling. At some point, he took us to some house and just said «Satan. That’s all I’m going to say» and then he walked away.
If you wasted your money already… Don’t waste your time. Get Living Social/​Groupon to refund you what you paid.

All the other reviews are completely accurate. We went Saturday Oct 4^th on the Georgetown tour. The group was about 80 people when the website said a max of 30. Only 1 guide showed up to start it. He is very soft spoken and you couldn’t hear half of what he said and he would start talking before the entire group had arrived at the spot.
The second tour guide finally showed up at stop 3. He wasn’t much better. We followed him since less people went with him, we thought at least we would be able to hear. He sort of turned it into a tour about African American DC related facts and not so much ghosts, etc. If you asked him questions he couldn’t answer them and some of the stuff he was telling us wasn’t even factual! There were people on the street that sort of just randomly joined the group for no apparent reason and he didn’t bother to tell them to get lost. Only made it more unorganized and distracting.
The tour does not end the same place it started so you have to hunt to find how to get back to your car.
I got this as a Living Social deal and it was a total waste of money and time. Don’t bother!

If I could give this tour no stars, I would. Everything the other reviews have said so far is true. Thankfully, my friends and I paid for this via LivingSocial because had we paid full price, we’d feel even more scammed.
First, the group was HUGE. Most tours like this are supposed to be kept small. Second, there was only one your hide when we arrived. When I questioned the size of the group, he told us that there was supposed to be another guide so that there would be two (still very large) groups. Yet, he had no clue where the other guy was. The second guy arrived after the first one decided to go ahead with the tour. Like another reviewer said: no apologies and no name given until someone asked.
No matter. Both guides were terrible. The first one pulled out a script and read from it, never making eye contact with the group. He didn’t wait to ensure the whole group was stopped and ready to listen before reading his script. The late guy didn’t use a script, but that didn’t make things better. Neither seemed to have many stories to tell. We would walk for long periods of time with no stories.
Don’t waste your money on this crap.

Ditto to the first two reviews. This company is a scam. They are the reason why DC tried to pass a law requiring all tour guides to be licensed.
This is the email I sent the vendor detailing our awful experience. As of today I have not heard back. I will contact LivingSocial for a refund and will also be contacting my credit card company.
Good Afternoon:
One of the first questions the guide asked the group was if anyone was out of town. No one raised their hand. Everyone on this tour were locals, who could potentially refer this tour to their local friends and family, and visitors (this is an important to keep in mind).
Reasons we could tell the guide did not care about his job:
· Arrived 30 minutes late.
· Did not apologize.
· Did not introduce himself.
· Did not bring his flash light. Did not check in participants – there was no list, no verification process to ensure everyone had paid.
· Twice left us behind AND I’ve never been on a guided tour that didn’t wait for all participants before speaking their spooky tails.
I would not say we ‘did’ the tour since we were left behind – twice. The first time we were left at a cross walk that does not have a lights. We were almost ran over twice. TWICE. The second time, a few minutes later, we were left at a light. They turned down some streets and we lost them. I would say we were with the group maybe twenty minutes during the overall 2-​hour tour.
Other issues – The website says groups are kept small to ensure everyone enjoys the tour. The large group, the getting left behind, the guide’s inability to project his voice or use a microphone made it hard to hear, especially as cars drove by (he didn’t pause). I have been on tours with 8 people where the guide used a microphone.
It was immediately apparent that the guide did not know what he was talking about and that he did not care. I cannot count the times he said ‘Um, let me think…’ I have been on several ghost haunt tours around the country and this was by far the most unprofessional-​what-​a-​joke experience I have ever had. I honestly cannot believe I paid my hard-​earned money on this.
I went on this tour with four other people. We all could not believe the horrible experience. The awful experience last weekend lost you countless referrals to family and friends.
Since I did not receive services (a twenty minute walk does not amount to a two hour guided tour) I am kindly suggesting you refund me. I paid one full-​price on your website and had a voucher from LivingSocial for two people.
Thank you,
Other Friendly suggestions: Your website should suggest people wear bright clothes (so as to better avoid getting hit by cars) and bring a flashlight.

Um. This tour was laughably bad. I actually thought we were getting pranked for the first 15 minutes.
The tour guide was completely unprepared and uninteresting. He read flatly from a script and made no effort to bring the stories to life. He also didn’t seem to have any knowledge of DC history … or geography for that matter. (Apparently Mount Rainier is next to Georgetown?) He even joked at one point that 20 people had abandoned his tour last weekend.
In his defense, the ghost stories themselves weren’t very interesting. We would often walk for blocks without any anecdotes at all, and most were 2 – 3 sentences stories with only a vague connection to Georgetown. (For example: we stopped by a church where one of the characters from The Exorcist apparently worked. Except nothing ghostly ever happened there. Moving on!)
In any case, we abandoned ship about 45 minutes into the 2 hour (?!) tour. About 6 – 8 other people followed suit, and 2 had left before then.

Do not waste your time or money on this (ghost) tour. I don’t even know where to begin…
*THE TOUR GUIDE*
I don’t know whether to blame the tour company or the guide, so I will blame both. The guide clearly hadn’t been trained well, neither had he practiced. He glanced at his notecards the entire tour and didn’t try to hide the fact that he knew little to nothing about the haunted spots in Georgetown. He started every story (of which there were 3 – 4, more about that later) with, «Some haunted facts about the place we’re standing are…» And ended every story with, «And people say you can still hear the screams and moans.» Not only were the few stories he told not *scary*, they weren’t even interesting. He wasn’t engaging at all and barely spoke loud enough for our large group to hear him.
*THE TOUR*
We basically walked around Georgetown for 2 hours, occasionally stopping at historical landmarks. We would walk for 20 minutes without stopping for a story. The few stories the guide did tell were uninteresting and not scary. We lost a majority of our tour, but I stuck it out in hopes that the tour guide would get better (spoiler alert: it didn’t). I’ve have been on a few ghost tours in my day, and the guide didn’t tell us anything about orbs. He didn’t have any props or sample pictures that other tour participants had taken of orbs.
I bought my tickets from Living Social ($ 14/​pp), but they are selling from the website for $ 39/​pp! If I can save any soul from enduring this sham of a ghost tour, then the time I spent on the tour and writing this review was worth something.