Nightly Spirits

Bought tickets for my boyfriend as a birthday gift and it was great! We did the White House Downtown DC tour and it was awesome. The entire ambiance was amazing and our storyteller/​guide, Karima Hurt, was fantastic. She was funny, knowledgeable, and energetic. We could tell that she absolutely loves DC and was determined to show us a good time. The tour was the right mix of history, drinking, and walking, even on a chilly February night. My one suggestion would be to somehow fit a 4^th bar into the time frame. I encourage attendees to bring a flask ;-)

What fun! On the night before Halloween, a ghost tour and pub crawl was the perfect way to start the weekend. Steven, our amazing Red Coat guide, provided ghastly tales of the macabre broken up by stops in local Old Town Alexandria pubs. Total tour is about two hours.

We had a group of about 12 people to go on this tour together and it didn’t disappoint! Originally we tried to get the groupon but the dates we wanted weren’t available but we still booked directly through the company. The stories were informative and of the right length. Our guide Kate was great! Super fun and engaging, and best of all, she handled our slightly rowdy group well. This tour kind of reminded me of an episode of drunk history but minus the drunk story teller and still included interesting stories. Free beer koozie’s are a nice touch… and they help keep your hands warm when it’s cold outside!

Took the Old Town your, learned a lot, found some great new bars. Kate was wonderful, very informative, engaging.

Awesome night with my bachelorette party! Karima Hert (sp?) was so engaging and showed us a great time around some DC pubs I would have never known about! Thank you!

We had so much fun on this creepy pub tour! Stephen was an awesome tour guide and kind of looked like David Bowie, which was a plus for me. :) Who doesn’t love a tour guide with a British accent who looks like David Bowie? The bars that we were brought to were really chill and had friendly staff, and the ghost stories along the way definitely gave me chills. I’m really glad we took the Alexandria tour… We wouldn’t have visited Alexandria if the DC tour hadn’t been sold out, and Alexandria was such an amazing, beautiful, historic town. We’ll definitely be visiting the area and taking a tour with these guys again!

I worked in Old town for 5 years and saw numerous ghost tours in session so I was immediately interested in signing up for one, not only because Old town is known for immense historical background and legendary sites, but because everyone knows ghost haunting is very real.
The tour was AMAZING. I highly recommend it and if you are a history lover you will want to sign up for more tours.
The guide was very knowledgeable and communicated the historical background very well! He looked and dressed the part and the stories he told were interesting and worth hearing!
Great beer selection at nice pubs along the way!

My girlfriend and I loved the Old Alexandria tour. Our guide Stephen — a British red-​coat in period regalia — was a very entertaining, knowledgeable, and fun host for the night. He was full of interesting information about the ghost-​themed history of the town.
The bars we stopped in at were nice places with interesting beer options, and the haunted destinations along the tour were pretty close together and fun to hear about.
Highly recommended!

We took the Washington DC tour that starts at the Occidental Bar. Our guide was Kareem and she was fabulous. The group was 12 people. It had a bit of walking… wear comfy shoes. There are four pub stops… the first was the Occidental. Our guide was animated and knowledgeable. She gave historical facts, and nothing was too scary. Our group was eclectic and so fun. The bars were very nice and we stayed about 15 – 30 minutes at each. The drinks are not included and expensive. The tour ended and we continued on with most of the group enjoying our favorite bar. The tour started at 8:30 ended about 11:30. Your ending point was close to the starting bar. The best hotel to stay in if you are staying over night is the Willard if you want to SPLURGE… and the Marriott was reasonable and less than half a block away. Fabulous time. Worth it, and we felt our guide earned a nice tip. We are going to do the Old Town Alexsndria tour next.

We took the Alexandria, VA Old Town version. The guide’s accent was sometimes too thick, the ghost stories were summary and bland, and the pubs selected for us to drink were the highest priced in the area. The guide flat out asked for tips.

We toured Old Alexandria. We enjoyed our guide Steven and the stories that were told. We really enjoyed the bars and meeting new people.

We did the Old Town pub tour. Our guide was talented, informed, and fun! This is well worth it, if you get a good deal on Groupon. I’ve lived in the area for many years and learned things I never knew about Old Town.

An absolute must! The tour was like having our own personal history connoisseur or park ranger show us around Washington DC, and the «haunted stories» just added to the hype, all while pub-​hopping, or for some of you, crawling. Karima, our guide, was incredible. The amount of knowledge she possesses is impressive, and she created a fun atmosphere with a personal experience. We highly recommend.

Fun way to learn more about DC and walk away with a few ghost stories that you can use to impress your friends or date the next time you are at one of these bars. I highly recommend Nightly Spirits for either a date or with a group of friends. The tour guides are very entertaining and introduce you to several bars that you might not have considered. The tour guides get more entertaining the more (pricey) drinks you have, but at the end of the day the tour is interesting and a great way to see DC. I plan to be back with a group of friends.

A very good tour with fun guys! The guides are knowledgeable and very amicable.
I went to the White House tour, it combined walking around talking about historic bars/​houses, with History entwined with some ghost stories. You get to go to some historic bars — a little pricey, but the historic-​ness of the place is worth it. Plus the cocktails are very good. I just wish there was a little more History in general, but I get that it’s not everyone’s stance on what a pub crawl/​ghost story tour should be.
Very entertaining, and great guides, I definitly recommend it.

Even as a DC local this tour was extremely informative and enjoyable. The informative and entertaining (especially on the dress) guides take you around to some of DC’s oldest and most beautiful bars for a somewhat pricey drink but lots of stories!

This is a fun way to get to know more about DC while drinking at bars you probably wouldn’t normally visit.
We did the White House Tour, which was physically undemanding, aside from the drinking, and full of fun facts. The tour guides were knowledgeable and easy to get along with, and didn’t mind my extra questions!
The bars we visited were places that I’ve walked past on numerous occasion, but had never thought to actually go in. They were pricey, but the experience was well worth it.
Minus one star for being a little light on the history part– but that’s mostly because we’re history buffs, and wanted more. But for the average person, it’s probably perfect.
We’re definitely going to check out their other tours!

Had bought a groupon/​google offers type deal. Was a fun time, but thankful that I had a deal. After doing similar tours in London and Edinburgh, I had been expecting a more historical tour, some of the stories were from the 1900s. The tour guides were great, really entertaining. The bars visited were a bit pricey, but then again that was expected.
Just did the Scary DC tour of Capitol Hill last night, which had alot more historical content, but I had wished that the Nightly Spirits Tour Guides had been leading it. Ironically, as we were walking, we passed the Nightly Spirits Haunted Dive Bar tour and I wanted to run and join them!

Knowing there were only 5 star reviews so far I really thought hard about this before deciding to post a review that isn’t 5 stars, because I don’t want to discourage anyone from doing this. However, I want to help in that when there are nothing but 5-​stars, expectations are very high. And it’s hard to live up to that. 5-​stars to me means perfection, and that’s really hard to achieve. And by golly, 4-​stars is darn great!

TIP: Check around (including their website) for possible deals. Got a deal for 5 of us for a Saturday night for the White House Haunted Pub Tour. You might even try emailing them to see if there’s a deal. We got a half price special which made the tour worth it, imho. Don’t know that I would have felt that way if we had paid full price.
TIP: Know that you’re going to be purchasing pretty expensive drinks in each place. There were no group discounts on drinks, and you’re on your own to get served. There were a lot of us, and being a Saturday night, it was very crowded at each stop. Of course you don’t have to purchase anything, but you’re on a «spirits» tour, so who doesn’t want to drink some???
TIP: Don’t expect to walk really far. Having done walking tours in other cities, especially «haunted» ones, I guess I expected to do more walking. (not that that is a complaint).
TIP: These are nice bars, so you don’t want to dress as if you’re doing their Dive Bar one. Not that you have to be dressed up, but t-​shirts and flip-​flops for instance, would probably not be cool.
My favorite part was when we went inside a hotel for awesome storytelling. Otherwise the stories were standing on the street with lots of noisy passing distractions, so it was sometimes hard to hear.
LOVED the tour guides!
What would I have liked to make it a 5-​star? Would have loved a designated area at each stop for drinking and stories. Would have loved a group discount or something at a stop or two that made it feel like we were getting something special for being on the tour.
So, for the right deal, I will seek out another one of their tours next time we’re in the area.

This is a must-​do event if you visit or live in DC! Drinking and haunting stories; what could be more fun?
The tour guides are extremely knowledgeable. They elaborate on and discuss the stories and information with the group, not just spitting out facts.
It was also great to find new bars that I otherwise would have never been turned onto.