Ghosts of Gettysburg Candlelight Walking Tour, Gettysburg

Walking through parking lots guide made a febile 'attempt' to scare tourists with short tales anyone could read about in a book. 2 couples left the 'tour' after 1/2 hour and after guide made several hints at the 'tip' he was anticipating when the tour finished. Nothing more than what any tourist could get from walking around on their own and reading from a book of folklore. ( Bring a latern just for the added effect. At one point several students on campus made fun of the group & the guide was giving them a well known 'gesture' to show his annoyance. Husband & I left mid way thru tour. Not worth the price of the tickets.

Our guide was Steve and he mentioned that he had been a teacher. He did a fantastic job. He was funny, he had both historical stories, and a few personal stories. He told them with just enough drama to make it fun. You have to go into this in the right mind frame. You probably wont see a ghost. It is in a town where people live and work, and there is traffice and noise. But he did a great job and everyone in our group seemed to have a great time. There were probably 18 or so in our group.He didnt rush us, if someone had a question he always thoroughly answered it and sometimes even had another story for us. My only complaint would be the lack of a public restroom at the tour office, I am sure there is a bathroom there, open it for your tour members!! I will try one of their other tours on my next visit!!

The ghost tours in Gettysburg are very tired. Our guide was a lovely gentleman but he was saddled with the chore of relating one silly urban legend after another, leaving our group very underwhelmed. Each story was more or less the same:"A Confederate soldier was engaged to be married but died the day before his wedding. In sadness, his bride took her own life. To this day the ghosts of the soldier and his bride can be seen at midnight on the anniversary of their wedding date standing together in their wedding clothes on the church steps". Ho hum. This, together with the crowds created by four or five similar tours following the same path, heavy traffic on the roads drowning out the speaker and for sure frightening away any ghosts that might feel inclined to present themselves, and local yahoos yelling out to the crowds "Hey, I just saw a ghost over there", made the entire experience tedious. These tours are going to have to update their presentations if they hope to continue attracting tourists. My teenage children were bored to death and my 9 year old son had had enough after 20 minutes. Even the crisp autumn air, the falling leaves and the aura of the coming Halloween couldn't perk this trip up. Better to spend your money on something else.

This really should have been called a "ghost stories tour," as that is really all that took place as we walked through PARKING LOTS instead of cemeteries, battlefields, houses, etc. I mean, I wasn't expecting an extravagant ghost tour for $8, but come on...parking lots?? Not to mention, the stories were extremely far fetched and my Husband and I (including everyone else in tour) were bored to tears within the first 15 minutes. This was really a joke. I really can't see how they can morally take $8 from poor, unsuspecting persons who believe they are going on a scary tour to hunt ghosts. STAY AWAY!!!

Do yourself a favor, read the reviews below before you book. Our experience was exactly the same. Lots of standing around in parking lots. The story telling was horrible! We found ourselves counting down the minutes until it would finally be over.

Saturday Night in "the most haunted place in America" according to our guide. We were pretty geared up for a spooky tour. What a disappointment. We followed our guide to an empty field near the middle school (no ghosts in sight!) and for 25 mins stood listening to his audio recordings of ghostly voices which were captured on a trip of his to West Virginia. Ummm..., aren't we in G-Burg???? Then we walked a short distance to stand in a parking lot to listen to some fractured stories about arms and legs being amputated and tossed in the yard....and then AGAIN listened to (unrelated to G-burg) audio clips of "ghost voices". A 100 yard walk to stand in yet ANOTHER parking lot to listen to (oh no!) MORE audio clips and look at a picture. Then the obligatory "beg for a tip" began. We gave him $5 and said "We should have left at the middle school" We;ve been on some pretty cool ghost tours - Key West being a memorable trip and if only this tour guide had been a bit more animated or had prepared stories of people/incidents, that had actually happened IN GETTYSBURG. maybe he would have engaged us tourists and gotten us interested. I have to agree with some other reviewers and say - SAVE YOUR MONEY, find a book on local lore, then go to the battlefields. Don't bother with this ghost tour.

Mike may have the Travel Channel kudos and maybe he hides behind this, but believe me...we have taken many ghost tours in Gettysburg and this is one to pass on. I agree with other postings--solicitation of tips in the first statement is rude. Guide made 'jokes' and comments to the first two in the group that no of us behind could hear. He laughed the hardest at his own 'jokes'. He just told ALL the same stories you can read yourself on the internet. Two people left within 15 minutes of the tour. My husband and I stuck it out for another 20 minutes, then walked away. This business just has the Travel Channel name up front and nothing else. Try others...you'll get more factual information, history AND the stories, not just someone asking for tips and telling you stupid rumors about what the college kids are saying.

We took the tour this past weekend. Our tour guide must have been an out of work actor, the out of work part is no surprise. His over acting and poor stories made the whole tour lack any credibility at all. He really liked to hear himself talk. The tour itself lacked any real content in my opinion. There are plenty of companies offering similar tours in Gettysburg, we will try another next visit. One additional note, my wife asked to use the restroom shortly before the tour began and was told they have no public restroon and that she could walk approximately 5 blocks to a local mini-mart if she wanted. To minutes later be solicited for tips at the beginning of the tour is insulting. When I worked for tips you made your customers feel welcome in any way you could, especially if it would cost you nothing.

I was so excited to take this tour and couldn't wait to get scared. I was under the impression that we would be entering buildings that were haunted but we were outside the entire time; all we did was listen to "ghost stories" that may have been entertaining to an 8 year old but I found myself extremely annoyed and couldn't wait to get out of there. One thing very cool that did happen, however -- our guide told us to take pictures of the "Twin Sycamore" house on Baltimore Street as you never knew what you'd find. I took about 4 or 5 pictures and saw immediately that I "captured" a few really big, bright orbs. It wasn't until I got home and looked at the pictures more closely that I realized I had taken a picture of two children looking out the lower left window. A young girl was in the center and a young boy was to her right. They REALLY looked like ghosts to me!! I found it interesting that this house is for sale for over half a million dollars but there isn't anything in the listing (I checked!) that said it might be haunted. Anyway, I was thrilled with the pictures but I actually considered asking for my money back ... the tour was that bad. They need to find a way to make it much more interesting and entertaining than what they currently offer.

My wife and I spent our honeymoon in Gettysburg and next to the battlefield the best part of our Gettysburg experiance was the Nesbitt Ghost Tours, we took our 1st tour on Monday night and our guide Amanda was great, she was very engaging and upbeat, and had many great stories. We enjoyed the tour so much that we wound up taking the other 2 tours, the one on Tuesday of the Seminary that we took with our guide Ray was almost as good as Monday, I say "almost" because Amanda set the bar really high as far as what to expect, Ray was engaging and imformitive and we enjoyed this walk also, the 3rd walk we took on Wensday was OK, the walk was on Baltimore St., our guide had a hard time keeping my attention, I dont know if it was because the 1st two guides were just so great or what, this tour was about 1hr and 15 min and only had 4 ghost stories and of the 4 only the last one about the Twin Sycamore House stuck in my head, nthe guide actually used alot more "filler" stories than "Ghost" stories. Even though neither my wife or I saw any ghosts these tours are GREAT, I would recomend them to anyone. I belive that people expect to see a ghost or experiance "something" everytime they take one of these tours, I compare these tours to hunting or fishing, you may not bag that 10 point buck or catch the giant fish everytime out but at the end of the day you had fun and enjoyed the time you spent doing it. All in all we may not have seen any ghosts but what we did see was another side of Gettysburg, we got to see parts of the town that we would not have seen if we had stuck to the battlefield, and we learned stuff that is not talked about in the history books. The people that run the tours and the guides are very nice, honest, regular people. My wife and I will make it a point to vist them everytime we are in Gettysburg