I took a group of high school students on this tour, and no one was really impressed until the end. First of all, it is a pet peeve of mine to have non-natives be guides. I lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but I'm not going to be a guide there because I'm not from there. Our guide was a Yankee. For shame. Anyway, he made the beginning of the tour more about his own ghost experience than the legendary ghosts of Charleston. Being a native Charlestonian myself, I know many of the stories already. They're fascinating on their own, and awareness of the possibilities of night amps up the spooky factor. We, however, spent an inordinate amount of time at the Circular Congregation Church graveyard where our guide regaled us on the "spirit orbs" that appear in nighttime photos with flash. My students laughed and wondered amongst themselves if he actually knows how photography, light refraction, and reflection really work. At the end of the evening, though, he went through the Lavinia Fisher story, which captured their attention since it's a true story. The tour never went to Tradd Street, which I suppose could be due to the distance of those ghosts from the company's home base, but I was slightly disappointed. At the end of the tour, we were unceremoniously left at the end of the alley where we had our last story. I feel fortunate to know my way around so that we didn't have to wait for Google Maps to get us out of there. My review title reflects the fact that we passed several other ghost tours that seemed to be having a different experience. From what I could overhear, the other guides were more focused on the backstories of the famous ghosts of various locations than trick photography.
Одговор домаћина
Mar 2019
Huge thanks for your thoughtful and comprehensive feedback. It is a tremendous help to us in improving the quality of our tours. We understand how you might be inclined to attribute a less-than-memorable experience exclusively to the guide, but he is ours and we take full responsibility for his delivery. That said, we are providing him with this feedback and working with him to improve his tours. Couple of things. First, we always debate what is the right amount of photographic evidence to use on tours. Clearly, with your group of tech-savvy teenagers, it was too much, so he will be taking steps to dial it back. Second, as much as we would like to, tours are not allowed south of Broad Street after dark (and that includes Tradd Street). Venturing down to Tradd is a great idea, but we simply can't make that happen under current ordinances. Third, we apologize for not taking you back to where you needed to be (whether that was to the office at 18 Anson Street or to a bus parked behind the U.S. Custom House). That won't happen again. Many thanks for letting us know how it went, and we're delighted that your high school students enjoyed the legend of Lavinia Fisher. So do we.