We did a lot of research and supposedly Patrick Burns was THEE man to take a ghost tour with. My husband and three kids were pretty excited. This was our third trip to Savannah, we'd visited the cemeteries, and strolled the historic district, and had always wanted to do a ghost tour. We set off with a group of about 45 people, which was a large group, but it was cool with us, because we were a last minute addition and they were very accommodating about that. Patrick's wife Marley was really sweet and made sure my husband and his mobility scooter didn't get left behind.
We stopped in front of various homes, shops and theaters in Savannah's historic district (yeah, including the Mercer house). Patrick knew a lot of history and had plenty of photos and info to share with us, but it was at the Mercer house that I first started to lose interest. Part of the schtick here was Patrick complaining for about 5/10 minutes straight about how the owner of the house is a hypocrite for profiting off of the book and movie, but refusing to talk about the murder/suspicious deaths there. OK - I get it - he doesn't agree, but to coin a phrase - let it die man. And just when you think it might, he brings it up again. But that's not the worst of it, it really got quite terrible.
We get to Calhoun Square, one of the houses on Abercorn, and he begins telling us about the house there, and begins berating the older lady who owns it, telling us how she's a jerk who doesn't like tour groups coming near her house and she only stays in the servants quarters even though she owns the whole house and "isn't that weird?" (Which isn't weird at all, because if I was an old lady I wouldn't want to live in a gigantic house either, and I certainly wouldn't want hundreds of people coming by every night at 10:30). Anyway, as he's telling us this, the lady comes out of her house. Before she even says a word, he's jeering, "ooooooh look, here she comes," and he's got this crowd of people holding their phones up recording her and laughing at her and pointing.
And she doesn't even cross the street to where we are. This old lady just comes out of her house at 10:30 pm and says, "Just keep your tour group together and don't shine lights on the house." And as she turns to walk away, Patrick starts taunting her by shouting "Be gone Spawn of Satan!" Over and over and over - truly at least 15/20 times, shouting at her, taunting her, like he wants to start something. People were filming it, I'm not exaggerating, the proof is out there. It was so bad, that a smaller tour group near us said, "thats so wrong," and left. The old lady retreats into her house, and he spends the next 5/10 minutes telling us how he's not doing anything wrong and it's his right to be there, and how she's a jerk.
Friends, there is clearly an idiot in this story and it ain't the old lady. What kind of person does this you may ask? Well I asked the same thing of his wife, who explained that yes, he probably had gone too far, but this lady had harassed him before and plus there was another group that had shone a deer light on her house at night, but it wasn't them.
She was clearly apologetic, but he wasn't.
So now I feel like dog crap, because I have paid $125 for my kids and I to be party to harassing some old lady that just wants some peace in her life. WTH Savannah? What's on tomorrow's docket? A fifty dollar ticket to throw rocks at puppies and make fun of kids with glasses? It was truly all I could do to even stay with the group at that point, because WTH? I wanted my family to have a good time, not be harassing home owners. I don't care what his personal beef is with people, making us a part of it was wrong - forget the ghosts, the most nightmarish part of this tour is the way he acted, and for that reason alone, I cannot recommend this tour to anybody.