Our tour guide seemed to have a hard time remembering the story lines. It was tough to watch her struggle. And it was boring. Once we made it to the Driskill at the end of the tour, we peeled off for a drink, which was fun. But we could've done that part on our own, without wasting $20 per person. Your experience is entirely dependent on the quality of the guide you have. Ours wasn't good, but I imagine if you go on the right night, you might get someone more suited to the task. read more

Having been on several ghost tours all over the world, I had a few expectations about our tour that really fell flat. Our tour guide seemed scattered and like she didn't even really remember the stories even after boasting that she had been doing this tour for a couple years. She was also really hard to hear over the street noise. At least it was only $20. Maybe consider better story tellers? read more

This was a great time. Maverick was super informative, I learned a lot of Austin history. Our whole family went, including my one-year-old, and it was entertaining for us all. I'd recommend it to any family looking to discover some interesting facts and history about downtown Austin. read more

Monica was fantastic tour What a great time She knows her history and has an amazing voice for story telling What a fun thing to experience in a great city read more

Toured Neill-Cochran house with Austin Ghost Tours, and I am still haunted by the silliness; only thing this confirmed for me is there are no such thing as ghosts. Our "investigation" consisted of walking around the house and sitting in the dark for a couple of hours, watching small boxes with random lights and static while tour guides explained that short bursts of unintelligible gibberish were actually ghosts communicating with us -- and then building stories around this nonsense. Having said that, the old house itself is beautiful and the history around it was interesting, but save your money and buy a book. In my opinion, the $60 ticket was way overpriced, especially when you add the additional $20 that everyone had to pay as a contribution to the house preservation fund. Elizabeth Z read more

My friend and I went on the Austin Ghost Tour last Saturday evening, it was a full moon, so the creepy factor was all ready quite high. Our guide, Kristen was awesome and seemed super knowledgeable about the history of Austin. She told us stories of hauntings at all of the places we went. I even captured a picture of an image in a window, presumably a ghost named Curly. This walking tour lasted about 1.5 - 2 hours and was great, I highly recommend it. To make it even better, wear tennis shoes & bring water. read more

We made a last minute decision to join one of the ghost tours on a Friday night. I agree it wasn't an action filled adventure but the stories were interesting and well presented. I learned a lot about Austin's history and the guide was professional, friendly and knew her stuff. I have recommended the tour to friends and they have all had a good time too. If you are looking for an entertaining way to spend an evening downtown, take the tour. read more

Definite disappointment and not worth the money! I have been on several ghost tours and the best part of them is generally the spooky historical stories of the past. This tour contains basically none of these! The tour is almost a presentation of dodgy second hand "evidence" of ghosts and stories of the tour guide's own experience or past tour tid bits. We eventually had to leave the tour as it was a complete waste of our time. People do not go on ghost tours to be presented with "evidence", they want the actual ghost stories. The guide was knowledgeable but the content was just all wrong and not in the least spooky. The locations visited were also just hotel lobbies and other non spooky venues. read more

first of all, i appreciate austin ghost tours letting me cancel my 2 tickets from a year ago to use them when i would be back in town! i am very interested in the paranormal and have taken many ghost tours throughout my life. i look a tour of the warehouse district. it wasnt the best ghost tour i have taken, but not the worst either. i was disappointed with something in particular that made me write this review. we went to the driskill and our guide said that you wont see the number 427 and 429 (or one of those it doesnt matter) in that hotel because of one of the murders. well after the tour ended, my friend and i walked up there and we saw both rooms with those numbers clearly listed. i feel i got a good tour of austin though despite feeling a bit led on. read more

Enjoyed the tour. Easy walk and interesting stories. The Driskill hotel is beautiful and its stories are ... well ... haunting.

No hunting - but haunting stories, nevertheless! Of course, you can't go into many of the buildings, as mentioned in other reviews! Take a Ghost Tour in other cities such as Charleston, London, etc. These buildings are businesses, restaurants, bars, etc. You can't parade 30 people onto private property or stand in the middle of a noisy bar and tell ghost stories! But Austin Ghost Tours gave our group a night of chilling tales and I won't look at any of those buildings in the same way again. If you want an interesting and haunting look at our city, this tour is a sure thing. If you want to "ghost hunt," join a paranormal meet-up group and take your chances. By the way, they no longer start on Congress Avenue as indicated on this page. Check their website for times, schedule and details. read more

I used to love this company but their historic tour was very disappointing. We did not do the Driskill... we did several bars I had never heard of...and I am from Austin. I have used this company in the past for personal tours for groups and it was great but due to wrong historical facts and poor locations on this last tour, this why I am giving them one star. read more

Overly theatrical, trying to get reactions from patrons. Made it seem that everything was made up or grossly exaggerated. Would not recommend---we were really disappointed! read more

I've done quite a few ghost tours in different cities and I would say this one was as good as any others I have done. Our tour guide was Maverick. We really enjoyed him. He is perfect for the role, looks the part, had passion behind his stories and was an overall likable person. He just seemed to 'get-it' and knew how to appeal to all types of people. The tour itself was great. Maverick would joke about how some people don't like the history telling at each stop but if we could 'just put up with it for a bit', he would eventually get to the ghost stuff. I didn't feel that way at all! In fact, it makes me sad that someone would look down upon the tour for that! He shared just enough history to make the ghost stories meaningful. I mean, what is a ghost story without knowing a bit about the history of the building or the events leading up to it? There were about 5 stops and all in a central location so it's not too much walking. Very doable for just about anyone. Austin is a very special city with lots of rich history. I appreciated getting to learn more about it and the ghosts that haunt it! read more

THIS IS A WASTE OF MONEY! I was very disappointed in this. I have lived in Austin all my life and was excited to go on this. A nice night out with my husband. The guide shows up and he looks very unkempt. The whole way through you were unable to hear anything this guys says. So we go on the tour and he stops like 8 times on the Congress bridge. It was a group of like 15 of us all trying to bunch around him because we cannot hear him, and the regular pedestrian traffic trying to cross the bridge too. Mind you the bridge is very narrow and the traffic on the road drive by very fast on the bridge. It was very, very dangerous. We felt very uncomfortable and just finally decided to walk off until they were done. I thought we may be able to step into some of the places we went to. Nope, we just stood outside the front door of every place. The guy also had no clue where any of these places were. He was using GPS on his phone to find his way the whole time. I had to help him cause once again I am from here and I knew where they were. He was getting some of the stories wrong too. I have to correct him a few times. And to top it all off he was reading directly from a piece of paper. We ourselves could have print out the stories and read them in front of the building and save some money. The way he as reading it, look like it was the first time he ever saw it. He was stumbling, rereading, and just looking confused. And he never spoke louder. I missed most of the tour. Thank God I had a Groupon and did not pay full price. The real horror was enduring that tour. Most of the people before the tour ended just up and left. We started with 15 but and the end we were down to 6. This was not what was advertised. Nothing on the company website it said will happen ever did including one of the stories. There was a story we wanted to hear and he never read it. In fact when we asked he had no clue what we were talking about. This is a sham and don't waste your money!!!!!!!!!!! read more

The only way to describe our experience was MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT!!! There were 5 of us in our family who purchased tickets in advance for the trolley tour on August 4, 2012. We were at the south side of the Capitol at 7:40 PM, as instructed. Our guide was late. His appearance was disheveled and he was completely unorganized. According to their website, the trolley has the capacity to carry 20 people. There were 25 visitors, as well as the tour guide and driver. Some people had to stand due to the overbooking of this tour. Our expectations were not met in any way. The only place where we were allowed to enter was the lobby of the Driskill Hotel. We will not recommend this tour to others, and thought that it was important for you to know about our experience. read more

My family and I took the trolley ghost tour recently. It was a waste of time and money. I do not recommend it to anyone. If it was $10 per person it would be more worth the price .... possibly. At $25 per person its a rip off. I wrote them and email with my concerns and no one responded or called me. I would not do this tour again. read more

Having been participants in over a dozen ghost tours across the US my family and I know what the ingredients for a great tour are: some interesting history, a few spooky stories and a great storyteller to put it all together. Unfortunately this tour did not have the balanced recipe that made some of our previous experiences worthy of 5 stars. While (based on the photo documentation provided by our guide) I have no doubt locations around Austin are indeed haunted, I could not tell you one story surrounding said haunting(s). The best part of the tour was spending time in the lobby of the Driskill Hotel-truly breathtaking! read more

It is a hobby of mine to go on ghost tours when I visit other cities. I have seen it all and my favorite by far is The Austin Ghost Tour. It is a highly informative and interesting tour, led by true storytellers, which is an art in itself. Our guide was Monica and she was so entertaining, engaging and well informed on the local lore. I cannot recommend her more highly. You can tell that she loves Austin, it's legends and her clientele. They don't use embarrassing gadgets and gimmicks, instead they take you back in time. By the way, while on the tour, I took some pictures of the Driskill Hotel and caught some unbelievable images! Trust me, take the tour and lots of pictures! read more

Worst tour I've ever been on. The tour guide, Clarissa, was new and didn't seem knowledgeable or interested in her job. She wasn't a very engaging story-teller. It was a let-down. The only building we went inside was the Driskill, where we were only allowed to stand right near the bathroom while Clarissa tried hard to remember the ghost stories. It was painful to watch her struggle. It would have been fun to be allowed the time to go to the Driskill bar, where we could have taken a brief rest from our tour, had a drink, and talked to the staff - which Clarissa says have lots of ghost stories to tell. I've heard good things about the owner of the tour company that dresses in period costume, but our tour guide was not quite up to the task. read more

I have taken one of the tours here several years ago and have always wanted to come back closer to Halloween. It was a beautiful night for a walk in the streets of downtown Austin. Monica our guide was great! I love hearing about the history of the older buildings. She was very knowledgeable of the history and great at telling of the various hauntings. It was really fun and I will definitely go back again soon! read more

I took my mom and wife on this tour; it was the first such tour we had done. My mom is new to town and I got her the tour as a birthday gift. Our guide, Monica, was a great storyteller and pained a great mental picture of historic Austin. Monica literally wrote the book on the haunted Driskill (sp?) Hotel. The only suggestion I have about the tour is to bring along some water! read more

This was the biggest waste of money. I spent $60 on myself and 2 little cousins. If you want to walk around and listen to lame stories this may be for you. The tour guide walked us in front of the convention center, told us a history lesson on Hurricane Katrina survivors who may have died here and that was how the "ghost tour" continued from there. We did not go into any buildings except The Driskill Hotel lobby, which anyone can go into fo free. The tour guide pitched her book about 20 times on the tour saying how the good stories were in her book... WHY THE HELL DID I PAY TO COME ON THE TOUR THEN?????? We also stopped in a parking lot off 2nd st and she spent a half hour talking about the 1st serial killer in austin. Mind you, none of the victims were ever brought up as ghosts. This 1/2 hour story had litterally nothing to do with ghosts. Wait, this was Austin Ghost tours, right???? PLEASE save yourself the money and don't waste your time.... WORST tour EVER!!!!! read more

I also toured the Neil-Cochran house with Austin Ghost Tours on 10-26-2013 and, I have to say, was very much disappointed. I was expecting a professional investigative style and instead was appalled by the cheesy and phony route taken. Before the investigation began, everyone was told about an iPhone application that said words out loud that the entity you were trying to contact was "saying". Needless to say, every teenager present pulled out their phone and downloaded this bogus application and used it EVERY SECOND of the investigation! The only strange voices I caught on my digital recorder were that of the iPhone application that kept throwing out extremely common names like "Mike" (oh my there WAS a Mike in the room, imagine that!) and war. Obviously this is just an app based on an algorithm that randomly chooses words for you to "try to make sense out of". If you ask me it's all fake. If your iPhone were capable of doing such things it would cost A LOT more! Anyway, the whole "investigation" revolved around these ridiculous iPhone apps and no traditional EVP sessions were attempted due to people yelling out what their phone came up with. In my opinion, you're better off going on your own investigation. The house is awesome and I felt as if there might have been some paranormal things going on in it but the use of ridiculous technology hindered any progress that would have been made using a more traditional type of ghost hunting technique. Sorry Austin Ghost Tours, this was a letdown. read more