The Original Ghost of Williamsburg Candlelight Walking Tour — Attraction in Williamsburg

We wife and I attended the Lingering Spirits of the Williamsburg Winery for the first night of the event. We enjoy ghost tours and the winery as well and thought it would be the perfect event for us. While waiting for the tour to start, the tour guide said to my wife "You look so serious, you look scary, you’re scaring me a bit.” My wife replied, "well that was rude," with a nervous and shocked smile. The tour guide replied "there, that's better." We were both shocked and left feeling very uncomfortable by the event. We paid $80 per person for the tour and did not want to leave and waste our money. After the tour, we sent a message to the company and were told that the owner would be reaching out to us with a response. This was her text response.

This is Angela with the ghost tour. You are welcome to call me if you want to talk about last night but I know you are a plant from our competition and y’all ALWAYS do this with all our opening nights on new products and I will not comply this time!!! Don’t ever try to bash my employees to me!!! They are unbelievably remarkable and everyone should be so lucky to have the employees I have!! How about starting your own product with your own ideas and just doing a good job instead of trolling me!! Stay away from my employees and trying to scare them or threaten them!!! Write your review!! We don’t care anymore.

My wife is a nurse, and I am a personal trainer and do not work for another ghost tour company. I called Angela and was instantly met with accusations of being from a rival ghost tour company, that we were plants and that we should have left if we were so upset. She also said we should have said something to a staff member there, which were only the winery employees with no association to the tour company. I explained to her that we were not and she would not listen. If we had left, and sent a message about the staff member, I have a strong feeling she would have denied it happened and still not refunded our money, or still accused us of being a plant that just wanted to bash the company. In regards to the tour itself, it had very little to do with stories that actually occurred on the winery grounds. We are long term patrons of the winery, and this is in no way a reference to the quality of the...

So, I never really got to go on any tour. This review is much more about how it was handled. I was supposed to take the 9:15 walking tour (which was noted rain or shine) Friday, May 31. Cancelled. No explanation. Nothing. I get contacted asking if I could do the 10:15 boat tour on the James River at no extra charge. Okay cool. Sounds great. Thanks. However, it was very obvious that there were going to be storms that night. Now, it's summer, sometimes the storms happen, but with luck they don't. I decided to take a chance and get to the docks for the tour. However, the storm was obviously coming in. I could've just left, I get that, but I spent money on this. You can see the current storm on the radar and the one that is coming in from Richmond. No. They hold us out there while it starts to rain and we get soaked. I stayed so I can ask to get a refund. They either say "weeeeellllll we could go out and get it cut short, or just put you on the tour for tomorrow night." I was for neither. I spent money, I wasn't going to take a five minute tour. I was not able to do a tour the following night due to my schedule and traveling. I wasn't they only one. So I stood in the rain waiting for my name to be added to the list for a refund. They said that was it. Okay cool. Late at night. Now wet from the rain. I took my chance because I did not want to lose money. Next day, they try to hassle me into another late night tour when I already told them the previous night that I could not and that I wanted the refund they offered. Obviously just want your money. Will not give you an explanation of sudden cancellation unless you're there obviously. I hope the tours that did happen were great and that people had fun. But I won't take my chance on this again. And yes, I do have the correct company I am reviewing before you decide to comment with "you're not right" just cause you don't...

Kenny our tour guide was just fine - speaking just for him he deserves five stars. He was knowledgeable, congenial and TRIED to pace the trip well. The rating is for the reasons I will address below.

There was a distinct problem with the tour… Parents had three young children who they were not managing through the process who continually interrupted, continually ran off and continually caused Kenny to slow down.

The two youngest children were particularly exasperating as they crowded into the front at EVERY stop and continued to elbow my wife throughout the process. The parents made no effort to quell this behavior. The children were clearly bored - too young to understand – and that’s why they were creating such a problem.

In addition, another part of the group were obviously either stoned or inebriated, and were trying to talk over him the entire time to make their own jokes.

While the latter case can hardly be prevented, it would seem to me that your tours would be better served by limiting the age to no younger than 16 to avoid the issue with the aforementioned family and their delays.

Over the course of the evening, the distractions became more and more annoying. At a certain point, Kenny himself became fairly frustrated and simply began to ignore their actions and questions because they weren’t helping and enlghting or serving any purpose whatsoever.

At one point, we intersected paths with another one of your tour groups that were all adults. Despite Kenney being engaging, we almost left and joined the other group to avoid the children.

I should note, several years ago we were here and took one of your tours and decided to take another one as a result of that. While, as noted, we did enjoy most of it; the kids did take quite a bit away from the experience.

As you pass along the feedback, please do thank Kenny. As previously stated he was...