Haunted Ghost and Paranormal Tour in New Orleans is a two-hour French Quarter outing from NOLA GhostRiders, booking from $15 per person at our August 3, 2026 check, when it was in stock. That was the first availability check we have run on this listing. Fifteen dollars is the lowest from-price of the fifteen New Orleans listings we track, twelve below the next, which makes it the cheapest way onto the Quarter's best-documented ghost addresses. Two limits come with that: the only age band on the booking form is adult 12 to 99, and the group runs to 28. It rates 4.5 from 99 Viator reviews, one more than at our July 30, 2026 capture, on the set's smallest review base, so score and sample print together here.
| Detail | What the listing shows |
|---|---|
| From price | $15 per person (checked August 3, 2026, unchanged from July 30, 2026). The lowest of the fifteen New Orleans listings we track, and $12 below the next one. |
| Duration | 2 hours (checked July 30, 2026) |
| Format | Not captured. The operator's name and its other product are bus-based, and the six named addresses form a walkable French Quarter cluster; neither settles it, so we call this neither a walking tour nor a bus tour. |
| Ages | One band only, adult 12 to 99 (checked July 30, 2026). There is no child, youth, senior or infant band, so 12 is a real floor. The operator's other product takes children from 6, and that band does not transfer. |
| Group size | Posted maximum of 28 (checked July 30, 2026), joint-largest of the five listings in the set that publish a cap, which run 9, 12, 28, 28 and 28 |
| Accessibility | Wheelchair accessible per the listing (checked July 30, 2026), which the same operator's other product is not |
| Rating | 4.5 from 99 Viator reviews (checked August 3, 2026), up one review from our July 30, 2026 capture. 99 is the smallest review base of the fifteen and 4.5 is the lowest rating band in the set, shared by five listings, so we position this listing on price and route rather than on score. |
| Route | Six entries: the LaLaurie Mansion, the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum, 1041 Royal St, the Gardette-LePretre Mansion, Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre as a pass-by, and Muriel's Jackson Square (checked July 30, 2026). Two are private housing, one is a ticketed museum whose ghost tours stop on the sidewalk and one is a working restaurant, so nothing here promises an interior. |
| When | Not captured. No time-of-day band is banked for this listing and the July 30, 2026 capture records none, so we print no evening or night and borrow none from the operator's other product. |
| Cancellation | Free cancellation flagged at our August 3, 2026 check. The window was not captured for this listing, so we print none. |
| Availability | In stock at our August 3, 2026 check, the first availability check run on this listing |
| Not captured | Clock start time, meeting point, end point, weather policy, confirmation timing, stroller access and the format |
| Operator | NOLA GhostRiders. We do not run this tour. |
What you will see
Four of the six addresses carry checked research; 1041 Royal St and Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre do not, so we name them and assert nothing.
The Gardette-LePretre House at 716 Dauphine, on the corner of Orleans, is this route's real point of difference, because no other banked New Orleans stop list names it. It is also where the chronology destroys the story. The massacre legend everybody tells is set in 1792, and this house was not begun until about 1835, for Joseph Coulon Gardette, a Philadelphia-born dentist, on a lot whose earlier house had been razed by then; in 1839 it went to the planter Jean Baptiste LePretre. So the legend is pinned to a building that postdates its own setting by four decades, and the paper trail runs the same way: Charles Gayarre's History of Louisiana of 1866 and 1867 carries the earliest known version, a mysterious Turkish figure at a house on that corner, naming neither this house nor its owner, and Helen Pitkin Schertz's Legends of Louisiana of 1922 fixed the story to this address. No newspaper recorded a massacre, there is no sultan and no sultan's brother, and the blood under the door, the severed limbs and the man buried alive are later additions. The cast-iron galleries that make the house photogenic went up around 1850, so they are neither original nor evidence of an eastern occupant. It is private housing.
The LaLaurie Mansion is at 1140 Royal, on the corner of Governor Nicholls Street, and not at 1041 Royal, the other number on this route that gets blurred with it constantly. The first correction is architectural: the house you photograph is not the house where it happened. A crowd gutted the original after the fire of 10 April 1834, and Pierre E. Trastour bought the ruin on 24 March 1837 and rebuilt it in 1837 and 1838. The crime is a record rather than a thrill. Responders to that kitchen fire forced locked quarters and found enslaved people confined there, and the New Orleans Bee of 11 April 1834, which we checked against the page scan, reported seven of them, more or less horribly mutilated, suspended by the neck with their limbs apparently stretched and torn. The follow-up ran on 12 April, not on the 11th where most retellings put it, and opened on the barbarous and fiendish atrocities committed on the persons of her slaves. What is not in those papers is the catalogue every tour recites: intestines wound around a waist, reset limbs, a person in a cage, a human gumbo. All of it traces to Jeanne deLavigne's book of 1946, unsourced. There was no trial, no conviction, no fine, no death toll, no bodies under the floor. The haunting turned commercial early: the chain of title has the place locally known as the Haunted House by the 1873 to 1893 ownership, and Fortunato Greco ran it as a paid attraction from 1893.
The New Orleans Pharmacy Museum at 514 Chartres Street is the stop where the institution debunks its own ghost story. On 11 May 1816 Louis J. Dufilho, Jr. passed a three-hour oral examination before the medical board at the Cabildo and became the first licensed pharmacist in the United States, which is not the same as the first pharmacy in America, a claim that is wrong. His Creole townhouse went up in 1822 and 1823; he sold in 1855, and per the museum's own FAQ the purchaser was Celestine Pauline Fleitas, Dr. James Dupas's wife, not Dupas. That FAQ also states there is no evidence of poisonings or medical experiments on enslaved or otherwise unwilling people in the building, and none that Dr. Dupas performed any such surgeries, and it points to a likely source of the confusion: Dr. James Marion Sims, whose non-consensual surgeries on enslaved women were carried out in Montgomery, Alabama. We do not repeat the Dupas story even hedged. Ghost tours stop outside this ticketed museum.
Muriel's Jackson Square at 801 Chartres, on the corner of St. Ann, is a working restaurant with a documented ownership chain and an undocumented ghost. A cottage stood on the corner around 1718; in 1745 Jean Baptiste Destrehan, royal treasurer of French Louisiana, replaced it with a large house; the Good Friday fire of 21 March 1788 partly burned that, after which Pierre Antoine Lepardi Jourdan bought and rebuilt. Three buildings, one lot, so this is not a 1718 building and not the oldest restaurant in the city. Muriel's opened in March 2001 and markets the story's room as the Seance Lounge. The 1814 poker-game suicide is not documented; what is documented is the former owner the restaurant tells the story about. Diners do not sit at the ghost's table, and the most-haunted tag a paranormal society gave it is promotional.
Who it suits
The cheapest way into the Quarter's best-documented ghost addresses: two hours from $15, wheelchair accessible per the listing, in a group of up to 28. It suits a budget traveller or a larger party who needs neither a small group nor a confirmed start time.
- Not for anyone under 12. The only band on the booking form is adult 12 to 99.
- Not for anyone who wants a cemetery or an indoor investigation. This route stays on Quarter sidewalks.
- Not for anyone expecting to go inside. Two addresses are private housing, one a ticketed museum, one a restaurant.
- Not for anyone who needs a small group. Twenty-eight is joint-largest of the set's published caps.
How it compares
The denominator is fifteen, the New Orleans listings we track, recomputed on August 2, 2026. On price it is the floor of that set at $15. On route it holds three addresses alone, 1041 Royal St, the Gardette-LePretre Mansion and Le Petit Theatre, and only the middle one is researchable, which is why it leads this page. Muriel's appears on two of the eleven banked stop lists, the other being a $27 augmented-reality tour that also shares LaLaurie and the Pharmacy Museum, so that is the closest twin, at $27 against $15. The same operator's BYOB bus tour is not a substitute: $30, it leaves the Quarter for the Masonic Cemetery, is not accessible and takes children from 6. On score, 4.5 is the set's lowest band and 99 reviews its smallest base, so we do not sell this listing on its rating. More of the city is in our haunted New Orleans guide.
Questions people ask
Who runs it, and what does it cost?
NOLA GhostRiders. From $15 for two hours at our August 3, 2026 check, the lowest of the fifteen New Orleans listings we track. We do not run it.
What time does it go?
No clock time and no time-of-day band is verified for this listing, so we publish neither. Confirm the time at booking.
Can children come?
No. The only band on the booking form is adult 12 to 99. The operator's BYOB bus tour takes children from 6, but that band belongs to the other product.
Can you go inside the LaLaurie Mansion?
No. It is a private residence and the sidewalk is as close as any tour gets. The facade you would photograph dates from the rebuilding of 1837 and 1838, not from 1834.
Is the Sultan's House massacre true?
There is no documentary trace: no body count, no victim named, no arrest, no coroner's record, no newspaper report. The legend is set in 1792, and this house was not begun until about 1835.
Did a doctor experiment on enslaved women at the Pharmacy Museum?
The museum says no, in its own FAQ, and points instead to Dr. J. Marion Sims, whose crimes were committed in Montgomery, Alabama.
