Haunted Pub Crawl in New Orleans

Haunted Pub Crawl in New Orleans is a two-hour guided crawl through the French Quarter run by New Orleans Ghost Adventures, booking from $37 per person at our July 30, 2026 check. The listing shows no clock time or time of day we could verify. Its adult band runs 21 to 99 with no child or youth rate, so it is 21 and over in fact rather than in name. Eight points are named: the French Quarter, Orleans Street and Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar on foot, with Jackson Square, Pirates Alley, the LaLaurie Mansion, Bourbon Street and the Old Ursuline Convent Museum passed along the way. It shows 4.5 across 2,206 reviews and states wheelchair access. It suits adults who want bar time and documented history in one outing.

What you will see

Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar at 941 Bourbon Street is the only bar the itinerary names, and the name it carries is a false attribution. The building was most likely put up as a house in the 1770s, in the Spanish colonial period, though the date is uncertain (Wikipedia). The property record for 1773 to 1833 places the site with the family of a carpenter, Bartholomie Robert, with no Lafitte in the chain of title, and Jean Lafitte was born around 1780 and did not reach the Gulf before about 1804, so the stories putting him at this address in the 1770s predate his birth (nola.com). The smithy story starts with Lafcadio Hearn writing in 1883. No source establishes a forge here, nothing supports the smuggling tunnels, and the oldest-bar-in-the-country line the listing repeats is marketing: bar use dates to the mid-1940s.

The LaLaurie Mansion at 1140 Royal Street is passed, not entered, and reads as a crime record. Delphine LaLaurie bought the corner lot and its unfinished house on August 30, 1831 (Vieux Carre Digital Survey). A kitchen fire on April 10, 1834 exposed enslaved people confined in locked quarters, and the New Orleans Bee of April 11 reported seven of them mutilated (as quoted by nola.com). A crowd then gutted it. The catalogue of surgical tortures repeated on nearly every ghost tour is not in those newspapers: it traces to Jeanne deLavigne's Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans, 1946, unsourced. Nor is the house the house, since Pierre E. Trastour bought the ruin on March 24, 1837 and rebuilt it in 1837 and 1838. There is no known court record of a trial, no documented excavation of remains, and no death toll to give. It is a private home, so tours stop on the sidewalk.

The Old Ursuline Convent at 1100 Chartres Street, another pass-by, is where the vampire story lives, and the calendar disposes of it. Twelve Ursuline nuns arrived from Rouen in 1727 and moved into a first building in 1734; the building standing today was completed in 1752 (64 Parishes). The young Frenchwomen sent to the colony with small trunks, the filles a la cassette, arrived around 1728, twenty-four years before this building existed, so whatever was in those trunks was never behind these shutters. Cassette means a small chest, hand-luggage sized; casket narrowed to mean coffin only later. No pope visited New Orleans before John Paul II in 1987, and no record shows a papal blessing of the building's hardware. The true thing is better: the convent came through both great French Quarter fires, in 1788 and 1794, and is the oldest surviving building in the Quarter (Wikipedia).

Jackson Square was laid out in August 1721 as the Place d'Armes, the colonial parade ground, and the Historic New Orleans Collection states that public punishments and executions were carried out on it, giving no count. The heads of the men who led the 1811 German Coast uprising were displayed along the river road and at the city gates, not in this square: state terror, not a spooky detail. Pirates Alley is named for something that never happened in it. It was Ruelle d'Orleans, Sud, in the nineteenth century, and the pirate name became official only in 1964 (Experience New Orleans). No record puts Jean Lafitte and Andrew Jackson in that passage. What did happen there: William Faulkner drafted his first novel, Soldiers' Pay, in a ground-floor room at 624 Pirates Alley in 1925 (New Orleans Historical). Orleans Street, Bourbon Street and the French Quarter are named without further detail. We found no named witness, dated incident or published investigation behind an apparition claim anywhere on this route.

Who it suits

This is two hours on French Quarter pavement with bar stops attached, and the 21 line is real: the adult band starts at 21 with no child or youth rate. Of the New Orleans listings whose age bands we captured, only one other sets the same floor. The listing states wheelchair access, which several ghost walks here do not.

• Good if you want a drink in hand and the history kept separate from the folklore.
• Skip it if anyone in your party is under 21.
• Skip it if you want the history without the drinking. Two walks below cover several of the same addresses for less.
• Skip it if you need a confirmed start time or meeting address before booking. Neither is stated.
• Skip it if you expect to go inside the mansion or the convent. Both are pass-bys.

How it compares

Only one other New Orleans listing in our research is a bar crawl. New Orleans Ghost Tour and Haunted Bar Crawl (Small Group) from Nightly Spirits runs the same two hours at $39.92, is also 21 and over and asks for photo ID, and states at least three haunted bars where this listing names only Lafitte's. This one is cheaper and much better tested, 2,206 reviews against 140, though the smaller crawl shows 4.8 to this listing's 4.5, the lowest rating band among the fifteen New Orleans listings we banked and shared by five of them.

If the bars are not the point, New Orleans Haunted History Ghost Tour covers the LaLaurie Mansion, Lafitte's and Pirates Alley for $30 across the same two hours, shows 4.6 from 2,274 reviews, and takes up to 28 with wheelchair and stroller access. The Ghosts of New Orleans Tour is $29.99 for 90 minutes with a cap of nine, the smallest stated cap of the fifteen. For the wider field, see New Orleans ghost tours compared and our guide to the best haunted tours in New Orleans.

Questions people ask

How old do you have to be?

Twenty-one and over. The adult band runs 21 to 99 with no child or youth rate. Of the New Orleans listings whose bands we captured, only one other sets the same floor, and it asks for photo ID.

What does it cost and how long is it?

From $37 per person for two hours, at our July 30, 2026 check. Confirm the rate when you book.

Which bars does it visit?

Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar is the only one named on the itinerary, so you will not know the others in advance. The listing does not state whether any drink is included.

Can you go inside the LaLaurie Mansion?

No. 1140 Royal Street is a private home and this route passes it. The house standing there is Trastour's rebuild of 1837 and 1838, after a crowd gutted the original in April 1834.

Is Lafitte's the oldest bar in the United States?

That is marketing rather than a finding. The building is among the oldest in the Quarter, most likely from the 1770s, but its use as a bar dates to the mid-1940s.

Why does the listing say the route can change?

Parades, festivals and construction close French Quarter streets, and the listing states routes are subject to change for all three. Expect the order of stops to vary.