Wraiths of the Watchtower: Sinister St. Augustine Ghost Tour

Wraiths of the Watchtower: Sinister St. Augustine Ghost Tour is a one-hour after-dark walk sold on Viator from $26 per person at our August 2, 2026 check. The operator is Old City Ghosts By US Ghost Adventures, the St. Augustine brand of a national ghost-tour company rather than a local business. Six stops are named: 22 Avenida Menendez, the Casablanca Inn On The Bay, Harry's Seafood, The Treasury on the Plaza, the Spanish Military Hospital Museum, and 48 King St. No cemetery is on the route. At 4.1 from 88 reviews it carries the lowest rating of the nine guided walks among the twelve bookable St. Augustine listings we compare.

Viator has retitled this listing; the booking card lower down still carries the shorter name we catalogued it with. We are Arizona guides who research haunted history in other cities, so read this as a write-up of somebody else's tour, not one we run.

What you will see

The Casablanca Inn On The Bay at 24 Avenida Menendez is the best stop on the route. The federal site inventory for the St. Augustine Town Plan Historic District, listed 1 July 1970 under reference 70000847, records it as the Matanzas Apartments, Mediterranean Revival, dated 1914 to 1917 (NRHP 70000847); most retellings round that to a flat 1914. The inn tells its own story plainly. During Prohibition the building ran rum, and the widow who kept it climbed to the roof with a lantern and waved it when federal agents were in town, so the boats ran on to the next port. The ghost is that light. Her name remains unknown, as the inn's own page says (Casablanca Inn), and no arrest record or newspaper account of the building's role was located. A roof, not a widow's walk, and a 1920s story rather than a pirate one, in a building that did not exist before about 1914. It is a working inn, so groups stop on the seawall side.

The Treasury on the Plaza at 24 Cathedral Place is the six-storey former bank on the north side of the plaza. Construction began in 1926; the federal inventory dates it 1927 as the Atlantic Bank Building, the name the National Register records it under, though it went up for the First National Bank of St. Augustine. The National Register narrative credits the architect F. A. Hollingsworth, a name missing from the venue's own history page (venue history), and in the form's own words calls it St. Augustine's only skyscraper. The ghost is a bank manager said to have killed himself in the vault, and nobody who tells it supplies a name, a date or a record. The vault door is genuine; the bar behind it opened after a 2014 renovation, so there was no speakeasy in it, and it is a private event venue seen from the plaza.

The Spanish Military Hospital Museum at 3 Aviles Street is the stop where the honest fact is the least advertised one. The building is a 1966 reconstruction of stuccoed concrete block, raised by the Historic St. Augustine Preservation Board after it demolished the nineteenth-century buildings on the lot (UF Libraries). The Spanish government had bought the property, then a British-period convalescent home, in 1791 and converted it into a military hospital; the First Spanish Period hospital stood across the street and burned. The museum interprets colonial medicine from before anaesthesia and germ theory, and makes no paranormal claim of its own. Nothing in the federal record, the UF guide or the state site file supports the burial-ground claim attached to it, and the line about the oldest street in the continental United States is marketing rather than a finding.

Three of the six stops carry no research file in this project: 22 Avenida Menendez, Harry's Seafood and 48 King St. Nothing on the listing states interior access anywhere on the route.

Who it suits

One hour, on the street, after dark, with a single adult band running 0 to 99 and a wheelchair-accessible listing. The route is the argument for it: inn, bank and hospital stories rather than fenced graveyards. It is the only walk in our St. Augustine set naming no cemetery.

• Choose it for the bayfront and plaza buildings rather than a cemetery route, because no cemetery is on this itinerary.
• Choose it on access, since the listing shows wheelchair accessible and states no minimum age.
• Skip it if consensus rating is how you choose, because 4.1 from 88 reviews is the lowest of the nine guided walks we compare here.
• Skip it if you are planning around a fixed departure, because the operator opens dates month by month rather than posting a standing schedule.

How it compares

Two walks are worth weighing first. Ghost Tour of St. Augustine: The Original Haunted History Tour costs a dollar less at $25, runs 90 minutes, names four stops including both cemeteries and the Castillo, and rates 4.9 from 426 reviews. St. Augustine Ghost Tour: A Ghostly Encounter costs $30 for the same 90 minutes and carries 4.7 from 2,475 reviews. Against either, this walk's case rests on its route and its hour rather than on its numbers.

Questions people ask

How long is it, and what does it cost?

One hour, from $26 per person, checked on August 2, 2026. The operator is Old City Ghosts By US Ghost Adventures.

What time does it start?

No clock time is verified. The listing describes an after-dark walk, and the operator opens dates in monthly windows rather than a fixed year-round schedule, so check the calendar for the nights you are actually in town.

Do you go inside any of the stops?

Nothing on the listing states interior access. The Casablanca is a working inn seen from the seawall side, the Treasury is a private event venue viewed from the plaza, and the hospital museum is a ticketed daytime attraction. The listing carries free cancellation.

Is a 4.1 rating a problem?

It is the lowest of the nine guided walks we compare in St. Augustine, across 88 reviews. If the six-stop bayfront route is what you want, book it. If you are choosing on ratings, weigh the $25 Spyglass Tours walk and the $30 A Ghostly Encounter walk first.