The Ghosts of New Orleans Tour is a 90-minute guided walk through the French Quarter run by Ghost City Tours, booking from $29.99 per person at our July 30, 2026 check. Ghost City Tours is a national brand rather than a New Orleans outfit, and it lists a second New Orleans walk in our research. This one caps at 9 travelers and 6 per booking, the smallest cap among the five banked New Orleans listings that publish one, and the reason to pick it if you dislike crowds. It names three stops: the French Quarter, the LaLaurie Mansion and Jackson Square. It is flagged wheelchair accessible, and the adult age band starts at 12, with children ticketed from 6. We do not run this tour.
| Detail | What the listing shows |
|---|---|
| From price | $29.99 per person (checked July 30, 2026) |
| Duration | 1 hour 30 minutes |
| Departures | Not captured in our research. No clock time is published, so confirm your start time when you book. |
| Group size | Capped at 9 travelers, maximum 6 per booking |
| Ages | Adult band 12 to 99, child 6 to 11, infant 0 to 5 |
| Accessibility | Wheelchair accessible, per the listing. Stroller access is not stated. |
| Meeting point | Not captured in our research. Confirm the address when you book. |
| Cancellation | Free cancellation flagged at our check. We did not capture the window. |
| Rating | 4.7 from 718 Viator reviews. Not a thin sample, but far short of the 13,610 on the most reviewed New Orleans listing in our set. |
| Stops named | French Quarter, LaLaurie Mansion, Jackson Square |
| Operator | Ghost City Tours in New Orleans, a national brand. We do not run this tour. |
What you will see
The route stays inside the French Quarter, the oldest part of the city and the ground the other two stops sit on. French engineers laid out the colonial capital in August 1721 around a central square fronting the river, with two L-shaped soldiers' barracks flanking the parade ground (Historic New Orleans Collection). Very little of that first city is still standing: the Good Friday fire of March 21, 1788 destroyed most of it along with the parish church, and a second fire followed in December 1794 (64 Parishes). What you walk past is largely Spanish colonial and later rebuilding on French colonial lots, which is why so much Quarter storytelling is pinned to buildings younger than the events it describes.
The LaLaurie Mansion at 1140 Royal Street is the address nearly every New Orleans ghost tour visits, and the one that needs the most care, because the crime in it is real. Delphine Macarty Lopez Blanque LaLaurie bought the corner lot and its unfinished house from Edmond Soniat Dufossat on August 30, 1831, with thirty days to complete the principal house (Vieux Carre Digital Survey, Historic New Orleans Collection). On April 10, 1834 a fire began in the kitchen, and responders who forced the locked quarters found enslaved people confined there, seven reported the next day. Two days later the New Orleans Bee reported roughly 4,000 people coming to the Cabildo to see them, and a crowd gutted the house. LaLaurie died in Paris on December 7, 1849, at 62 (64 Parishes).
Four corrections belong on that pavement, and almost no tour makes them. First, the building is not the building: Pierre E. Trastour bought the ruin on March 24, 1837 and rebuilt it across 1837 and 1838, and the Vieux Carre Digital Survey says that rebuild gave the house the appearance it has today. Second, the catalogue of surgical tortures repeated on nearly every tour is not in the 1834 newspapers. It traces to Jeanne deLavigne's Ghost Stories of Old New Orleans, published in 1946 with no sources given and reissued by LSU Press in 2013 with a critical introduction by folklorist Frank de Caro. The earliest published account, Harriet Martineau's Retrospect of Western Travel of 1838, describes enslaved people in poor condition showing signs of whipping, and no mutilations. Third, there is no known court record of a prosecution, so no conviction or fine can be stated. Fourth, we found no source for bodies under the floor or in the courtyard, and no death toll is defensible.
Jackson Square, bounded by Decatur, Chartres, St. Peter and St. Ann, was the colonial city's parade ground and its place of public punishment. The Historic New Orleans Collection states that authorities carried out public punishments and executions here, and gives no names, dates or numbers, so anyone quoting a body count is inventing it. It has been Jackson Square only since January 1851, later than most tellings imply. Clark Mills's equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson, unveiled in February 1856, was the first anywhere to balance a horse on its hind legs without support: an engineering feat, not a code for how the rider died. In 1862 the Union commander Benjamin Butler had "The Union Must And Shall Be Preserved" cut into its granite base (Blake Pontchartrain, Gambit). Tours also put the heads of the 1811 German Coast uprising leaders on pikes in this square; the record places that display along the river road and at the city gates.
Who it suits
This is 90 minutes on foot in the Quarter with a small group and a deliberately mixed audience: the adult band starts at 12, children are ticketed from 6 to 11, and infants are allowed. Of the five banked New Orleans listings that publish a cap, this is the smallest at 9, and no more than 6 people can book at once. It is flagged wheelchair accessible; three New Orleans listings in our research are flagged not accessible.
- Skip it if your party is larger than 6. That needs more than one booking.
- Skip it if you want vampires, voodoo, a bar stop or a cemetery. The listing names three Quarter stops only.
- Skip it if you want a longer evening. Seven of the eleven New Orleans listings in our research run two hours.
- Think before bringing a child. The LaLaurie stop covers a documented atrocity against enslaved people.
- Wheelchair users should call ahead. The listing flags access but publishes no route or surface detail.
How it compares
Ghost City Tours lists two New Orleans walks in our research, and they are not interchangeable. New Orleans Killers and Thrillers - True Crime Walking Tour runs the same 90 minutes at $34.99 and is rated 4.7 from 920 reviews, but it starts at 16, caps at 12, and its stops are the French Quarter, the Cabildo and the Pharmacy Museum. The LaLaurie Mansion is on this listing and not on that one.
Elsewhere in the city, New Orleans Yellow Fever Ghost Tour is $35 for the same 90 minutes and holds the highest rating in our New Orleans set at 4.9 across 1,426 reviews, though it runs groups up to 28 and is not wheelchair accessible. Haunted Ghost and Paranormal Tour in New Orleans is the cheapest guided listing in the set at $15 for two hours, but its 4.5 rests on 98 reviews, a thin sample. 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 big is the group?
The listing caps the tour at 9 travelers and allows a maximum of 6 per booking. Among the five banked New Orleans listings that publish a cap, that is the smallest; the others publish 12, 28, 28 and 28.
How long is it and what does it cost?
Ninety minutes, from $29.99 per person at our July 30, 2026 check. Prices move, so confirm the rate when you book.
Can children come?
The adult band runs 12 to 99, children are ticketed from 6 to 11, and infants are allowed. The LaLaurie stop covers a documented atrocity, so judge the subject matter for your own family.
Can you go inside the LaLaurie Mansion?
No. 1140 Royal Street is a private residence and tours stop outside on the pavement. It is also not the building the 1834 crime happened in: a crowd gutted that house and Pierre E. Trastour rebuilt it across 1837 and 1838.
Is the LaLaurie torture story true?
The cruelty is documented and was reported in the city's own newspapers within a day. The catalogue of surgical horrors is not: it traces to a 1946 book by Jeanne deLavigne that cited no sources. There is no known court record of a prosecution and no defensible death toll.
Can I cancel?
The listing carried a free-cancellation flag at our July 30, 2026 check. We did not capture the window, so read the terms on the booking page.
