- inthegreatwide
- Sep 10
- 21 min read
Long Beach Ghost Tour
If you’re looking for an activity that’s a little out-of-the-box in Los Angeles, why not take a day trip down to Long Beach? There are a number of famous attractions there, such as the Aquarium of the Pacific, the Queen Mary, and the USS Iowa, but the Long Beach Ghost Tour with US Ghost Adventures will open your eyes to some of the spooky history of the area.
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Where does the Long Beach Ghost Tour start?
Tours start on the sidewalk outside the Casa Bonita Apartments, located on 6th Street near Pacific Ave in Long Beach. Instructions say the tour guide will be holding a lantern, but this was our second tour with US Ghost Adventures and neither host has had the lantern, so instead we were easily able to identify them by their US Ghost Adventures t-shirts.
How to get to the Long Beach Ghost Tour
On public transit, the LA Metro A-Line light rail (formerly known as the blue line) runs all the way from Azusa through downtown LA and into Long Beach, where there is a stop at 5th Street, just 0.3 miles from the start of the Long Beach Ghost Tour. Luckily, this means you can get to the tour from virtually anywhere in the Los Angeles metro area without needing a car.
If you would prefer to drive, there is metered street parking near the start of the tour along 6th Street and the surrounding blocks, but it can regularly be full, so make sure you plan for plenty of time to find a spot before your tour start time. There’s also a City Parking Garage just down the street, at 50 W. 6th Street, called City Place A. The first two hours are free, with rates increasing up to 12 hours, which ends up at a daily max of $12. For a full price breakdown, go to the City Place A website.
As this tour doesn’t do a complete loop (like the Terrors of Tinseltown Haunted Hollywood Walking Tour), you could park down at the end of the tour, at The Pike Outlets, and walk back up to the start of the tour. The Pike Outlets have their own parking garage with hourly prices, maxing out at $16, located at 65 Cedar Ave. For a full breakdown of pricing, click here to visit their website.
Regardless of how you get there, you need to be at the Casa Bonita Apartments 15 minutes before the start time of your tour. Refunds are not given if you’re late!
Haunted Locations You’ll Visit in Long Beach
When visiting each place, you do not actually go inside. Instead, you’ll be on the sidewalk in front of the location or across the street. The locations we visited were:
Casa Bonita Apartment
Pacific Avenue Metro A-Line light rail station
The 4th Horseman Bar
Harvey Milk Memorial
Marriott Hotel Downtown Long Beach
Breakers Hotel and Sky Room
The Pike Outlets
The actual distance we walked on the tour was almost exactly 1 mile, which is spot on with what’s in the tour description. It says the tour will take approximately 1 hour, but ours ended up being closer to 1 hour 20 minutes. Several factors can change that, such as how quickly the group walks and how many questions are asked. Keep in mind though that you will then need to walk the 1 mile back to your car if you parked near the starting point, as this tour is not a loop. The walk is mostly flat, but there is a pretty good hill you walk down after visiting Breakers Hotel on your way to The Pike that you’ll have to walk back up after the tour to get to your car.
The website for the Long Beach Ghost Tour mentions spooky stories of the Aquarium Fountain and the RMS Queen Mary as reasons to book, but we did not go to or hear stories about either of those locations with the regular tour. We’re assuming they’re included with the extended tour option, but we haven’t been able to get that confirmed. However, our guide did tell a few other spooky stories about Long Beach locations that weren’t within walking distance. Check out the Our Experience section below to read about those.
Tickets and Pricing for the Long Beach Ghost Tour
The Long Beach Ghost tour runs once a night, departing at 8pm. You could theoretically buy tickets the day-of, but there’s obviously no guarantee they won’t sell out, especially during the summer (peak tourist season) and spooky season (because everyone wants to do this kind of stuff in October), so we recommend buying your tickets in advance if you can.
Tickets can be bought on the US Ghost Adventures website and cost $22.66 for adults after taxes and fees and $13.60 for children. The ages for adult VS child tickets are not specified for this tour, but another tour we took through this company had adults labeled as 13+. Children under 6 are free. It also isn’t specified if minors must be accompanied by an adult, and we haven’t been able to get verification from the company one way or the other.
Pro Tip: Remember to take a little cash to tip your guide at the end of the tour!
If you need to reschedule your tour, be aware that there will be a $10 rebooking fee, so make sure you can make your scheduled time. More info about all that in the Fine Print section below.
There are a number of add-ons you can purchase for the tour, if you want to enhance your haunted walking tour experience:
Rent an EMF Activity Meter for $7. The EMF Activity Meter detects electromagnetic frequencies that are given off by ghosts and spirits.
Bonus extended tour for $7 per person. You can experience up to four more stops with this extended tour that starts immediately after the regular tour. Specific locations are not listed.
Gratuity Bonus Pool for $2. If you’re feeling extra generous, this optional fee goes to help support the company and its staff, but is not a substitute for an in-person tip that should go to your personal tour guide.
Ghost Plush for $7. It’s a cute, stuffed version of the LA Ghosts mascot for you to take home.
(To be transparent, we were gifted this tour in exchange for our honest review.)
Fine Print Breakdown
We know reading through the fine print is not fun and is often confusing, and even though we think that US Ghost Adventures is in the process of editing their fine print based off of some feedback we’ve given, we haven’t been able to get that confirmed. As of the time we took the tour, here’s the basic, important information you need to know…
Tours will happen rain or shine. It doesn’t rain as often in Los Angeles, but when it does, it can be a lot in one go, so be prepared. (To be fair, the company says they “reserve the right to let customers reschedule… for better weather… but this is not guaranteed.”)
There is some contradictory information about rescheduling, but here are the different things it says:
Rescheduled tours done in advance of the tour are subject to a $10 fee. It’s unclear if that’s per person or per reservation.
Reschedule requests made less than 12 hours before the tour start time or up to 24 hours after the start time are subject to a 40% fee “if approved”.
Reschedule requests must be made at least 24 hours in advance and are subject to a fee (but it doesn’t specify the fee amount).
They will not reschedule or refund a tour if it’s within the next 6 days. We have pointed out this contradictory info to the company but have not received clarification.
If you need to completely cancel your reservation, here’s their refund policy:
Cancelling 22+ days in advance = 90% refund
Cancelling 7-21 days in advance = 50% refund
Cancelling within 6 days of your tour = NO refund
Cancellation requests must be made through a form on their website. Email, voicemail, or verbal cancellations won’t be honored. The company offers tours all over the US, so look into all your options before cancelling!
No refunds will be given for guests who arrive late or cannot find the meeting location. (This is another one where they “reserve the right to let customers reschedule” but it’s not guaranteed.)
Sales are final on all private tour reservations.
No smoking or vaping is allowed during the tour.
Disruptive / intoxicated guests may be removed from the tour without a refund, so be respectful and don’t talk over the tour guide… duh!
You aren’t technically allowed to take videos or audio recordings during the tour, but you ARE allowed to take photos.
You participate at your own risk, so in other words, the tour company is not responsible for any “accidents” on the tour.
This is an all ages tour. It is not stated if minors must be accompanied by an adult.
Pets are allowed on the tour as long as they can be well-behaved and are not disruptive.
All of that is pretty standard stuff, but here are the two lines that bother us in their fine print…
“Company reserves the right to reschedule guests on a case by case basis. Rebooking fee will apply.”
“Paying the $10 amendment fee does not guarantee a change can or will be made.”
…so the company can choose to reschedule my reservation and then they charge ME a rebooking fee? Or if I pay $10 to change my reservation they can decide to just not make the change? That’s not cool. Our contact person at US Ghost Adventures said they’re “pretty sure it never happened” in regards to the rebooking fee applying when the company is the one who makes the change, and they said that the $10 fee would be refunded if a change can’t be made, but the fact that these are in the fine print (and the $10 change fee refund is not) is bothersome.
If US Ghost Adventures updates their fine print, we will do our best to update this blog article to reflect those changes, but you should read through yours just in case. Click here to see the terms and conditions on their website, but be aware that additional tour terms may apply that aren’t communicated until you get your confirmation email after booking.
On a happier note: at the end of your tour, if you thought the guide did a good job, it’s appropriate to tip them! Our guide on this tour did not have a digital tipping option available (which may have been because she’s new to the company and doesn’t have it set up yet), so we were only able to tip in cash. For a tour like this in California, you should expect to tip 10-20% of the tour cost. Just something to keep in mind so you remember to take some cash with you!
Our Experience on the Long Beach Ghost Tour
We did the Terrors of Tinseltown Hollywood Ghost Tour in Hollywood with US Ghost Adventures and really enjoyed it, so we were pleased to see that they offer spooky tours in other parts of Los Angeles too. While we are vaguely familiar with Long Beach, we haven’t spent a lot of time there, so we decided to make a day out of it that started with lunch at the oldest pub in Long Beach, Joe Jost’s. We made plans to spend the afternoon on the Queen Mary, but with new ownership charging $45 just get on the ship (even if you’re going to the bar or restaurants onboard), we ended up finding a great local brewery by the beach instead, Belmont Brewing.
When it was time to head to the starting location for the Long Beach Ghost Tour, we managed to find metered street parking on 6th Street about a block away. Parking for ended up costing $2.50 because the meters turn off at 9pm in that area, so it ended up saving us a little money over parking in the City Place A garage like we had originally planned.
It was a short walk over to the Casa Bonita Apartments, where we found our tour guide, Isabel, wearing a US Ghost Adventures t-shirt. We chatted a little as we waited for a few others to join us and she told us that this was only her third tour hosting. We appreciated her honesty about it because she seemed a little nervous, but we didn’t mind! Two more people walked by, looking a little confused, but we figured out they were just looking for someone holding a lantern (as the tour confirmation email tells you to), and they were, in fact, two of the four people that would be joining us. The other two were family members of theirs but were having trouble finding parking and we ended up starting the tour about 10 minutes late so we could wait for them.
Starting late wasn’t a big deal for us, as it gave us an opportunity to get to know the other guests, who said they had done a US Ghost Adventures tour in St. Augustine, FL, and loved it. We shared stories from the haunted walking tour we did in Salem, MA, but warned them not to visit the town in October, when it practically turns into a theme park.
They asked Isabel about the plushies they had ordered as an add-on to the tour and she said that those were unfortunately never sent to her, so she didn’t have them and they would receive a refund for them.
When the last two guests finally arrived, Isabel took us across the street to get a better look at the Casa Bonita Apartments. (We ended up standing in front of an apartment with a huge window and a cute kitten that was very curious about the group of people outside 🙂) Isabel told us about some spooky occurrences at the Casa Bonita Apartments, including hanging light fixtures swaying without a breeze, flickering lights, and a woman heard screaming late at night that many tenants heard, but the landlord brushed off as someone’s TV being too loud.
If you’re interested, the Casa Bonita Apartments, built in 1923, are available for rent, with studios and 1 bedrooms renting for $1,495 - $1,895/month. It’s also available for rent nightly, with rates starting at $156/night in the summer and $356/night in winter.
Isabel then also told us about the Indigenous Gabrielino/Tongva People who lived in the Long Beach area long before settlers came to take over the land. She mentioned a Gabrielino/Tongva woman (we think it was Toypurina), who led a failed rebellion against the Mission San Gabriel and was exiled to what is now Carmel-by-the-Sea in Central California, but the woman became a symbol of the Gabrielino/Tongva resistance. It was a little odd since it didn’t have anything to do with the Casa Bonita Apartments, but both of us love history, so we were happy to listen, and it made more sense once we got to our next stop.
Isabel asked if we had any questions and encouraged the group to chime in with other information throughout the tour if we have it (love that), then we moved on down the street to the Pacific Avenue stop on the Metro A-Line light rail. As we stood across the street, she pointed out the art decorating the open-air station, which honors the Gabrielino/Tongva people. It was dark by then and difficult to see some of the art, but they consist of some interesting mosaics depicting faces at the tops of pillars that were placed along the length of the station. You can view them on the artist’s website by clicking here.
Going into more detail on the Gabrielino/Tongva People, Isabel told us a story about one of their descendants who was attending Cal State Long Beach. The student was at a sacred indigenous site on campus, called Puvungna, when she had a paranormal experience that she insists was not scary at all, but instead, encouraging and comforting. As far as we can tell, Puvungna is open to the public, but it was too far to walk for the tour. Click here to read more about the history of the Gabrielino/Tongva People on their website.
It’s also worth noting that there were a number of homeless people at this location, and while we stood there, a man approached and pointed at Adam’s phone while he held it up to take a picture of the station, and the man ordered Adam to call a cab for him. Adam said no, and the man seemed surprised, so Adam reiterated that he wasn’t going to do that and then the man wandered off. We didn’t feel ‘unsafe’, and we certainly do not believe that being homeless automatically makes you dangerous, but the man’s tone made us question his intentions, so it’s worth keeping an eye on your stuff and your surroundings while wandering through downtown Long Beach.
Our next stop was across the street from The 4th Horseman, a horror-themed bar and pizza joint. The exact spot where Isabel had us stop was a bit odd, as a tree obstructed the sign and most of the front of the location, so we ended up stopping by on our way back to the car after the tour to get better photos of the outside.
Isabel told us about a doll that is among the establishment’s horror collection that apparently made several staff members suddenly think extremely violent or depressive thoughts, but luckily no one was reported to be hurt (as far as we know). The 4th Horseman looks like a cool bar and supposedly has some of the best pizza in Long Beach. With a happy hour that runs from 12pm - 5pm and all day Monday, it would be a good place to hang before the tour and it’s definitely somewhere on our radar to go to on our next trip to Long Beach.
At this stop, Isabel talked about Igor’s Alley, an unmarked alley in a residential area of Long Beach that was, again, too far to walk to on the tour. The legend says that Igor was an immigrant that came to work in the US with his wife and two kids during the Great Depression, but when he was let go from his job, he took his last paycheck and drank it away at a local tavern. Upon returning home, he murdered his wife and kids and hung them from meat hooks that happened to be below a window in the alley. Isabel also told us a story about how, many years later, a woman and her kids were trick-or-treating and took a shortcut through the alley, unaware of its macabre past, and had a chilling encounter. Although the alley isn’t marked or advertised, we were able to find it on Google Maps based off of the video above. Just remember that it’s a residential area, so don’t be surprised to be chased off by the residents if you try to go looking!
We then made our way to the Harvey Milk Memorial Promenade Park, which showcases a tile rainbow “mural” with a photo of Harvey Milk and some informational signs about him. In short, Harvey Milk was one of the first openly gay people elected to political office in the United States, which was in 1977 to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. After fighting a homophobic initiative in San Francisco and winning, Milk came to Long Beach to address another, which is what ties him to this area.
The reason why we stopped at his memorial on this tour was for the story about how a disgruntled former city supervisor, Dan White (who was extremely homophobic according to former staffers), assassinated Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone inside San Francisco City Hall on November 27, 1978. After getting arrested, White’s defense lawyer claimed White had been depressed, and that the night before, he’d eaten too much junk food and wasn’t in his right mind, which was quickly dubbed the “Twinkie Defense” by the press. White was tried in front of a jury of conservative Catholics (minorities were dismissed from the jury pool) and was sadly acquitted of the murders.
It was also here that Isabel mentioned Sunnyside Cemetery, which opened in 1906. The cemetery holds approximately 16,250 graves over its 13.2 acres, which feels like a lot! The cemetery is essentially full, with just a couple burials a year since 2010. Isabel told us the story of one woman buried there, Bessie Baxter, a bride who in 1918 had picked up her wedding dress just a week before her wedding but was accidentally killed while crossing the street as she returned home with the dress. Instead of getting married on her wedding day, she was buried in her wedding dress with her bride’s bouquet used as the flowers on her casket. Sunnyside Cemetery is widely believed to be haunted by her spirit.
The cemetery is about 3 miles north of the tour in the Signal Hill area of Long Beach, which was too far to walk to for this tour, but we discovered it has been used in a ton of movies and TV shows, most notably as the burial site for a character in the Fast & Furious franchise’s fourth movie.
Next to the Harvey Milk Memorial was a Throne Self-Cleaning bathroom, and Isabel asked if anyone needed a bathroom break, but no one did, so we moved on. Later, on the walk back, we tried to use it, but it was already occupied with no indication of when that user would be done, so we had to assume it would be a while and just left. There isn’t really anywhere else to stop to use the restroom during or after this tour unless you want to stop in for a drink at one of downtown Long Beach’s many bars, so keep that in mind.
Heading south down the Promenade, we stopped outside the Marriott Hotel. Neither of us were even aware that Long Beach had this Promenade, and it felt a bit like the Santa Monica 3rd Street Promenade, with several restaurants lined up along the walk. If you’re looking for a night of bar hopping on Long Beach, this area might be worth looking into.
Isabel told us about the Long Beach Marriott Hotel and how a phone rings but always stops just before someone picks up the phone. This piqued our interest, as something similar happened in Salem, with a phone company taking over an office space that was built on the same land that once held a prison for potential witches during the Salem Witch Trials, but when we asked Isabel what was there before the Marriott Hotel, she didn’t know. We looked it up afterwards, and it looks like it was The Plunge Bathhouse, a public pool that was one of the first attractions of The Pike, which we’ll talk more about in a minute. The bathhouse opened in 1902, but finding out what was there before that would take a much deeper research dive, and it unfortunately doesn’t help explain the ringing phone that no one ever gets to answer.
However, the spookier story Isabel told us here was about another Marriott Hotel at the Long Beach Airport. In room 217 (conveniently the same room number as the famous room in the Stanley Hotel from The Shining), a man had a disturbing experience in the middle of the night that ended with security breaking into the room and finding the man in the fetal position in the middle of the floor. That hotel is located about 6 miles northeast of the Long Beach Ghost Tour.
We then walked the rest of the Promenade to Ocean Blvd and stood across from the Fairmont Breakers Hotel and Sky Room. The hotel originally opened in 1926, but has had a rocky history, being sold the year after it opened, in 1927, and then made the home base of the American Red Cross in 1933 after a 6.4 earthquake, where upwards of 120 people died. In 1938, Conrad Hilton reopened it, making it his 8th Hilton hotel, and opened the Sky Room, a fine dining restaurant that attracted the most famous movie stars of the day.
Between 1947 and 1964, the hotel changed ownership a number of times. In November 1963, after the hotel lost its owner half of his net worth, it was auctioned off and reopened in 1967 as a retirement home, keeping long-term retired residents as well as overnight guests. It was converted back into a hotel in 1982, designated a Historic Landmark in 1989, and converted back to senior citizen housing in 1990. 2017 saw it converted back to a hotel, which it still is today.
Isabel told us it's called Breakers because, when it was built, it was right on the waterline, with waves breaking against the back side of the building (hence the street named Ocean Blvd). It turns out that all the land south of there was added on, mostly in the 1960's. Workers have said that they feel dark shadowy presences lingering in the corners of the Sky Room restaurant in the hotel, and one server there said it felt like someone was constantly watching her, to the point that she eventually quit.
The Sky Room is a fine dining restaurant on the top floor of the Breakers Hotel that’s only open for dinner Tuesday - Saturday. They have a limited menu, and you can expect a cocktail to cost you around $20 and an entree around $50-$60, so it’s definitely a special occasion kind of place!
We then headed downhill to The Pike Outlets, named after The Pike, an amusement zone boardwalk that opened in 1902 somewhat similar to what the Santa Monica Pier is now. The Pike featured the Cyclone Racer, a double-track wooden roller coaster that was built in 1930 and stayed up until 1968. This roller coaster was Adam’s dad’s favorite in the 60's, and he and his buddies would ride it over and over again because it was only a quarter for a ride. The Pike also featured restaurants, shops, and other ride attractions, including Laff in the Dark, a ghost train attraction with animated characters that would pop out to scare you.
Isabel’s story for us here was about one of those animated characters on Laff in the Dark and how, in 1976, the TV show The Six Million Dollar Man was filming an episode when a production assistant went to move a dummy and the arm fell off. It turned out it wasn’t a dummy at all, but a dead man named Elmer McCurdy whose corpse was petrified, covered in wax and layers of phosphorus paint.
McCurdy was an outlaw that was killed following a train robbery in Oklahoma in 1912. Apparently, he had no living relatives to claim his body and pay for the undertaker’s services, so the undertaker preserved the body with arsenic and put him up as a sideshow, asking for a nickel to see the corpse of an outlaw. When it became a successful attraction, someone who claimed to be Elmer's long-lost brother but was actually a scheming carny, took the body and paraded it around the country as a curiosity. Over the years, Elmer was traded between carnivals and amusement parks so many times that people forgot it was an actual corpse, which is how he ended up at Laff in the Dark. After the discovery in 1976, the body was sent back to Oklahoma and finally buried.
The Pike was closed down in 1979, and now there’s an outlet mall there with restaurants, shops, and a movie theater. Isabel gave us a second, more modern story at this location about two young ladies that had an encounter with a man wearing cowboy boots and a hat, but who disappeared after showing them his decayed face.
This was the end of the regular tour, so we tipped Isabel and parted ways, while she took the other guests on their extended tour. We were glad to have companions to chat with throughout the tour, especially because they seemed really into the whole experience and all of the stories, and it seemed like everyone had a nice time. We’re not sure what the extended tour stops are (and we haven’t been able to get clarification from the company even though we have asked), but we assume that it includes the Aquarium Fountain and views of the Queen Mary, which are advertised as selling points on the tour’s website and are cornerstones of modern day Long Beach.
All in all, the tour started approximately 10 minutes late (not a problem for us, but just something to be aware of), took 70-80 minutes to complete, and then it took us 25-30 minutes to walk back to our car, which included a few quick stops to take more photos. So even though the tour is only technically around an hour long, it’s best to plan for 2 hours to account for late arrivals, questions, slow walkers (we know that’s us after Phoebe’s back injury), and the walk back to your car at the end.
Our Verdict
We enjoyed this tour overall, but we do have a few small complaints / constructive criticisms:
We wish the tour started an hour earlier, at 7pm instead of 8. It was almost 9:30 by the time the tour finished, and with a half-hour walk back to our car and then a 45-minute drive home, we didn’t feel like we had the time or energy to stop in for a drink somewhere afterwards to chat about all the stories we’d heard (or to look for that doll at The 4th Horseman). This is a personal preference, and obviously if you’re staying in Long Beach and don’t have to drive across the city to get home afterwards then that would make a difference. Also, although this area isn’t unsafe, walking back to your car at the end of the night can feel a little sketchy at times, especially if you were to go alone.
It seemed like some of the stories were a bit more of a stretch than the stories we heard in the other haunted walking tours we’ve done, and the best stories were about the places that we didn’t physically visit. If you think about this tour more as entertainment than education, then it does just fine in that regard.
Lastly, and this was the biggest complaint for us, the Queen Mary isn’t included in the regular tour. It’s by far the most famous and iconic attraction in Long Beach and it’s well known for being haunted, so if it’s only included with the extended tour, then that needs to be stated on the website before you book, because it is used as one of the top selling points for this tour. If we weren’t locals and had booked this tour while visiting from another city, state, or country, we would have been hugely disappointed to not have the Queen Mary included.
But like we said, we DID enjoy this tour! The history aspects of the tour were excellent starting points for the research we knew we would do afterwards and we ended up gaining a lot of knowledge we didn’t already have about Long Beach. Even if you're just going to be entertained for the evening, we think you'll be satisfied with this tour. The tour guide was new, but friendly and eager to do well. We would absolutely recommend this as a fun group activity or even for a spooky date night! It’s hard to find affordable stuff to do in Los Angeles these days, so considering the $23 price point, it’s definitely worth taking this tour for something a little different to do with your friends other than just go out for dinner or drinks (which you could still do before/after this tour anyway).
Quick Reference Guide
What | |
Where | |
How to Get There | The 5th St stop on the LA Metro A-Line light rail is a few blocks away. Parking structures and street parking on 6th St are ample, with only having to pay a few bucks for parking. |
Time Commitment | Tour lasts 1 hour and is 1 mile of walking, but you should plan for 2 hours to account for late arrivals, asking questions, slow walkers, and the walk back to your car at the end since the tour isn’t a loop (which means it’s actually more like 2 miles of walking). |
Cost | Adults are $22.66/person, children $13.60/person, and children under 6 are free. All costs include tax and the booking fee. |
Reservation Info | Tours run once-a-night. Book through the US Ghost Adventures website in advance if you can, especially around holiday weekends and in October. |
Our Verdict | An affordable activity that’s best done with a group of friends during spooky season! Plan to grab dinner or drinks before and/or after to make a full evening out of it. |
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