JULY 17-24, 2023: "Dracula Tour Part 2" Return with us to England
(all activities / attractions / guests / events are subject to change)
GHOSTour Itinerary
Life at home ends as we know it today. Depart your normal, mundane, human existence for a paranormal experience to foreign soil. Join fellow friends & fiends as we board our transatlantic flight as a group for what should be the greatest ghostly & ghastly vacation of your lifetime. Everyone on the flight gets a goodie swag bag filled with horror magazines & other scary surprises.
There's no turning back now. Keep telling yourself: this is only a vacation… only a vacation… only a vacation…
Day 2 - LONDON: HIGHGATE VAMPIRES & SPIRITS
Land in London, the ghost capital of Europe. Be prepared to discover over two thousand years of England's haunted history - over two thousand years of the Dead. We're picked up at airport by our ghoulish guide, Ghost-hunter Alan Murdie, and check into the hotel. Meet and greet with a quick group orientation and then start our adventure with a tour of famed Highgate Cemetary, one of the inspirations for Bram Stoker's "Dracula" - filled with ghosts - and the site of the 1970s Highgate Vampire, where people were arrested for opening tombs and staking their inhabitants.
Weather permitting, we will then walk a mile across the woods and fields of Hampstead Heath, lurking place of highwaymen in previous centuries, until we get to the The Spaniards Inn, haunted by the famous highwayman Dick Turpin. We will have dinner (optional) and drinks at this pub, and be joined by a very special guest, author Robert Rietti from the BBC. He will thrill us with his very intimate and exclusive presentation, "Spooky Coincidences." Afterwards, we make our way back to our hotel. Pleasant dreams . . . sleep with the spirits.
Day 3 - LONDON DUNGEON, TOWER OF LONDON, JACK THE RIPPER, BRAM STOKERS LYCEUM THEATRE, GHOST PLAY, MORE
Our morning begins as we visit the famed London Dungeon - a grim museum of plague, execution, torture, civil war and worse. It's awesome! Experience the recently erected London Dungeon thrill ride. Bring some spending money for the London Shop of Horrors, a wonderfully evil gift shop. We then visit the Tower of London (look for the ghosts of Boris Karloff, Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone from the classic film of the same name!). No sampling the Crown Jewels. Don't miss the torture room.
After lunch at a local pub we make our way to London's East End, in Victorian times a vile slum, filled with prostitutes and murderers (and not all that much better now!). This was where Jack The Ripper butchered his victims. We take the complete, unedited, uncensored sinister Jack the Ripper tour, and return to Bloomsbury where we will make an informal pub crawl 'round the drinking haunts.
If time allows, we will venture to London's West End to see a theatrical play (especially if we get tickets to something thematically fitting, such as the ghost story production "The Woman in Black" or even "Phantom of the Opera"). On the way through the Covent Garden theater district, we stop at the famed Lyceum Theatre on Wellington Street, where Bram Stoker worked as manager for 27 years. Return to the hotel, collapse into bed and try to sleep - but perhaps, after what you have seen and heard so far, sleep will not come easily. We're only just getting started.
Day 4 - ESSEX, HAUNTED INN, BORLEY, GHOSTHUNTING
Journey to Essex for the first leg of our journey north. The ghost-hunting officially begins.
We will watch ghost films on our coach trip to the site of Borley rectory - now burnt down but once known as the most haunted spot in England - site of mysterious fires and strange deaths among those who investigated it. The church still stands and is the site of unbelievable paranormal activity to this day. The locals at Borley frown upon those who come to uncover its secrets, so don't expect a welcome wagon (but maybe a hearse or two). And don't expect to take clear photos here . . . they may very well develop with other shapes, orbs and unusual images. Near Borley is another haunted surprise church, open for us to take picture from atop its tower.
From Borley we travel to the typically English Bury St Emunds with its Saxon ghosts and perhaps to the Mill Hotel in Sudbury for a meal. Displayed beneath the floor in the hotel lobby lies the eerie mummified remains of a cat. The mystery of this mummy cat is explained to you on the trip.
Dinner tonight is at "Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem." This is not only the oldest pub in Britain, it is also one of the most haunted, and to top it off, it's built into the edge of the Nottingham forest, home of legendary Robin Hood.
End the full days of activities with the Lincoln Ghost Walk, hosted by the enchanted Margaret. Not for the squeamish! If you have a single room, you may want to find a companion tonight, it's unadvisable to sleep alone.
Day 5 - CASTLE RISING, NORFOLK, and YORK
We begin the day with a coach ride to Castle Rising in Norfolk. This castle of ruins is haunted by the screams of the notorious "she wolf" -- Queen Isabella of France -- who engineered the murder of her husband King Edward II with a red hot poker. Afterwards, Edward III, her own son, avenged his father by killing Isabella. Her screams still echo over the countryside. The photo opportunities here are endless. We press on north to York. York, the capital of the north of England, was founded by the Roman Army in 70 A.D. as they marched on to conquer the island of Britain. York remained the most important city in the north until the Industrial Revolution. It was Roman, then Saxon, then the Vikings set up the Kingdom of York. Their most famous king was the terrifying Erik Bloodaxe. The oldest houses still occupied in York date from the 1300's, and York is literally filled with ghosts - from the spectres of the lost Roman 9th Legion who disappeared from history in the early 2nd century to Victorian to even more modern ghosts.
We explore the city of Yok, including the York Minster, and perhaps visit "The Sign of The Bible, a purple building which houses the Psychic Museum. Located at 35 Stonegate, the house stands on a site that has been continuously occupied since AD 71. It is a timber framed construction over six centuries old which boasts an impressive number of original features, including beautiful beams and rooms of oak paneling. You will also have the chance to see your own aura or energy field revealed and projected with Harry Oldfield's pioneering PIP scanner. No special expertise is required to enjoy the journey through the many rooms of this unique venue. All aspects of the journeys engage the curiosity of absolute beginners while satisfying the demands of our more experienced guests. The price includes an Aura photograph and a Dowsing Pendulum. £10 per photo/person
The evening ends either with a séance or the Haunted Walk of York, a historical ghost walk with no masks, no gimmicks, just traditional story telling at its best. 1.5 hour guided walk round the streets of this 2000 year old city called the most haunted in Europe. Ending at the Golden Fleece.
Day 6 - WHITBY and the DRACULA EXPERIENCE!
Depart York for Whitby! Ah yes -- the highlight of past trips. Today we travel the coast to the town of Whitby. On the way, you have the option of participating in our "ghost trivia" competition for fun and prizes. Whitby dates back to the Dark Ages when there was a Celtic Monastery on the cliff. Whitby is most famous as the place where Count Dracula landed in England. Though fiction, Bram Stoker chose Whitby because of its uncannily eerie and ominous atmosphere and its folk legends, such as that of the great black dog which still haunts the quays. Vampire fans will be in their glory. We start at the Abbey Ruins, inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula novel, and an amazing sightseeing experience for one and all.
Continue into town for the colorful and entertaining "The Dracula Experience." Located along the waterside, the indoor mini theme park known as "The Dracula Experience" offers an interactive journey with the help of live actors, animation, special lighting and sound effects. It's a house of horror telling the story of the most famous vampire of them all. Stop in to some of the many occult and goth shops in the city before we take the evening's Dracula Walking Tour.
"Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own free will!" Walk and talk where Dracula stalked. Follow the trail and linger in the streets where vampires may still abound. Call it a holiday pastime if you like, but be prepared for an experience you may never forget! From outside the Royal Hotel, West Cliff, where Bram Stoker lived, we understand how he was inspired to write the novel. This is followed by the Whitby Walks, hosted by Harry Collett, "THE MAN IN BLACK," ensuring that you reach the parts of Whitby that others miss.
We leave Whitby and spend the night in Hull, one of the scarier places on the tour for reasons you wouldn't expect.
Day 7 - CAMBRIDGE, INGRID PITT and our GALA MASQUERADE BALL
Cambridge is the home town of our tour host and guide Alan Murdie, and his Ghost walk of the city is the perfect finishing touch to a fun-filled and fear-filled week of horror, ghosts and entertainment.
Get ready for our farewell gala party -- our infamous "anything goes" masquerade ball. Change into your costume, put on your make-up and transform yourself. We will present awards for the scariest, sexiest and most creative costumes. Anything goes, as we re-create haunted Halloween in September with some spooktacularly sinister surprises.
As part of our gala farewell anything-goes extravaganza, we hope to salute a star of the horror world. On the last GHOSTour, we paid tribute to one of the legendary greats of the horror cinema, the one and only Ingrid Pitt. Best known as Hammer Films' most seductive female vampire, Ingrid Pitt's sultry, alluring features and a sexy figure made her just right for gothic horror! A much loved and genuine cult figure of modern horror cinema, Ingrid Pitt was our very special guest of honor on this year's GHOSTour to England, her home country. We had a meet & greet session as part of a gala banquet in honor of her glorious and gore-ious career.
A much loved and genuine cult figure of modern horror cinema, Ingrid Pitt is our very special guest of honor on this year's GHOSTour to England, her home country. We will have a meet & greet session as part of a gala banquet in honor of her glorious and gore-ious career.
Day 8 - FAREWELL TO HAUNTED ENGLAND, RETURN HOME
Pack, check out of the hotel, and bid a fond farewell to the United Kingdom. For those of you who have survived our gala masquerade ball and GHOSTour, transfer by coach to the airport for our return flight home. Say goodbye to the haunts of Britain, and all your new friends. Make sure the only spirits you take back with you came from the pubs!
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