Santa Monica has a second, spooky beat. This 1-hour US Ghost Adventures walking tour uses a lantern and street-level storytelling to connect the pier’s landmarks to ghostly tales like Celine Borde and Old Hollywood legends. I like the way the guide ties spooky moments to places you can actually point at—The Georgian Hotel, Chez Jay, bridges, and amusement rides.

The best part is the human energy of the guide: the stories come with confidence and clear pacing, so you’re not just shuffling along. The main drawback is simple—this is a walking tour and it is not recommended if you cannot walk more than a mile, and it runs rain or shine.

Key highlights worth planning for

• Meet under the Santa Monica Pier sign (Ocean Ave and Colorado Ave) with a guide carrying a lantern
• The Georgian Hotel stories told from the street, with first-hand-style paranormal accounts
• Old Hollywood stops around Chez Jay, including names like Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, and Marlon Brando
• Sunset skyline scanning for rooftop spirits as the water comes alive
• The Celine Borde mystery plus a ghostly carousel ride with a shadowy moment
• Extended option adds three more locations, including Pacific Wheel and a Marylin Monroe and JFK date story

Meeting at the Santa Monica Pier sign: how the tour really starts

The tour starts exactly where you want it to start: under the Santa Monica Pier sign at the corner of Ocean Avenue and Colorado Avenue (at the foot of Colorado Avenue). Your guide wears a US Ghost Adventures t-shirt and carries a lantern, which helps the whole thing feel grounded and easy to spot. Arrive about 15 minutes early so you’re not doing the awkward half-jog as the group forms.

From there, expect a classic guided walking format: the guide talks, you look around, you move to the next spot, and you get a new slice of the story. It’s a one-hour experience that keeps you close to the pier area and nearby streets, then wraps back where you began, circling back to the pier sign.

Two practical notes I really value here. First, you don’t need special gear beyond comfort and weather sense. Second, this tour’s meeting point is a real anchor—if you’ve spent time in Santa Monica before, you’ll recognize it right away. If you haven’t, you still get a clear target, which matters for any nighttime-style walk.

A one-hour lantern-led walk with history, hauntings, and city context

This tour is built to do two things at once. It gives you ghost stories, and it gives you place-based context so the spooky elements make sense. You’re not just being told random scary lines. Instead, the guide connects Santa Monica’s darker corners to broader threads: the gold rush era ties and the day of the dead connections.

That mix is what makes a ghost walk feel worth your time instead of like a gimmick. When the guide points to a building, a bar area, a bridge, or an old entertainment stop, you start seeing Santa Monica as a layered town—tourist postcard today, staging ground for larger-than-life characters long ago. It’s also why the Old Hollywood references land so well. Names like Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, and Marlon Brando aren’t floating in space. They’re tied to the streets and the vibe of the places the guide leads you through.

The pacing also helps. At one hour, you get enough time for momentum without dragging through endless stops. Still, keep your expectations realistic: you’ll be standing, walking, and looking around, so plan your energy. If you’re hoping for a sit-down theatrical show, you’ll probably feel less satisfied. This is a street tour—hands-on, eyes-up, and often a bit spooky.

The Georgian Hotel: hearing paranormal hijinks at the source

One highlight is the stop at The Georgian Hotel, where the guide shares paranormal hijinks and first-hand-style accounts. Even if you don’t consider yourself a paranormal believer, this is one of the most fun parts of any ghost tour: you’re standing in front of a real building that has history, and the guide gives you a reason to pay attention to details you’d otherwise ignore.

The value here is attention. The guide doesn’t just say spooky things happened. You get prompted to look at the way a place feels after dark, the kind of stories a hotel invites (secrets, late nights, strangers in and out), and the way the past can cling to the present in a coastal tourist town.

One thing I’d keep in mind: ghost tours work best when you let your imagination do a small job. You don’t have to believe; you just have to stay curious. If you show up tense or skeptical in a shut-it-off way, the tour may feel less fun. If you’re open to enjoying a good creepy narrative in a real setting, this stop is likely to be a standout moment.

Chez Jay and the Old Hollywood sightings at street level

Outside Chez Jay, the tour turns toward Old Hollywood energy. This is where the names hit: Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, and Marlon Brando. The guide uses these references to frame Santa Monica as a place that has long attracted fame, glamour, and bigger-than-life stories.

What I like about this section is the contrast. Santa Monica’s pier area can feel bright and casual in daylight. At night, with the guide leading the way and the lantern adding a little theater, those same references take on a different tone. You’re basically watching the town shift under your feet: from daytime destination to an older, moodier setting.

The tour also includes a skyline moment as the sun sets behind the water. You’ll be scanning the city skyline for rooftop spirits—one of those simple instructions that turns into an actual activity. Instead of passively listening, you’re looking. You’re noticing the angles, the rooftops, and the way lights reflect along the coast. It’s a small change that makes a big difference in how memorable the tour feels.

Gold rush clues and Day of the Dead connections

Santa Monica’s hauntings aren’t treated as random folklore. The guide ties the spooky vibe to two historical-cultural threads mentioned during the walk: Santa Monica’s ties to the gold rush and connections to the day of the dead.

That matters because it keeps the tour from becoming only about jump-scare energy. The gold rush angle adds a “how did people live here and why?” layer. The day of the dead connection adds a “how do we remember the past?” layer. Together, they help explain why ghost stories stick around. Places grow stories the way coastlines grow legends—slowly, repeatedly, and with enough evidence in local memory that people keep repeating the tale.

If you’re the type who likes a little meaning with your scares, this is where you’ll feel the tour earn its keep. You’ll leave with more than just a list of spooky stops—you’ll have a better sense of why Santa Monica’s past keeps showing up in its present.

Celine Borde and the ghostly carousel moment

A more mysterious thread in the tour is the disappearance of Celine Borde. The guide includes this as a central investigation during the walk, so it’s not just a throwaway name. It gives the tour a sense of momentum, like you’re gradually uncovering clues as you move from spot to spot.

Another standout is the ghostly carousel ride story, including a moment with a mysterious shadow. This is exactly the kind of thing that works well on a pier-area tour: it blends the history of amusement culture with the eerie tone the guide is building. Even if you’ve already seen Santa Monica’s attractions in the daytime, this reframes them. The same places you might treat like background become plot points.

Again, treat these as guided stories rather than confirmed facts. The fun is in the way the guide leads you to connect the dots between Santa Monica’s entertainment past and the eerie supernatural tone the tour is aiming for.

Bridges, bars, hotels, and amusement rides: why the route works

The tour covers a chain of haunted locations across different types of spots—hotels, bars, bridges, and amusement rides. That matters because each category carries its own style of lore. Hotels can feel secretive. Bars can feel confessional. Bridges invite lingering stories of nights you can’t quite place. Amusement rides bring in a playful-but-creepy contrast, like fun that won’t fully let go.

This variety keeps the experience from getting monotonous. In a one-hour window, you don’t want the whole time to be the same kind of stop. Here, you get quick shifts in mood: listening to a hotel story, then looking around for skyline spirits, then turning the tone again with amusement-style spooky moments. It’s a simple format, but it’s effective.

You also end up with a natural way to explore. Even if you’ve never done a ghost tour before, the guide gives you permission to slow down. You’ll notice corners and details you might have skipped while shopping or heading straight to the pier.

The tour ends back at the Santa Monica Pier sign, so you get a clean start and finish without hunting for where to meet your group again.

Extended option: Pacific Wheel and the Marylin Monroe and JFK story

If you choose the extended tour option, you’ll visit three additional haunted locations after the core 1-hour experience. One of the added stops is the Pacific Wheel, where the story says the ghost of Marylin Monroe has been spotted on a date with John F. Kennedy.

That’s the kind of urban legend that sounds almost too cinematic until you’re standing there and the guide is framing it in the language of local lore. This extended add-on is likely best for people who enjoy longer stories and want more time inside the same creepy tone—especially if you’re arriving early enough to keep the rest of your evening flexible.

One practical way to decide: if you like the idea of a quick, focused hour, the standard option fits. If you’re looking for more stops and more layers of story around the pier area, the extended option gives you that extra time.

Price and value: is $24 fair for a 1-hour haunted walk?

At $24 per person for a 1-hour guided experience, the value comes from three things you’re clearly getting: a live guide, a planned route with multiple haunted locations, and stories tied to specific Santa Monica settings (not generic scares). You’re also not paying extra for transportation, since transportation isn’t included.

For me, the best way to think about the price is this: you’re buying time and interpretation. A self-guided ghost walk is possible, but you’ll have to do the guesswork yourself. Here, the guide supplies the narrative thread, points you toward the sites, and keeps the pacing moving.

This is also one of those activities that can slot in nicely. Because it’s one hour and it returns you to the pier sign, you can book it before dinner, after a beach stroll, or as your evening anchor. If you’re already in the area and looking for something guided, $24 feels like a reasonable entry ticket into a more characterful side of Santa Monica.

Who should book, and who should skip this pier haunt walk

This is a good match if you want:

• A walking tour with a lantern-led guide and a clear meeting point
• Ghost stories tied to real pier-area places like The Georgian Hotel and Chez Jay
• A mix of spooky entertainment with some historical-cultural context (gold rush ties and day of the dead)

You should probably skip or reconsider if:

• You cannot walk more than a mile. The tour is not recommended for that situation.
• You strongly dislike rain plans. The tour runs rain or shine, so you’ll want weather-appropriate clothing.
• You’re sensitive to creepy themes. This isn’t horror-movie gore, but it is meant to be spooky.

One more logistics note: bring an ID/passport, wear comfortable shoes, and expect no smoking, no alcohol or drugs, and no video recording. These rules keep the atmosphere focused and respectful, but it also means you should plan to experience it without recording everything.

Should you book Santa Monica Ghosts and Phantoms of the Pier?

Book it if you’re curious about a street-level version of Santa Monica’s past—one that blends haunted stories, Old Hollywood names, and pier-area landmarks into a guided walk that doesn’t overstay its welcome. The $24 price is easiest to justify when you value a live guide and want someone to point out what to notice.

Don’t book it if you have limited walking ability or you hate being out in real weather with real footing. And if you want a purely factual historical tour, this one leans supernatural. It’s meant to be fun, slightly eerie, and human, with the guide’s performance doing much of the heavy lifting—which, based on the strongest praise, is exactly where this experience shines.

FAQ

Where is the meeting point for the Santa Monica Pier walking tour?

All tours meet under the Santa Monica Pier sign at the intersection of Ocean Avenue and Colorado Avenue, at the foot of Colorado Avenue. Your guide will be wearing a US Ghost Adventures t-shirt and carrying a lantern.

When should I arrive for the tour?

Please arrive 15 minutes before your tour start time.

How long is the tour?

The tour duration is 1 hour. Starting times vary, so check availability for exact start times.

How much does it cost?

The price is $24 per person.

Does the tour run in bad weather?

Yes. The tour takes place rain or shine.

What should I bring?

Bring a passport or ID card, comfortable shoes, and weather-appropriate clothing.

Is the tour wheelchair accessible?

The activity is listed as wheelchair accessible, but it is not recommended for people who cannot walk more than a mile.

What is not allowed during the tour?

Smoking is not allowed. Alcohol and drugs are not allowed, and video recording is not allowed.

Where does the tour end?

The activity ends back at the meeting point under the Santa Monica Pier sign.

Is there an extended tour option, and what extra stop is mentioned?

Yes. The extended tour option visits three additional haunted locations, including the Pacific Wheel, where the ghost of Marylin Monroe is described as being spotted on a date with John F. Kennedy.

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