US Ghost Adventures Review: Shadows, Scandals & Secrets of Old Town Sacramento

May 10

This experience was hosted in exchange for honest coverage. All impressions, reactions, and opinions — including our collective side-eye at a very well-timed flickering light — are genuinely ours. This post may contain affiliate links.

If your idea of a family night out includes wooden boardwalks, riverfront views, a little dark history, and someone in your group whispering “Wait… did you see that?” — Old Sacramento understood the assignment.

We joined the US Ghost Adventures on the Shadows, Scandals & Secrets of Old Town Sacramento Ghost Tour on a night that turned into one of those unexpectedly great family outings. I brought my nieces and nephew — ages 12, 14, and 16 — and what none of us expected was just how much history was hiding underneath those wooden boardwalks.

Old Sacramento isn’t just charming. It’s layered. And this tour pulls back the curtain on every dark, strange, complicated thing that happened here before it became a destination for ice cream and riverfront strolls.

Old Sacramento Waterfront: More Than a Pretty Backdrop

Before you book the ghost tour, know this: Old Sacramento Waterfront is worth the trip all on its own.

This is one of the best-preserved Gold Rush-era districts in California. The wooden boardwalks, the cobblestone streets, the 19th-century brick storefronts — it’s the kind of place that already feels like it’s holding onto something. Candy shops, ice cream parlors, restaurants, toy stores, and riverfront views make it a genuinely fun family stop before or after any evening activity.

It’s also home to the California State Railroad Museum — one of the most impressive railroad museums in the country — which makes this an easy full-day destination. Come early, explore, eat dinner on the waterfront, let everyone pick out candy they definitely don’t need, and then walk straight into a ghost tour as the sun goes down.

But here’s the thing about Old Sacramento that the daytime version doesn’t fully show you: this city has a complicated, sometimes brutal past. The Gold Rush brought fortune and chaos in equal measure. Floods, fires, disease, crime, and exploitation all shaped this place long before the tourist shops moved in. The ghost tour is essentially a walk through that history — with the lights off.

How to Book the Old Sacramento Ghost Tour (+ Save 10%)

The Shadows, Scandals & Secrets tour is available through two platforms:

• US Ghost Adventures — Sacramento

• Lizzie Borden Ghost Tours — Sacramento

Use code TPO10 at checkout for 10% off your booking. Valid on both platforms.

Before You Go: Finding the Meeting Spot

One thing worth flagging: the confirmation email and text messages sent us to slightly different locations. One referenced a Ferris wheel that no longer exists at the waterfront.

The actual meeting point: Waterfront Park · 1240 Sacramento Riverbike Trail · Front Street between K & L Streets · next to the restrooms.

Arrive 10–15 minutes early and head straight there. Once you’re in the right spot, the tour gets going quickly.

The Guide

We had a great guide for the night, Ethan — enthusiastic, clearly knowledgeable, and the kind of storyteller who makes you forget you’re technically on a tourist tour. His delivery is a big part of why the history lands the way it does. He layers humor and weight in the right places, and you can tell he genuinely loves the material.

If you get the same guide we did: you’re in good hands. If you don’t: the history is compelling enough on its own. But a great delivery absolutely elevates it.

What the Tour Actually Covers: The History Behind the Haunts

The Shadows, Scandals & Secrets tour moves through Old Sacramento’s most historically loaded locations, spending time at each stop to tell the real stories — not just the ghost legends, but the actual events that gave rise to them. That combination is what makes it land differently than a typical spooky walk.

The tour is well-suited for families with older kids and teens. It’s creepy without being cruel, and historically rich without feeling like a lecture. We did the standard tour plus the extended version, and below is what you’ll encounter at each stop.

The Delta King

The Delta King is a historic paddle-wheel riverboat permanently moored along the Sacramento River, and it carries the kind of presence that makes you feel something before anyone says a word. Built in 1927, it once ferried passengers between Sacramento and San Francisco. Today it’s a hotel and restaurant — and, according to a long paper trail of unexplained activity, home to several lingering spirits.

The most reported presence is a child — said to leave wet footprints on dry floors, produce disembodied laughter in empty hallways, and generally make hotel guests question their life choices. There’s also a long history of accounts from staff and guests describing cold spots, moved objects, and an overwhelming sense of being watched in certain corridors.

Then there’s the heavier side of the Delta King — something described consistently as an unfriendly, oppressive energy in specific parts of the boat. The tone shifts noticeably when this one comes up, and that shift alone is worth the stop.

For the record: the 12-year-old was intrigued. The 16-year-old said he wasn’t scared. His face said otherwise.

Eagle Theatre

The Eagle Theatre holds the distinction of being the first permanent theatre built in California, constructed in 1849 during the height of the Gold Rush. It burned down, was rebuilt, flooded repeatedly, and somehow kept coming back — which may explain why whatever is inside feels like it has nowhere else to go.

The most documented phenomenon here is the lights. Flickering, dimming, and going out entirely in ways that electricians have investigated and failed to explain. Furniture has reportedly been found moved. The general energy of the space has been described as watched — like the room is aware of you.

And then, while we were standing right outside it, the lights flickered. I’m not saying it was a ghost. I’m saying the timing was deeply disrespectful to my nervous system. All three kids went completely quiet and huddled together. We all did.

Sacramento Tunnels & the Open Field

This stop is where the tour gets into the history that’s darker than ghost stories — and that’s saying something.

Old Sacramento sits on top of itself. After repeated floods in the 1860s, the city was literally raised — buildings were lifted and new street-level construction happened above what used to be the ground floor. The original ground level became a network of underground tunnels and passages that still exist beneath the city today.

Those tunnels were connected to some of the more disturbing chapters of Sacramento’s past, including Shanghaiing — the practice of drugging or kidnapping men (and sometimes women) and forcing them onto ships bound for overseas labor. It was real, it was documented, and it happened in places that now have candy shops above them.

This stop also covers the legend of the Rat King — tied to cult activity in the area — and at least one ghost story where the sighting itself is said to carry consequences. The kids’ faces during this section were a combination of fascinated, horrified, and deeply suspicious of the ground they were standing on.

Ghost tours aren’t just about ghosts. They’re about the real people, real events, and real injustices that a city has tucked out of sight. This stop makes that clear.

Last Stop Saloon

The name is doing a lot of work here, and the history lives up to it.

During the cholera epidemic that swept Sacramento in the 1850s, more than 3,000 people died in a three-month period. The city was overwhelmed. Locations throughout Old Sacramento — including the area around what is now Last Stop Saloon — were used as emergency morgues and staging areas for the dead and dying.

We had an EMF reader with us and it spiked as we passed this location. Whether you believe in what that means or not, knowing what happened here changes how the building feels. One minute you’re walking through a lively waterfront neighborhood. The next, you’re standing somewhere that absorbed an enormous amount of grief.

The Extended Tour: Two More Stops

The standard tour ends at Last Stop Saloon. The extended version adds two more stops, and if your group has the stamina, we’d recommend it.

Brannan Manor

Sam Brannan is one of the most fascinating and polarizing figures in California Gold Rush history. He was the man who famously ran through San Francisco shouting about the discovery of gold, reportedly making himself the first California millionaire not by mining — but by selling supplies to miners. He built Sacramento, helped found the city’s infrastructure, and then lost almost everything.

The spirits associated with Brannan Manor lean toward the theatrical end of the ghost spectrum — including a female prospector said to haunt lone men specifically. This stop brings some levity back after the heavier history at Last Stop Saloon, and the family suddenly became very aware of their proximity to other people.

The Transcontinental Railroad Stop

The final extended stop moves into true-crime territory — specifically, crimes connected to the Sacramento region in more recent history, including a discussion of Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., the Golden State Killer, who terrorized communities across Northern and Southern California for decades before his arrest in 2018.

This section is handled factually and without graphic detail, which was the right call for our group. But it’s a sobering way to close out the night — a reminder that some of the most haunting stories aren’t supernatural at all, and that history isn’t always something that happened a long time ago.

What the Kids Said

Three different ages, three different takeaways.

• Age 12: “Entertaining, interesting, and scary in just the right amount.”

• Age 14: “Interesting, educational, and entertaining.” (And yes, she said all three, in that order. That’s the combination you want.)

• Age 16: “Very interesting.” For a skeptical teenager who walked in expecting to be unimpressed — that’s the win.

When three kids of different ages all walk away with something genuine to say about a family experience, that’s the measure that matters.

Would We Recommend It?

Yes — especially for families with tweens and teens, history curious kids, or anyone who wants to experience Old Sacramento as something more than a charming waterfront district.

What makes this tour work isn’t just the ghost stories — it’s that the ghost stories are grounded in real history. The Delta King existed. The Eagle Theatre burned and flooded and rebuilt. The tunnels are still there. The cholera epidemic killed thousands of people in this exact neighborhood. Knowing that changes how you walk through it and as a homeschool family, incorporating education is what we do on our travels, tours and everyday life.

Old Sacramento is already fun during the day. But at night — with the history turned all the way up and a group of kids pretending they’re not looking over their shoulders?

It becomes a memory. And that’s always my favorite kind of family adventure.

Plan Your Visit: Everything You Need to Know

Meeting Point

Waterfront Park · 1240 Sacramento Riverbike Trail · Front Street between K & L Streets · next to the restrooms

Note: The confirmation email and text may reference different spots, including a Ferris wheel that no longer exists. Go directly to Waterfront Park and give yourself extra time.

Good to Know Before You Go

• Best ages: Tweens and teens (10+). The extended tour covers heavier true-crime history — best for 13+.

• Scare level: Spooky and atmospheric. Not graphic. Appropriate for kids who can handle dark history without nightmares.

• Walking: Cobblestone streets and wooden boardwalks throughout. Comfortable shoes are a must.

• Layer up: Old Sacramento gets breezy at night, especially near the river.

• Parking: Multiple garages in Old Sacramento — easy to find, reasonably priced.

• Make it a full evening: Dinner, candy shops, the riverfront, and then the tour. The area is worth lingering in before dark.

• Day trip add-on: The California State Railroad Museum is right there and pairs beautifully with the history angle — especially for homeschool families.

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