Portland Maine Ghost Tours: Two Walks Along the Old Port

Portland's ghost stories are maritime. That sounds like a distinction without a difference until you take one of these tours and notice that most of the material involves the water — drownings, wrecks, disappearances, and a sea serpent.

It's a working waterfront city that has burned down more than once, and the Old Port's brick and cobbles are what got rebuilt afterwards. Two operators walk it.

The two tours

Portland Old Port Ghost Walk

$31.82 per person, ninety minutes, nightly at 8pm, minimum age 13. Meets at the 4th Ferry Landing in DiMillo's Marina.

That price deserves a note, because it's unusual in a good way: American Ghost Walks states the figure includes all taxes and fees. Across everything we've checked in New England — dozens of tours and attractions — this is the only operator publishing an all-in number. Everywhere else, the price you see is the price before checkout adds to it.

The route covers the Old Port waterfront district: apparitions, psychic phenomena, and Cassie, the sea serpent reported off Casco Bay in the 1800s. Easy-to-moderate walking.

The 13+ minimum is worth catching before you book with a family.

Phantoms, Penance, and Poltergeists

One hour, about a mile, meeting at Bell Buoy Park, 54 Commercial Street.

US Ghost Adventures' Portland tour is the shorter of the two and covers the same stretch of working waterfront. What the operator does not publish anywhere on its own tour page is a price. We looked; it isn't there. Any figure you find quoted elsewhere came from a reseller, not from them.

This is the same pattern we found with the same company's Portsmouth and Newport tours — meeting point, duration and frequency published, price withheld until checkout.

Which to take

Take the Old Port Ghost Walk if you want a known total, a longer tour, and a published age policy. Knowing the real number in advance is worth more than it sounds when the alternative won't tell you one.

Take the shorter tour if ninety minutes is too long or 8pm doesn't fit — but call first and ask what it costs.

What Portland's stories are built on

The city has burned repeatedly. The Great Fire of 1866 — which started, memorably, on the Fourth of July — destroyed a huge portion of Portland and left thousands homeless. Much of the Old Port you walk through is what went up afterwards, which is why the architecture reads as so consistent.

The waterfront was a working, dangerous place. Sailors, cargo, rum, and the constant background attrition of a nineteenth-century port. A great many of Portland's ghost stories are drowning stories.

Casco Bay had a sea serpent. Cassie was reported repeatedly through the 1800s and taken seriously enough to make newspapers. As with Champ on Lake Champlain, the sightings are real events even if the animal isn't — people saw something and reported it in good faith, and the honest question is what.

Practical notes

Parking fills early on Commercial Street and both operators mention it. Allow real time.

Cobbles, in the dark, near water. Not shoes you care about.

Portland is the base for Maine's other haunted options. Fort Knox with its four confirmed 2026 events is about two hours northeast, and Bar Harbor's tours — including the only Indigenous-owned tour company in the state — are around three.

The Haunted Almanac

We check all 50 New England haunted attractions against their own websites, every week. 25 have published 2026 dates so far. Last sweep: September 15.

The ones that matter never announce. Spooky World published twenty-three nights and put them nowhere but its ticket widget; Scary Acres rebuilt its whole site in nine days without a word. We find those and send them to you. Free, and one click gets you out.

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