Extreme Paranormal Underground Ghost Tour review
My verdict: the most divisive of the six and the lowest-rated at 4.3 from 886 ratings. Strictly 18+, after dark, a graveyard and the South Bridge chambers, and a guide dressed for the part. Book it for the performance and you will probably love it. Book it for the history of the vaults and you will probably feel short-changed.
What the 4.3 actually means
Four point three from 886 ratings would be a strong score almost anywhere. It is the weakest of these six, and the interesting thing is how it got there. The reviews do not trail off into mild disappointment; they fork. One group writes about a guide who had them jumping and laughing for 75 minutes. The other group writes, in so many words, that they came to learn about the vaults and got a haunted house instead. Both are describing the same tour accurately. It is a performance, and performances divide people in a way a museum does not.
So the useful question is not whether it is good. It is whether you are the first group or the second. If you have already read the haunted reputation and come away sceptical, you are the second group, and there is a better booking for you further down this page.
What the tour does
You meet at the police box on the Royal Mile after dark. The guide is dressed in character and works darkly — the pitch on the listing is hangings, torture, murders, witches and cannibals, and it does not undersell itself. The route takes in a graveyard and then the South Bridge chambers, reached by cobbles, steep narrow closes and a single spiral staircase. Part of the sell is the chance to try to catch paranormal evidence for yourself while you are down there. I will say plainly that I have never seen anything down there, and that a windowless stone room with no signal and no daylight will do a good deal to your nervous system without any help.
Usually included
- A theatrically dressed live guide, after dark
- A graveyard section before you go down
- Entry to the South Bridge chambers
- Food, per the listing
- The chance to try to record paranormal evidence yourself
Not included
- Tips, which are not included
- Anyone under eighteen, without exception
- Audio devices, a museum, a film or artefacts
- Step-free access — a spiral stair, cobbles and steep closes
- A quiet, history-led telling of what the chambers were for
What works
- When the guide lands, the reviews are the warmest on the whole site
- Adults-only means no one is managing a nervous child through it
- After dark in the closes is a genuinely different Old Town
- Seventy-five minutes and a graveyard as well as the chambers
- It is honest about what it is on the listing — read that listing
Worth knowing
- Lowest-rated of the six at 4.3, and the split is about substance
- If you want the history of the vaults, this is thin on it
- Paranormal evidence-gathering is a claim, not a result
- Strictly 18+, so it cannot be the family booking
- Cobbles, steep closes and a spiral stair, in the dark
What reviewers say
Three from the warm side, because that is where the good guides show up by name — Michael, James and David all recur.
James was so funny and made the experience so memorable.
Our guide David made us jump multiple times and he was interactive too.
He made it really gripping and funny throughout.
Read those carefully and you can see the product. Funny, gripping, interactive, made us jump. Nobody in that set is saying they learned when the bridge was built or why the chambers were abandoned. Fadi from the United Kingdom praised his guide’s information as well as the humour, and Danièle from Luxembourg called it a tour full of creepy discoveries — but the centre of gravity is clear.
Who it suits
Groups of adults out for the evening who want to be entertained and have no interest in being taught. People who actively enjoy being startled. Anyone who has done a straight history tour of the vaults already and wants the other version of the same rooms. It sits at the far end of the range on the night tours page for a reason.
Who should book something else instead
If you want to understand the chambers — who worked in them from 1788, why the damp drove the trades out by the 1820s, who lived down there afterwards, what came up in the 1990s excavation — book the historic small-group tour instead. It is 75 minutes as well, it is rated 4.7, and it hands you objects out of the rubble rather than a fright. If you want atmosphere with the history still intact, the evening tour with whisky is the middle ground. And if there is anyone under eighteen in the party, this listing is simply closed to you — start with the Underground Vaults Tour.
Do not book this as the first vaults tour of a trip if anyone in your group is on the fence about going underground at all. Start with a daytime tour, and come back to this one in the evening if the appetite is still there.
The calmer alternatives
History, not ghostsEdinburgh: Multi-Sensory Small-Group Historic Vaults Tour
Small groupEdinburgh: Underground Vaults Evening Ghost Tour with Whisky
Most bookedEdinburgh: Underground Vaults Tour
Frequently asked questions
Why is the Extreme Paranormal tour rated lower than the others?
Because it divides people. At 4.3 from 886 ratings it is the weakest of the six, and the reviews split between visitors who wanted the performance and loved it and visitors who wanted the history of the chambers and found it thin. Neither group is wrong about what they got.
Is there an age limit?
Yes — strictly eighteen and over, with no exceptions on the listing. It is the only one of the six that is adults-only. Age minimums across all six are compared on tours with children.
Will I actually see anything paranormal?
I have been down there many times and never have. What is real is the effect of a windowless stone room with no daylight, no phone signal and very little light — which is quite enough on its own. More on that on the haunted reputation.