Dearly Departed Tours

Great idea for a tour and very informative. Guide was fantastic. Unfortunately I didn't know most of the people mentioned as my knowledge of movies and all things Hollywood is not great. Otherwise highly recommended.

reccommend

We took the Helter Skelter Tour having had a very positive experience with the Dearly Departed tour last year. This year's tour was also fantastic! Our tour guide Scott Michaels was engaging, well-informed, and kept us on the edge of our seats literally and figuratively! He obviously has a passion for this, which makes his tours so great. My son had read the book Helter Skelter and was interested to take the tour; I had not but after taking the tour I intend to read the book. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and would highly recommend the tour!

Ok, not really but I had a great time and so did my friend Donna. Brian was a great guide and he filled us with lots of useless but fun information. He told us about the Car Wash movie location that never was and sure enough our other tour told us that erroneuous information. If you want to go on a tour that shows interesting architecture along with salatious scandals this is the tour for you. I appreciated seeing the Chateau Marmont up close and the building that William Randolph Hearst bought for Mrs. Inch after Mr. Inch's untimely mysterious death. Thanks to Brian and to Scott and tell them Canadian Babe sent you!

Forget the commercial tours they are offering on Hollywood boulevard while walking there... This is a tour made by movie anthousiasts. Nice stories and a good collection of locations that made Hollywood history. They offer different tours and our next visit wil certainly contain another tour with this company. We suggest tours that cover more days and locations outside LA (for the big movie anthousiasts).

My teenage son and I had a one day stopover in LA. Looking for something a bit different to do, I found this tour and thought it would interest my movie-mad son. Boy, did it surpass expectations! Our guide and driver, Brian, felt like our best friend withing minutes of meeting him. Over the next couple of hours, we were entertained and educated on movie and TV locations throughout the Hollywood area. The concept of showing the actual movie clips on the screen, and relating them to the what you could see out the window, was just great. As a travel consultant, I am always on the look out for something different. Frankly, this tour was a gem. So much better than your run-of-the-mill, see-the-stars-homes-tours. I hope to be back to do the other tours someday. Keep up the good work, guys, we'll be back!

Our tour guide phil was very knowledgable and you could tell he enjoyed his work, good variety of things to see ranging from sites of scandal, places of death, and also celebrity homes. A few of the people and places mentioned i didn't know but the tour guide explained the back story etc. overall a great experience and would meet again. P.S you begin tour at a really cool bookstore, if you are looking for any movie related books you will find it there.

The two of us here from England in Hollywood thoroughly enjoyed the Dearly Departed Tour! Our tour guide and friend Richard Sebastian was absolutely wonderful, and everyone on the bus had a brilliant time! Highly recommended! :-)

The Dearly Departed tour is excellent! Very much recommended. We had only one day in LA and are happy we chose this tour to showcase the less seen side of Hollywoood. Pickup and dropoff loaction was very convinent. Driver was enthuasistic and fun. Tour was geared toward an older audience (i'm 26 and don't know much about old Hollywood) but alot of recent stuff was added that kept me intreagued and I enjoyed seeing parts of LA that other tours just don't visit! Must admit though, we were freaked out when the tour bus pulled up outside our hotel! A death next door and one across the street (i won't spoil it by telling you who and where) but... phew!! What a close call :)

Scott really knows the details of the event(s) and the tour is very thorough. Includes every location even remotely connected to the event, and includes pictures of everything, audio clips. Each of us even get a piece of memorabilia from the tragedy as well. And we get to stop at the infamous "George Michael" washroom during our bathroom break! Recommended!

My husband Rob and I went to Hollywood to celebrate my 40th birthday. We signed up for the Hollywood Movie Tours and Tragic History Tour and LOVED both. As I said in my other review I wish I could have taken the Charles Manson one too having read Helter Skelter as a teen. Maybe next time! What can I say? I was excited to have Scott as our tour guide as we own the Charles Manson DVD and thought he did an excellent job of this and knew he would not disappoint! What a personable, friendly guy he is! We thoroughly enjoyed our day with him and the other tourists and there was never a dull moment. So much to see and you will LOVE it if you are a movie buff. A handout was given at the end with a list of all the movie locations we saw that day. I am going to have to rent them all one by one LOL. You have to take this tour, Dearly Departed Tours are awesome! Love you guys! Kathy and Rob from Ottawa, Canada

My husband and I took this tour in March 2010 and it exceeded our expectations. I had read about it on the California About.com page and immediately signed us up! What a fascinating tour. I have always been interested in true crime and things that go bump in the night so this was definately up my alley LOL. Richard certainly knew his facts and provided a very interesting and entertaining tour for us complete with a binder for us to view and handouts. The air conditioned van was very comfortable, and excellent for taking pictures and we took lots! We also signed up for the Hollywood Movie Tour (I will do a seperate review on that, loved it too) but was bummed that the Charles Manson tour was not offered during our stay in Hollywood. Ah well we bought the DVD instead but maybe next time! Love you guys, you did an amazing job and I will be sure to tell all my friends about Dearly Departed Tours :-) Kathy and Rob from Ottawa, Canada

A nice mix of creepy and fun. Loved visiting Marilyn Munroe House and Florist. Our hotel was on the tour (Magic Castle). Hotel never told us about the Ghost. They should! as its a good selling point. Very friendly guide, very informative. Had a brilliant tour. A real highlight of our trip. Will take the Nasty Nellie Tour next time. Helter Skelter may be a bit full on for us. If you ever decide on an old time Movie Tour I'm there. Loved all the stuff re Judy, Marilyn, May etc. We will be back. Thankyou.

I am a international treveler,, and I attended LA conservancy's several tours in LA donwntown, and they have some brochure for map and description and I you have something like that.. you have 3 hour + tour with car and there are a lot even can not remember at once...

This tour showed many more homes of movie stars, current and departed, than another company's movie star homes tour we took. The homes were also more visible,not just fences or gates as the other company's tour. Our guide was entertaining, and gave us a lot of interesting inside information about the stars and places of interest around L.A.