Historic Newburgh Shop

this will be a totally mixed review. i had a totally, totally bad experience signing up for a ghost tour with a group of friends for my birthday (details later). the tour itself was really quite good.
i suppose i should start off by saying that i love non-​profits and particularly non-​profits that deal with historic preservation. i volunteer at one frequently and wouldn’t want to do anything to go against their mission.
myself and three of my friends decided that we would all go on a ghost tour for my birthday. one of my friends is quite thoughtful and proactive and said that she would call in advance and get the reservations made. she also said that there was incentive in doing so because the tickets would be less expensive.
she called two days ahead of time and left a message. i called the next day and didn’t leave one. we never got a return call.
on the day of the ghost tour (and my bday) i decided to pop into the office and ask if my friend was on the list yet. i said that i would purchase tickets if she wasn’t. the lady in the office fumbled through the list and couldn’t find my friend’s name. the other lady found her name scrawled on a paper buried beneath a bunch of other papers and indicated that those were the people she hadn’t yet had time to contact back.
this normally wouldn’t have been a problem, but i was also informed that all the tours except for the one at 9PM were all sold out. also, we were going to take two legs of the tour, and the 9PM tour was the last one.
i kind of lost it. it was my bday. you’re allowed to be a brat, right? anyways… i thought it was totally lame that we were being denied a place in the tour just because the lady working there hadn’t followed a logical pecking order. i guess i freaked out sufficiently, and the lady was probably worried that i wouldn’t stop… so she conceded to add three extra people to the 9 o’clock tour.
i still hadn’t confirmed with two of the three birthday celebraters if this would be ok… and i was worried because they had a small child at home, but it turns out those times were ok for them. the lady said ‘it’s only $ 9, and it goes to a good cause’…she didn’t say $ 9 for each person and each tour. i suppose i could have scalped the tickets if my friends had not been able to go at that time.
i’m glad that they were able to go, but this laissez-​faire treatment i received over something that was illogical and rude on their part was completely infuriating.
so…we went to the meetup spot for the 8 o’clock tour, and we were informed that they were running late. we went on the tour, and it was fun, but it ended too late to go on the 9 o’clock tour.
fortunately the ladies back at the meetup spot were sensitive to our plight and very understanding. they refunded us for the tour we didn’t get to take, as well as the additional $ 2 off each ticket that we were supposed to have received for calling in advance to make the reservation.
i would never undermine a preservation non-​profit, and i don’t write a lot of negative reviews in general. i’m from the midwest where i was taught to not say anything if you can’t say anything nice. i just wanted people to know what to expect when dealing with this particular organization. clearly it’s a mixed bag!