New City Sightseeing Trolley Tour Business Opens In Sarasota
Visitors and residents alike now have an engaging and informative NEW attraction in which to experience Sarasota’s multi-layered past. Discover Sarasota Tours, which offers four different daily and nightly sightseeing tours aboard an air-conditioned trolley opened near downtown in October.
In addition to the City Sightseeing Tours, Happy Hour Sightseeing Tours, Circus Tours and the Ghost Tour of Sarasota, Discover Sarasota Tours also offers special monthly tours. These tours include: Public Art of Sarasota, Psychic Sundays and The Amish Experience. New specialty tours will be added in each month.
All tours depart from the DST Trolley Depot located in a cute 1930s cottage near downtown with a charming vintage gift shop. The 90-minute tours are led by tour guides most of whom have acting or entertainment backgrounds. Early daytime tours run at 10 AM, afternoon tours begin at 1 PM, happy hour tours begin at 5 PM and the ghost tour runs at 7:30 PM. Nighttime tours include complimentary beer or wine in the trolley cottage tiki bar.
Tammy Hauser, founder and CEO of Discover Sarasota Tours, says, “When I moved here from Minneapolis, I could not believe there were no city sightseeing tours, given the number of tourists who visit us. So, I put my love of theater, entertainment, tours, and Sarasota all together to come up with this business. There are so many niche areas to explore with our tours. The response has been really positive,” she says.
Hauser wants the tours to be entertaining, so she’s loaded them up with information about interesting people, intriguing places, and amazing stories. There’s a city sightseeing tour that provides an overview of Sarasota, a circus tour that shares Sarasota history from a circus perspective and a ghost tour that Hauser describes like this: high jinx, bootlegging, gangsters, murders, scandals and of course, ghosts.
“Discover Sarasota Tours is my gift to Sarasota,” says Hauser. “I want to share my love of Sarasota with everyone who visits as well as residents who may not know about her fascinating past,” she added.
Tour tickets and information can be found online at discoversarasotatours.com. For information call 941-260-9818. Private groups start at 20+ passengers. There is also a TOUR-ISTA membership program for serial tour-goers, offering discounts and tickets to the annual Trolley Bash.
About us:
Discover Sarasota Tours offers entertaining, interactive and informative airconditioned
trolley tours of the most interesting people, intriguing places, and
amazing stories that shaped Sarasota’s rich cultural past.
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