Family Trip to New Orleans, Louisiana
Need a destination for a quick family getaway? Try New Orleans, Louisiana.
In January of 2019 my daughter got 2 extra days off of school around MLK Jr. Day, and we decided to take a family trip during the 5-day long weekend. Although we considered going to New York, NY first, luckily we decided to go to New Orleans, LA instead. (The weather in NY was far from pleasant during the weekend.)
In this post I just wanted to share what places we visited (with a 14 year old), in case someone else is looking for great stuff to do there. In future posts I will write about a few of these places in detail.
First of all, after a whole day of searching for places to go to and things to do I decided, that the New Orleans City Pass was not going to work for us. Since this was a family trip and we wanted to enjoy our time in the Crescent City, we did not want to rush from one attraction to the next one all day long. I planned two major things to do every day, and we filled the rest of the time with small walks, etc. I did find many great deals on www.livingsocial.com, and I was able to get discounted tickets for 3 out of 6 places there. If you are interested in the various city passes, this article compares them very well.
We arrived Friday night, and after settling into our hotel on the Gretna side of the river we took a Lift ride into the French Quarter. We had dinner, then just wandered around and admired the great architecture. During our wandering we ended up on Bourbon Street, which was super interesting to say the least. It was FULL of people, music and entertainment. It was so full, that we felt a bit claustrophobic, and decided not to walk through the whole street.
If you have smaller kids, I would not recommend walking here at night, but do go and check it out during the day. With kids walk to Café du Monde instead, which is open 24 hours a day, and they serve the famous Beignet with Chicory coffee or hot chocolate.
The weather forecast predicted rain and wind for Saturday, so we mostly tried to plan indoor activities. We stepped into Mardi Gras World just a minute after it started raining, and during our almost 2 hour stay it didn’t stop. (Other indoor attractions in case it rains: WWII Museum, Art Museum, Aquarium).
Visiting Mardi Gras World was really fun. In addition to seeing the supersized props that ornate the floats and trying some King Cake, we also learned about the history of Mardi Gras, how it is financed, how big Mardi Gras is, and how proud of it the people of New Orleans are.
Something else we decided to do in the rain was getting on a Hop On Hop Off bus and see the city from there. They run a 2-hour long loop between 9:30 and 5:30, and you can get off and get on it as many times as you want to at any of the 16 stops.
We did get wet a bit on top of the bus, but mainly just from rain dripping down on the side. I was able to take pictures of the city with my DSLR during the whole trip, even while it was raining. The tour guide was very funny, he had lots of stories to tell us about the places we drove by. Since I mostly used by “big” camera, I only have these two phone pictures to show you now, and a short video my husband made:
When it stopped raining, we walked in the French Quarter.
My husband made this short video:
Our second full day started at Whitney Plantation. Visiting a plantation was a must for me, and after doing some research and reading a local’s comment about the only non-romanticizing plantation in the area, we decided to go to Whitney. This plantation is a museum that tells the story of slavery. The 90 minute walking tour focuses on the lives of the enslaved. It was very educational, our guide had “great”, very sad stories to tell us. I haven’t seen the other plantations, so I cannot compare them to this one, but I would highly recommend it to those who are interested in this dark history of the USA.
From the plantation we drove back to the French Quarter and attended a cooking demonstration at the New Orleans School of Cooking. (You can also do hands-on cooking with them, but participants need to be over 18). Our chef demonstrated how to create corn and crab bisque, chicken étouffée, and pralines. He also had lots of stories to tell about the area’s history, and how the history shaped the food they now call local. We had a very entertaining and knowledgeable chef, and he made great food for us to try. Advice: if you know you want to take this class and want to sit closer to the demonstration, make your reservation early.
The third day started out with another must do activity: a cemetery tour. You can choose from many different tour companies to lead you; we went with the Free Tours by Foot company (https://freetoursbyfoot.com/new-orleans-cemetery-tours/), where you pay what you can to your tour guide at the end of the tour. We had a wonderful guide, and enjoyed the tour a lot. (You need a tour guide to enter the St. Louis Cemetery #1 and pay a $2 fee that goes to the Catholic Archdioceses of New Orleans.)
During the tour you’ll learn why New Orleans has above ground tombs in their cemeteries, how the burials happen, see some famous people’s tombs, and hear many interesting stories. My advice: take a beginning of the day tour, because it gets busy by late morning.
The afternoon program was a swamp tour with the Ultimate Swamp Tour company (check for a Living Social deal). During this 60-80 minute tour on bayous of Louisiana we saw some wild animals of the area: herons and other birds, a nutria (huge swamp rat), and an alligator. We also learned a lot about local plant life and the area’s history, including the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
The last morning, after a nice breakfast near Audubon Park, we parked our car on Jefferson St., and took the St. Charles Ave. Streetcar to the St. Claiborne stop and then back.
Finally, here is a list of restaurants we visited. They were all good, some meals were outstanding, others were good.
Anatolia Mediterranean Cuisine
After all, this was a great, very memorable trip for our family. There are things and places on our list for future visits, but picking the above attractions for this trip were good choices.
I will be posting more about the trip when I cull from the 1,000 images I took during the 4 days. If you have any questions about the attractions we’ve visited, please let me know. I hope I was able to give you a little flavor of this wonderful and unique city, and I made you interested in visiting it.
0 comments