Day 1 Mardi Gras New Orleans March 1 2019
We arrived in New Orleans about 3:30 and took a taxi to our hotel, The Saint. We are on the sixth floor overlooking Canal Street. It is one wild view and worth the additional room fee. Inside rooms look over an alley. We booked our tour with Mardi Gras Insider Tours. Good thing, I would hate to try and do Mardi Gras without some know how. Also thank goodness for our good friend Sabrina, who walked me through with map and directions, before we came. As one would expect she does know her city, and so far everything she has told me is exact.
At 6:30 pm, we met our tour group in the lobby and walked to the JW Marriott, “Lle de France Grand Ballroom” for our Champagne Toast and Welcome Party. The food was good and they poured the booze like no tomorrow. I decided I wanted to abstain because the street was already quite hectic, and I could only imagine what it would be like later. Of course, I did not abstain from food. There was a balcony where we could watch the parades. It is everything you see about Mardi Gras where beads constantly fly through the air and who knows what else. The floats were amazing as well as many of the bands and dance routines. I wore my protective glasses, and I am glad as I saw beads flying everywhere. So far all good fun! It was now 10:00 pm, past our bed time and we decided it was time to head back to the hotel. Plus we found out this was only the first parade and it would immediately be followed by 2 more parades and in reality it didn’t end until after 1 am. Mardi Gras is one continuous parade after another. Sabrina told me you cannot cross the parade route, and she is correct. We first tried walking, no way. Then we tried a Pedi cab (a person pedaling a tricycle) and the poor girl had difficulty plus also no way we were going to get to the other side of Canal Street to our hotel. So a policeman said to walk to the light and we could cross, no again. But Tom found a taxi and after much negotiation, we arrived at a price of $30 cash, no credit card. Okay. Now the JW and The Saint are only two tenths of a mile apart. The walk going was easy. All in all it took an hour and a half plus 10,000 steps to finally return. The taxi driver had to go back to the Interstate, totally go around the city and come in the back way. At this point, I would have paid him whatever he asked. Now it was time to hit the hotel bar and we really met some interesting drunks. Everyone was having a good time. Quite the experience.
Today is our balcony party and they have given us thousands of beads to throw and fortunately it is an afternoon experience and we stay the same side of the street as out hotel.
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Tom & Holly