Five days in New Orleans: A Guide
Guest post written & contributed by Blakely Hiner-Riley
Having had our first baby a mere three weeks before the pandemic started in 2020 (!), travel has not been high on our list for the last two years. However, we decided in May that we were ready to leave our now two-year-old with grandparents while we took a parents-only trip. We had a brief window to take a vacation due to my husband’s work schedule and the list of places in the U.S. that we could book on short-notice was getting slimmer as we watched flight prices skyrocket.
One of the places on our list that remained was New Orleans, Louisiana. Neither my husband nor I had ever been and though the humid, beignet & booze-laden stories you often hear of didn’t much appeal to us, the culture, Jazz scene, and rich history certainly did! Quite simply put - New Orleans did not disappoint. We had a fabulous time and it’s easily a place we have decided we will revisit year after year. There are few places in the U.S. I can say that about and without any doubt, New Orleans has a moodiness to it that is entirely different than any place else in the States we’ve been to!
Below is our guide to our five day stay in The Big Easy, I hope you’ll visit soon and fall just as in love with the city as we did!
Stay:
It was so hard to choose a spot to stay, and since this was not a points-fueled trip we were choosing on location, vibe, and price alone. Luckily, there are many options near the heart of the city and some wonderful options a bit further out that were within our budget and chic to boot.
We landed on The Ace Hotel, located in the Warehouse District. We stayed in the Large King room and it was indeed large - the largest room we had ever stayed in, especially for the rate we got (they often have rate promos throughout the year, which we qualified for since our stay was 5 nights long). The room itself was minimal, stylish, and featured the essentials: with a record player (complete with jazz albums), bluetooth radio, smart TV, Smeg fridge, mini-bar, and armoire.
We loved the shuttered picture windows in our room that gave us a view of the other buildings downtown, the rooftop pool, the live music that greeted us in the lobby on 2 of the 5 nights we were there, the in-house restaurants and bars, and its proximity to Bourbon Street & French Quarter (both less than 20 minutes walking distance). All in all we would stay here again if it was just us two. The price was absolutely right for a no-points-stay but I think if we had our son on this trip or were looking for a quieter scene, we would opt for someplace else.
Eat & drink:
We were lucky to have a handful of friends whom had recently visited that gave us some wonderful recommendations on where to eat & drink. For the most part we had breakfast at our hotel cafe each morning (with a cute sidewalk patio where the streetcar passes by) and ate a light lunch at our hotel rooftop pool, but we splurged on dinners/drinks and have zero regrets!
Our first night we went to Bar Marilou, which was just across the street from our hotel (housed inside an incredibly beautiful hotel Maison de la Luz). They had live music and we enjoyed a few songs that helped set the tone for the night before heading to our dinner reservation at the highly recommended N7. We could not have chosen a better restaurant to eat at on our first night in New Orleans! The atmosphere, the waiter, the food, it was all incredible. We mostly ate by the recommendation of our waiter, my husband got the mussels and ate every single one! He still talks about that dinner to this very day, I had the best wine I have ever had there and I’d be remiss to mention that I did not even get the name of it.
Other notable restaurants we ate at were Seaworthy (also attached to our hotel), the lobster roll was out of this world. Of course, a trip by Cafe du Monde was in order during our visit to French Quarter (note: they have two to-go lines, the longest one will be the one visible from Jackson Square, but head to the other side of the building for a much shorter line).
We had really delicious drinks at the bar at Hotel Saint Vincent, and I recommend visiting here to see the hotel grounds at the very least. We had dinner after our drinks and while we probably won’t eat dinner here again, the company from the table next to ours was very memorable.
Honorable mentions:
Elizabeth St. Cafe: Lower Garden District - walk-ins only
Central Grocery: French Quarter - split a muffuletta sandwich
Sno-Bliz for snowcones (worth the line)
Bacchanal: Near N7, order a bottle of wine & enjoy live music
see:
Of course we visited French Quarter and Bourbon Street, but those weren’t the highlights of the trip. We loved our visit to Preservation Hall, reservations required. Important to note that the building is not air conditioned - so dress cool or go in the cooler months - but it was such a treat to hear jazz within the same four walls that so many of the greats have played in, we barely noticed how bad we were sweating! We definitely left with a new appreciation for jazz and my husband has been deeply entrenched on all things New Orleans since our trip, in large part due to our visit here.
My husband is a huge WWII historian (really, he even wrote a book), and the World War II Museum was a must-see for him and has been on his list for years. Even for a non-history buff like myself, this was a really well-curated museum, I was never bored (haha) and learned so much. The personal effects from soldiers who lost their lives were particularly moving. The guides don’t lie, this will take up to a full-day of your trip to witness the museum in its entirety, so prepare for that if this is on your list.
We visited the picturesque Garden District two different times throughout our trip, it is walkable but a bit more spread out than other districts. Luckily it was a cloudy day and not at all too hot so we were happy to peruse. We had our Uber drop us at the Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 where we peered through the locked gates (most New Orleans cemeteries are locked and closed to the public unless you are on a guided cemetery tour), we googled what celebs lived in the area and found Sandra Bullock & John Goodman’s homes, hoping to get a glimpse of the celebrities themselves.
Another highlight and definite “tourist trap” that was worth it was the Ghost Tour in the French Quarter. This was booked on a whim and turned out to be such a fun time. We had the best tour guide, ‘Robbie Rob’ - he was the real deal and was even an extra in the first episode of American Horror Story: Coven - whom we ran into at a bar in Pirate’s Alley after our tour and he gave us tips on what to do after the tour to keep up the spooky-vibes, which included secret instructions for finding a Vampire speakeasy.
Honorable Mentions:
The Spotted Cat Music Club: A good alternative to Preservation Hall if you didn’t have a chance to make a reservation
Congo Square-Louis Armstrong Park: The Birthplace of Jazz
Botanic Gardens
The Whitney Plantation: About 1hr outside of New Orleans
SHOP:
Sunday Shop - Lower Garden District
Merchant House Antiques - Lower Garden District
Vice & Graft - French Quarter
TIPS:
We did not have a car on our trip but we did Uber more than I would have liked. We were able to walk to French Quarter and Bourbon Street safely (and without melting) from our hotel, but a rental car would have made exploring more spots a bit easier and certainly less expensive. Next time we will opt for a rental car.
There is a Cafe du Monde restaurant in the airport, we grabbed a few bags of beignets to-go! The best souvenir for the grandparents that have been with our two-year-old for 5 days, in my humble opinion.
