Sail out of New Orleans

[macaroni]

If I want to watch the entire sail out of NOLA. How long will it take...Don't want to make dinner reservations too early and miss the Mississippi.....

[dasmonkey]

If I want to watch the entire sail out of NOLA. How long will it take...Don't want to make dinner reservations too early and miss the Mississippi.....

 

It takes about 8 hours to hit the gulf so figure on a late dinner. ;)

 

Opinions will vary but really after about the first hour you have seen the gist of the most interesting stuff.

[nets33]

It takes about 8 hours to hit the gulf so figure on a late dinner. ;)

 

Opinions will vary but really after about the first hour you have seen the gist of the most interesting stuff.

 

LOL dasmonkey! I agree!

 

DH and I were eating dinner at 8pm and we were still heading out of the Mississippi. It's a long ride and it's not very interesting IMO. Lots of swamps and low-land, not much to see once you get out of the city area.

[rvsullivan]

The New Orleans portion lasts about 10-15 minutes. The first hour is pretty interesting. You will enter the Gulf of Mexico between midnight and 1 am. Nothing to see there except oil rigs.

[gooch47]

And, of course, it gets dark before you hit the gulf.

[kcwingwalker]

Always stay up late going down the Mississippi. Love sitting out on the balcony watching all the ship traffic and seeing the rigs.

[gooch47]

Always stay up late going down the Mississippi. Love sitting out on the balcony watching all the ship traffic and seeing the rigs.

 

I have to agree about seeing the traffic. But there isn't much in the way of scenery.

[GORDONCHICK]

I have to disagree - I really enjoy sailing down the Mississippi, even more than an hour out. I find it very peaceful. And it's very unique - it's the only long river journey for large cruise ships that I know of. It's interesting not only to watch the traffic - both land and river, but I also like to see the lights of the towns go by as well as the many lone houses out by themselves.

[hominid]

And sometimes there are adventures sailing down the Mississippi. We were on the Star in December 2012 and around midnight on the sail out, there was unexpected river traffic. A small ship was directly in our way and the river pilot had to pull a maneuver to avoid a collision. We were in an SJ on deck 12 (the same deck as the pool). The ship tilted 4 degrees and the swimming pool got dumped all the way down the hall. We were in 12016 and didn't get wet, but 12032, 12030 and the library got flooded with pool water. I don't know where those people went for 3 days because they had the dehumidifiers on and the rooms opened to dry. By the end of the week, we noticed there were people staying in the rooms again. I'm just glad we were far enough back!

[sparkinator]

We've sailed out of there 3 times and it is a lot more interesting than sailing out of any other ports we've used. The river traffic is sometimes impressive along with the houses you see out in the country. Also, there are a couple of paddle wheel boats around New Orleans that are neat to see. I've got one pic that I need to resize and post that has 10 barges all in one shot at a bend in the river that I got from the back of the boat just at sunset.

 

Yeah, I like cruising down the Miss river out of New Orleans.

 

On one trip back into New Orleans, we were up in the Spinnaker Lounge late as we were going up the river into New Orleans. We met a Carnival ship that had left New Orleans that night going down the river, and we got so close, that it looked like they were going to side-swipe us. We were never in any danger, but they do get pretty close to each other considering how big they are. Both ships were lit up like Christmas trees and everybody that was still up was hollering back and forth across the river at the other ship.

[gooch47]

Same thing with the Carnival ship on our next-to-last trip upriver.

 

On our last one upstream, it was so foggy you couldn't see anything. I don't know how they manage to do it safely.