Celebrity Equinox Jazz Fest cruise 4/24-5/5 Photo Review

[bluecruisin]

Rob, Thanks so much for reporting back about the real Jazz band, no once claimed it but they could have been in port at the time.. This gives me hope that they might expand on this! Could you please post any other comments or hits on NOLA as a port and the Jazz Fest! Did you attend? What else did you do in port? Thanks in advance for any help!

[Rob the Cruiser]

Rob, Thanks so much for reporting back about the real Jazz band, no once claimed it but they could have been in port at the time.. This gives me hope that they might expand on this! Could you please post any other comments or hits on NOLA as a port and the Jazz Fest! Did you attend? What else did you do in port? Thanks in advance for any help!

 

I don't want to hijack this excellent thread other than to report that they were a REAL jazz band. They performed one night while we were in port.

[FunForUs]

I don't want to hijack this excellent thread other than to report that they were a REAL jazz band. They performed one night while we were in port.

This band was fabulous and, yes, they were a real New Orleans jazz band. Except for this one night, Celebrity did not provide any real jazz entertainment and we were very disappointed in the entertainment as we had expectations of hearing jazz throughout the entire cruise.

[RRFPresident]

A perfect picture of me in the blue white striped shirt and my husband, white shirt!

 

Great! Thanks for reading!

[RRFPresident]

I'm trying to decide if I should book this cruise for next year. If it's just another cruise that has NO as a Port of Call my answer is "no". If there are special events that highlight Jazz my answer is "yes". The Mardi Gras cruise had some special events that marked it as a Signature Cruise, although some wanted more. These included lectures and informational talks. The parade tickets were grossly overpriced, but events were available and labeled as "Signature Events".

 

Thank you to everyone who has been sharing helpful information about what this cruise featured in reference to the Jazz Fest and New Orleans! Celebrity did offer tickets to the festival (from what I understood on our roll call, they were one day tickets) as an excursion and some were reporting that it also included little things like a cushion or stool to use? We saw many lines of people waiting as we traveled around New Orleans and some of our guides referenced shuttles and buses. There were a handful of similar regular excursions offered for the time in New Orleans like French Quarter tours, city bus tours, bar/pub crawls, and carriage rides.

 

Never ate in the main dining room so I can't tell you whether the menu featured more New Orleans flair but I never saw anything special in the buffet. There was the usual "Destination Talk" for New Orleans as an upcoming port the night before. According to my newsletters from the New Orleans days they had these activities: jazz music played in the foyer by the Equinox orchestra on embarkation day, Art & Music: A Jazz Inspired Collection (evening of Key West), ship band Ocean Blue labeled as a jazz band put on a jazz concert (most evenings and also general playing in the foyer at dinnertime), a local band called the Camellia Street Band came on board for the 1st New Orleans day and played in the foyer. World Class Bar hosted a Hurricane and Sazerac night with "cocktails crafted by our bartenders exclusively for this cruise." Or you could check out the Bourbon Tasting at Sunset Bar. 2nd and final day in NO had a repeat of the Hurricane and Sazerac Night at World Class Bar. The final night included a New Orleans sail away party poolside with DJ Jason. The last night of the cruise itself had the ship jazz band performing a farewell concert in the foyer.

[RRFPresident]

This picture made me a happy girl! Due to a severe sensitivity I only use Truvia or or Splenda. While I don't see Truvia knowing they have actual Splenda and not just a yellow packet with some sort of sweetener that may or may not be Splenda (I have had this happen more than once when a packet was yellow but contained the same ingredients of equal or sweet-n-low). I don't use it often but if I make a mistake I can end up in bed with a migraine for a day or two so avoidance is key! Eases my mind a bit, although I will still bring a zip lock bag with them in my carry on just incase!

 

Glad I was able to help! I spend a lot of time reading and researching when preparing for my cruises so I know how something small like this can be just as important to someone as the bigger decision of what to do in port would be to someone else.

 

I completely understand on the migraine front as well. I always carry extra of the one over the counter medication that helps keep the intensity at bay if I take it soon enough and do my best to avoid triggers. One such trigger is if I don't eat a little something every few hours and I'll cover why that led to too much confusion when I get to Costa Maya day.

[RRFPresident]

Thursday, April 27th

 

 

 

 

Closer and closer to New Orleans we come! Four days intothe cruise and we finally have our first sea day. With a leisurelyday ahead of us, I relaxed in bed watching TV after waking up early.Took advantage of the downtime to straighten up the cabin puttingaway things we didn't need until the next port day and sorting thepiles of papers every cabin accumulates.

 

 

Our view won't look this crystal blue again for the next few days:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Woke Dad just after 8AM so we could go to Luminae forbreakfast.

Dad's now fallen in love with the Pellogrino that isoffered as part of the premium package and I've taken to requestingregular ice water so that we actually get some ice instead of roomtemperature Evian. This morning, our waiter mixed up who got whichkind of water but was the first not to overreact. Most of the time wejust would point out the mix-up and offer to switch glasses but thewaiters would act like this was a horrific wrong put upon us,apologize profusely, and insist on swapping everything. Wasrefreshing to see a waiter today who simply moved Dad's empty glassover to my side and gave him my glass now filled with the Pellogrino.

 

 

Dad basically likes melon and bananas out of the wholefruit category so often at cruises, he'll ask for a plate of justmelon as an appetizer. Sometimes he ends up with the whole tokenfruit plate, other times we've seen some arrangements of melon thatlook as appetizing to the eyes as they are to the palate. I decidedto try out the Seasonal Fruit plate today and then we both went with theBelgian Waffle as our main plate.

 

 

Or "Belgium Waffle" as the always the same breakfast menu calls it:

 

 

The mango on the left folded up like a Venus fly trap after I scooped out the first sectioned piece:

The way the menu reads for each griddle item, there are2-3 flavor choices under the main item so when I ordered all 3 ofstrawberry, banana, and whipped cream, I thought that meant thestrawberries and bananas were mixed in with the batter or at leastcut up and sprinkled on top. Nope, it turns out that if you pickstrawberries, it translates to a dollop of strawberry compote on topthat I found way too sweet and a couple strawberry halves fordecoration. The “banana” was half a banana that they caramelizedand threw on top but for some reason it tasted like a cinnamon apple.

 

 

No that's not a stool sample on top center of the pic - that's what you get when you order "banana waffles"

 

 

Dad's had the worst luck when it comes to bacon atbreakfast, so far it's either been sausage or not shown up at all.Today, we both only ordered sausage and my entree came with sausageand bacon! Dad's main order was the waffles with just banana so wecould tell it wasn't a case of mistakenly delivered plates. Wementioned the mistake to the waiter and he offered to get more. Wetold him that wasn't necessary for I didn't want bacon and could justgive Dad mine. The waiter insisted on doing the transfer himself andgrabbed a fork and knife from a nearby table to use like tongspulling every last bacon crumb from my plate to Dad's plate. Not aroutine fan of coffee, I decided to try the hot chocolate today andalmost every day after this, they assumed I wanted it and would bringit whether I'd ordered or even been offered to have it again.Unfortunately, while some days the presentation was top notch, otherdays the quality wasn't. One day it was a whole lot of froth on topof cold “hot” chocolate. Another day, a couple at a nearby tablereported to their waiter that the little pot of water they'd beengiven for tea wasn't hot enough.

 

I'd like to share this picture of my Dad as we stopped to check out the $10 sale this morning but it seems he's joined the weird giant silver potato with legs statue protection program:

 

 

[RRFPresident]

The $10 sale is always quite the draw. Wonder how many grandkids are getting small gifts of wallets and scarves for Christmas this year?

 

We passed by the Shore Excursions desk on our way to morning trivia. This line, hopefully with different people, stayed this long most of the day.

 

 

 

To fellow cruisers who love trivia games, pay carefulattention to the location listed in the newsletters. It never seemsto fail that after having trivia in the same lounge all cruise, theystart throwing a new location at you for just a couple sessions hereand there and somebody ends up sitting at the first locationwondering where everybody is. On my last Princess cruise, they hadone lounge listed in the paper version of the schedule and anotherplace listed in the schedule on the phone app. Finally realized I wasin the wrong place and got to the right place three questions inwhich earned a teasing from the host. Today's morning trivia was50's/60's music themed and was being run by Justin and thus we hadbeen moved to the Ensemble Lounge and spent several minutes trying tofigure out how to get seating for everyone without resorting tositting on laps. Several later arriving people ended up sitting onthe small end tables, the stools the band would normally use, or thefloor itself. What is up with the Ensemble Lounge becoming so dark inthe evenings by the way? It was like walking through a freakingtunnel because we'd go from the lit Cafe Al Bacio, through thecocoon, and back out onto the brightly lit restaurant row area forour specialty dinners. And of course it's one of the most populousplaces to hang out in the evenings so you're dodging the crowd in thedark.

 

 

Side note: I must commend Celebrity on the way their cabin stewards carry around the supplies to clean cabins. The top flap opens up and inside sits several smaller totes nestled on top of each other so that the steward can take one tote worth of supplies in to the cabin as needed. Much better than dodging the bulky carts lining the cabin corridors.

[RRFPresident]

Being our first sea day, we now had the option ofenjoying lunch in Luminae. I had been hoping to try the smokedsausage Dad got on the first day but alas, today's menu wasdifferent. I suppose if we'd had more sea days, they would havefinally gotten around to using the same menu over again.

 

 

I started with some sort of tuna appetizer. Not at all what I was expecting and it tasted really off:

 

 

 

The wait staff remembered which waters each of us drankbut unfortunately never bothered to refill them. When our chicken flatbread meals came,the flatbread was so hard to cut that Dad wasn't sure you were evensupposed to eat it. I found it at least easier to cut by turning theflatbread the opposite direction on my plate but the bread wasdefinitely tough. When ordering, Dad asked about being able to getfries on the side and our waiter was hesitant until Dad pointed outthat they were already making fries for the Luminae burger. Theyended up bringing me fries too but I was too full to finisheverything.

 

 

 

 

As we stood to leave, the wait staff swooped in quick tooffer dessert. Would have been nice to have that attentiveness withour water glasses during the meal.

 

 

 

 

As we walked out of Luminae, our concierge Manuelastopped us to ask if we'd like to participate in a bridge tour to beheld on the 2nd sea day. We of course accepted! We tookthe opportunity to ask her about the luggage valet form and sheconcurred that it hadn't been updated to reflect Miami as the newhome port. She assured us that she'd be sending new forms to thecabins by the end of the day. As it turns out, new form never camethough I can't say whether that was her or our less than on the ballcabin attendants. We ended up putting our information on the originalform and turning it in to meet the deadline.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A new activity for us on a cruise ship was a classcalled “Improvisational Party Games.” Loving improv and comedy,we decided to check it out in Celebrity Central. Around 8-10 otherpeople showed to participate and the guest lecturer (not one of theregular cruise staff) led us through several super fun and hilariousgroup play and partner exercises. We had to do things like one personpicking a position on the stage and everyone else had to find a wayto move their own bodies over and around that person. I think Ithrew everyone for a loop when I chose to drop to the floor in a balllike a child pouting. An example of the partner exercises was havingto pretend you were interviewing the other person for a job desperateto fill the position but while eager, they were the worst person forthe job. My partner came up with the scenario of being constantlyitchy with some hereditary disease but really felt he was good forthe job as a people person as in he liked it when people scratchedfor him.

 

 

 

 

Our guest lecturer Michael giving out characteristics for the scene:

[RRFPresident]

 

Everyone reacts as the boss and his flatulence issues joins the scene:

 

 

 

Dad liked playing bocce so much the other day that werushed up right after Improv to participate in the tournament beingheld on the lawn. DJ Sasha had already started up the tournament butwhen we arrived, the other passengers were kind enough to work us ineven though it meant one person from each team had to sit out eachround. There was only so many bocce balls available. DJ Sasha wasn'treally the best cruise staff to run these tournaments as he wouldoften make his own rules of the game and then decide to declarewhomever gets the next point is the winner because he wanted to go dosomething else. I heard later that one of the participants hadactually been a regular tournament level bocce player and really goton his case for running the game wrong. In today's case, Dad's teamended up victorious and when I followed Dad as he went over to ask DJSasha for his share of the team's ticket winnings, DJ Sasha reactedas if I was trying to get tickets even though my team lost. As itturns out, one of the other players spent some time working inWashington D.C. and we had a nice chat afterward. Each time we'd passeach other on the ship, they'd call out “Hey there's our Boccefriends!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dad wanted to attend the matinee show in the EquinoxTheater called “A Tribute to Broadway” so we split up. I stoppedoff for a pina colada at the Mast Bar before heading to the SkyLounge for ironically, Broadway music themed trivia. Dad soon joinedus though as the theater was packed and he couldn't even see thestage. We did fairly well (thankfully no lyrics from the obscure show“Chess” like last cruise) but I'm still kicking myself overmissing an answer from “Annie Get Your Gun.” On the flip side Istayed true to my childhood obsession and knew the right answer for“Tomorrow” from “Annie.” While Dad had been interested inparticipating in our roll call's poker themed bar crawl, itconflicted with the general afternoon trivia time that followedBroadway trivia. However, that was also the time that the bar crawlpicked the Sky Lounge bar as their next stop so there were a lot oftrivia players sending death stares to our fellow roll call membersfor being too disruptive while they socialized.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Headed back to the cabin to relax for a little whilebefore dinner only to find that Jose had simply moved our full dirtylaundry bags from the bed to the bar counter and left them there. Asubtle way of suggesting we hand wash our own in the bar sink? Inreality, it was most likely that he'd moved them aside to make thebed and then out of sight, out of mind. More of an issue was that Isoon also discovered that he'd completely left the small powder roombathroom untouched. We called Jose to come retrieve the laundry butdidn't point out the bathroom since I was using it when he showed up.While Jose was at the cabin now, Dad asked about getting more dietcokes. What he brought was two diet cokes and six regular cokes. Idon't think it works like aging fine wine and the cokes become dietover time. While we drink more of the smaller water bottles than thebig Evian bottles, we already had enough to balance the Great SaltLake when five more showed up in our cabin this afternoon.

[RRFPresident]

Tonight's specialty dinner had our first repeatperformance as we dined at the Tuscan Grille. When planning, wedecided it would be easier to just start with a different one for thefirst three nights and then start the rotation over again. Got seatedquickly and this time we opted for drinks we know we like with a rumand coke for Dad and a strawberry daiquiri for me. Drinks camequickly and mine did not taste like there was even any alcohol in itbut still tasty.

 

 

Tonight we had a different waiter, Valen, than the firsttime. He was quick with bread delivery and his assistant waiter washilarious when he brought the butter (that oil and vinegar dipreminds me too much of dying Easter eggs) joking around about havingjust churned the butter himself from his own family's farm. Our orderwas taken by Valen soon after but that's when the service for ourtable came to a dead halt. Dad had requested a regular tossed saladand Valen offered to get him one from the main dining room. We sawhim come back and forth several times serving others including thosewho came in after us. After 40 minutes of waiting, we stopped thefirst person we could find which happened to be the sommelier andmentioned needing to find our waiter because we'd been waiting solong. Soon we magically had appetizers appear at our table.

 

 

 

 

Dad tried the strip of pork bacon that is offered on RCLand it was nearly all fat buried in sauce. He ate the little bit ofactual meat and the waiter questioned why he didn't like it. Ifigured when I saw the similar dish on tonight's menu I would see ifit was any better. It wasn't and I found the sauce to be way toospicy.

 

 

Black Pepper Bacon Berkshire Pork, Sweet & Spicy Glaze

 

 

 

I had also ordered the Crab Cake Cracked Pink Peppercorn Aioli, Salsa Di Pomodoro and that was good.

 

 

Calmed the taste buds with the Classic Caesar Salad:

 

 

 

 

Dad enjoyed his salad – as he always says, just giveme a bowl of lettuce and tomato and I'm happy. At least he wasn'tcounting that lettuce and tomato as his veggies while they were ontop of a burger. The hostess (and her magic shade controlling remotecontrol) came over when she noticed I hadn't eaten the pork. Werelayed our disappointment to her about the long wait and sheapologized. She added that if we needed anything else to “justthrow something at me and I'll get whatever you need.” Soon Valenalso rushed over to see why I wasn't eating the pork and I explainedagain that it was too spicy. Our appetizer plates were cleared andminutes later our entrees arrived via Valen and the manager whooffered his apologies for the wait. I ordered a pasta dish withpancetta and the pancetta was cubed and so hard to chew that it was astark contrast to the soft pasta. I made the mistake of scooping up aforkful just of pancetta and it was like I'd just chomped down on asalt lick. Ahh, so that's why they keep giving us water bottles inthe cabin!

 

 

Strozzapreti Carbonara Pancetta, Peas, Parmesan

 

 

 

Dad however loved his three meat lasagna.

[RRFPresident]

Unfortunately, the idiom of when the cat's away the micewill play rang true tonight because once the manager stepped awayfrom his post for a short while, Valen went missing in action aswell. Dad really wanted to try the pistachio marble crème brulee fordessert or I'd have been tempted to walk out.

 

 

I settled on the strawberry shortcake when wefinally got to order and it actually came out burnt.

 

At least Dadloved his dessert. We continued to sit around waiting to see if we neededto scan our card (they didn't last time but we've had the samerestaurant do things one way one night and different the next onships) but finally gave up and asked at the podium since the managerhad now returned. He assured us there was no need and we headed out.

 

 

Stopped for a pit stop at the cabin before heading downto see the evening show featuring Tom Frenek. As we left the cabin,Arsim stopped us in the hall to offer snack delivery for tonight butwe turned him down. We did ask for a replacement of the large pooltowels (we prefer them in the cabin for showering) as they hadn'tbeen replenished since yesterday and Arsim promised to leave them inour cabin while we were out.

 

 

 

 

Tom Frenek's show was described as “clean comedy,genuine charisma, dynamic piano playing, singing, dancing, quick wit,contortionist acrobatics, and much more into an unforgettableexperience.” Basically he told a couple funny jokes during his actand played piano very well occasionally doing so while his hands werebehind his back or while he laid across the top of the piano unableto see the keys. I heard from several people the next day that foundhis show amazing but once again I was nodding off. Honestly, I nodoff trying to watch TV shows at 10PM here at home so take my wordswith a grain of salt on the rim of a margarita glass. We are allcruisers here after all! On the subject of alcoholic drinks, whomevermade the mudslide I ordered while in the theater tonight deserves araise, the theme tonight seemed to be frozen drinks with no alcoholictaste but still full yum factor!

 

 

 

 

Knowing the small venue of Celebrity Central and thepopularity of the marriage game show, or in this case “The WeddingGames” complete with a rip off of The Hunger Games logo, we rushedover to make sure we got seats. We like to leave a seat in between uswhen sitting in theaters but we don't try to claim the extra spot issaved if someone comes along asking to sit there. Tonight's case wasa husband and wife who ignored my attempt to scoot over so they couldsit next to each other and then proceeded to gripe with each otheraround me. The wife it seems thought her frozen cocktail wasn't goodenough and alternated between complaining about it to her husband andstanding up with it desperately trying to seek out a bar waiter toswap it out. I seriously envisioned wearing said frozen cocktailanticipating her to drop it or knock it over when she placed it onthe floor between our chairs as a bar waiter evaded her. After awhile, she started absentmindedly sipping from her drink soonpolishing it off while waiting for the chance to get a different oneso my pina colada shower was safe for the time being. As it turnedout, the newlywed couple was a couple in their 60s who had decidedafter a lifelong friendship and both previous marriages to getmarried to each other the previous weekend and this cruise was theirhoneymoon.

 

 

 

 

This version of the game featured a couple physicalchallenges like only having 30 seconds to fold a paper airplane forthe ladies or draw a portrait of your wives for the guys. Then theother halves had to guess which product belonged to which person whenthey returned. One of the funniest moments involved a question forthe wives about their husband's bad habits with bodily functions andthe CD Richard had more fun with the sign language interpreter'ssigns for the words than the actual answers given by the ladies. Thisgame was filmed and played later on the cruise director's channel onthe cabin TVs. While the sound during the game was fine, while playedon the TV all you could hear was Richard's words unless you turnedthe sound up really loud.

 

 

 

 

We returned to the cabin to turn in for the evening onlyto find that Jose's evening service visit seemed more like a driveby. The small bathroom trash had finally been emptied and the handtowel refolded but nothing else. Sofa bed had been made up but thetrash can in the living room hadn't been emptied. We did have thepromised towels but our request for extra dishes has only netted us acouple sets of silverware left sitting on one big plate. On thecoffee table sat a silver domed tray containing chocolate coveredstrawberries. Earlier after our complaint of lackluster service atdinner, I had joked to Dad that since we already had our fee comped,watch them instead send chocolate covered strawberries “for ourtrouble.” There was no note or card left so it's still a mystery asto whether it was from that or Arsim still trying to give us somesort of evening snack. Though he usually made a point to leave thosedishes on the dining table.

 

 

[RRFPresident]

Thursday, April 27th

 

Not aroutine fan of coffee, I decided to try the hot chocolate today andalmost every day after this, they assumed I wanted it and would bringit whether I'd ordered or even been offered to have it again.Unfortunately, while some days the presentation was top notch, otherdays the quality wasn't. One day it was a whole lot of froth on topof cold “hot” chocolate. Another day, a couple at a nearby tablereported to their waiter that the little pot of water they'd beengiven for tea wasn't hot enough.

 

ETA: Forgot the actual hot chocolate pic:

[riredsox]

There was a jazz band on board. They did one performance that lasted more than an hour.

 

Yes that was the band from New Orleans. One night out of 11 and it was the first night in New Orleans so many weren't onboard. If they were on from the beginning then it would have been a jazz cruise.

[bluecruisin]

I'm looking forward to reading more!

[Rob the Cruiser]

Yes that was the band from New Orleans. One night out of 11 and it was the first night in New Orleans so many weren't onboard. If they were on from the beginning then it would have been a jazz cruise.

 

It was a Jazz Fest cruise. Celebrity took us to New Orleans for the Jazz Fest. The itinerary was not advertised as a jazz cruise.

[RRFPresident]

Between being busy and Shutterfly having a PMS weekend, I'm finally getting the chance to add more to this review. Hopefully I can get our first day in New Orleans posted before Shutterfly decides to sign me out again as it took a few hours to get the site to stop sitting on "loading."

 

 

 

Friday, April 28th

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a decent night's sleep, I woke up in enough timeto see us travel up the Mississippi, the water a definite sludgybrown compared to yesterday. Reminded me of how it looked as we gotclose to the Panama Canal during last year's cruise.

 

 

 

We had been originally scheduled to leave New Orleans on Sunday evening at 7PM but whether it was thanks to the writing campaign initiated on our roll call or not, we found out once on board that our time had been extended to 9PM. Also note the "clear skies" weather report. That's not blurriness in my pictures above.

 

 

 

We opted for a light breakfast at the buffet. Luminaewas open this morning until our expected arrival into New Orleans at9AM but we didn't want a big meal. Our plans on shore for todayinvolved visiting Mardi Gras World (the warehouse for the floats andwhere they work on new ones) and a Creole Queen afternoon riverboattour that included visiting the Chalmette Battlefield.

 

 

Taken from our balcony as we docked:

 

How many officers does it take to dock at New Orleans? Apparently 5:

[RRFPresident]

With really only our riverboat tour time set in stonethat we'd reserved online prior to the trip ($34 per adult butthere's a coupon code in the New Orleans guide book. We opted out ofthe extra $14 buffet lunch offering), we figured there was no rush tovisit Mardi Gras World. Our plan was to enjoy a leisurely morning onboard and then head out to MGW for the tour that would finish closeenough with travel time to make it back to the Creole Queen.

 

 

 

 

We headed to morning trivia and made a new team withClaire and some new friends who actually used to live in Baltimore.There was only a few teams playing but several teams all got 17 outof 20 scores including ours so Ashley gave everyone in those teamstickets rather than mess with a tie breaker. We had chatted afterwardwith Ashley about our MGW plans and she was really interested ingoing. Unfortunately, she had to work when we were planning to go orwe would have invited her to tag along.

 

 

 

 

The Equinox docked while in New Orleans at the JuliaStreet Pier. What I didn't realize after months of watching the portwebcam at home and seeing nothing but Carnival ships at the EratoPier, is that the ports are essentially a stone's throw away fromeach other. We docked literally right behind the Riverwalk mall as inyou step out of the security building and you're right in front ofthe elevators to go into the mall.

 

Wasn't it nice of New Orleans to paint their mall with Celebrity's color scheme?

 

All of the above piers are next to the convention centerso when asking for how close things are to were the ship docks,you'll hear a lot of past cruisers say “Oh it's just past theconvention center.” So when it came time to head off the ship to goto MGW, Dad and I thought okay, here's the convention center, let'sjust walk up a block. Word to the wise, the MGW shuttle is going tobe your new best friend. We started walking, and walking, andwalking, and oh yeah umm how the hello can this still be theconvention center, and walking. Good gracious I felt like we coveredmore like 6 blocks before we ever actually got past the conventioncenter! One of the stops offered by the shuttle is Canal Street whichis the closest named street you encounter before heading up towardthe port security area. Take note of the number to this free shuttle,trust me your feet will thank me!

 

 

 

 

We finally turn the last corner and there was thewarehouse entrance like a shining beacon descending from the heavens.

 

 

 

 

The tickets cost $19.95 for adults and children over 12,Dad qualified for the 65+ senior rate of $15.95. This we didn'tbother to book ahead of time though it isn't contingent on picking atime when you book online. We did take along the discount coupon for$2 off the adult fare and it soon became quite the bone of contentionsouring the start of our visit. The employee manning the gift shopcash register where you buy tickets for the tour was a young 20something girl. She greeted us warmly when we asked about buyingtickets and we mentioned the coupon, putting it up on the counternext to the register. I watched her tap several times on the screenprocessing the tour charge and I kept asking “You are applying thecoupon, right?” but she just tapped away. We handed over the cashand I watched her take the coupon off the counter. She handed us eacha strand of beads for as she put it “to show we paid.” We didn'tthink about checking our receipt until we had stepped out on the backpatio by the river to wait for our tour. Sure enough, she didn'tapply the coupon.

 

 

 

So we head back inside the gift shop and point out themistake. Her response was “You never told me you had a coupon”and proceeded to extensively argue with us like her life depended onrefusing the discount. Finally she says “I threw that coupon away”when we point out that we not only mentioned it but put it on thecounter in front of her. Funny how she can throw something away wesupposedly never produced for her! Dad asked for a manager and eventhough he gave us the difference as a refund without issue, the girlcontinued to try and argue her claim. The manager didn't even seem tocare that she was arguing with customers and simply said “Well sheneeded me to put in the refund code anyway” when Dad pointed outthat it shouldn't have required getting a manager involved. Noapology from the manager and it wasn't until after several minutes ofhearing her argue, he finally told her to shush and then laughed.

 

 

 

 

We headed back outside to help the fresh air calm us. Itwas super humid and grey skies for the first couple days in NewOrleans.

 

 

Ugh, please no pictures, I feel like such a fish out of water being left here:

 

Well, how do you think I feel then?

 

 

 

By now a handful of other people had purchased ticketsfor the next tour as well so we had about 6-7 other people walkingthrough with us.

[RRFPresident]

Once the tour time officially starts, you are escortedinto a room with a big movie screen and chairs. The manager walkedour group in and showed us the racks of a sampling of the costumesworn in past parades. He explained that a lot of the shirts went overthe front of the your body like a grade school art smock even thoughthey look like they should be worn as a jacket. We were encouraged totry the costumes on and pose for pictures with the various statuesplaced around the room.

 

 

 

 

 

After a while, a totally different woman who I thinkintroduced herself as one of the assistant managers, came in tointroduce herself as our guide. We all were instructed to sit andwatch a movie on the history of Mardi Gras and afterwards, shewheeled out cut up King Cake for everyone to sample.

 

 

 

We were then led on a walking tour through the warehousewhere we saw finished products spanning the gamut from Star Warscharacters to the cows mascots from Chik-Fil-A. This is a workingwarehouse so we had to follow the rule of no flash photography justin case it were to startle an artist as he worked on a high ladder.

 

 

 

 

Mighty Mouse!

[RRFPresident]

For the Disney fans:

 

Mooooving on:

 

The Mardi Gras float version of a wardrobe malfunction:

 

The "seatbelt" harnesses the people use who are riding on the floats:

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Who remembers Rock Em Sock Em Robots?

 

And King Kong doesn't go anywhere...

 

....without the Mrs:

 

You know it didn't take me long to spot the cruise ship, even in parade float form:

 

Fighting in Star Wars seems to have taken a toll on Han Solo:

 

Here's a good example of how tall the floats themselves were:

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Apparently Batman is so good at fighting crime, his fellow superhero doesn't even need the rest of his body:

 

Perhaps Chicken Little should worry less about the sky falling and more about what happened to his other arm?

 

 

Umm Miss Piggy, what did you do with the rest of Kermit?

 

Hey Dad, stop calling the suite restaurant Lumiere!

[RRFPresident]

Once we reached the end of the tour, we were allowed towander on our own examining the floats and take pictures. Our guidebid us goodbye with the joke “Take as long to explore as you likebut we close at 5:30PM.” An interesting place to visit and a lotmore access to the pieces than I would have expected. After a quickpit stop at the restrooms and even quicker browse of the gift shopcontents, we gathered with a handful of our tourmates outside thefront entrance to wait on the shuttle.

 

 

For the next Christmas cookie exchange:

 

No shortage of gifts for those skull obsessed friends and family back home:

 

In case anyone is interested in the hours:

 

 

 

When it arrived a few minutes later, Dad asked aboutbeing specifically dropped off at the Creole Queen and the driversaid, “I can get you as close as Canal Street.” Several of ustook him up on the offer and here is when we learned that CanalStreet is the street that runs in front of the Riverwalk mall.

 

 

 

There is also a second riverboat tour option called The Natchez:

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We walked up to the water from where we'd been droppedoff but were still about 45 minutes too early for our pre-booked 2PMsailing with a 1:30PM time to start boarding. While we waited Iwandered the area taking pictures.

 

 

 

Once we saw people start lining up, I walked over to theticket kiosk and asked if we needed to still check in as the onlinebooking did print out those codes to scan at the end. It took all of30 seconds for the young lady manning the kiosk to look up my name,mark it off her list, and hand us two tickets. Once we got in line,there was a guard checking everyone's bags but as far as I couldtell, it was merely for security and not a food or photography banlike some venues will do. Once up the ramp we handed over our ticketsand were given the option of sitting inside where the food is set uplike a dining room or outside where there's a mix of tables andchairs under an awning or benches around the deck that aren'tcovered. We opted at first for the tables under the awning because itwas covered while still being open on the sides so we could see outboth directions.

 

 

 

The narrator for the boat ride turned out to be formermilitary and he was very informative while still being funny. At onepoint during the safety speech about not losing anything overboard,he added “if your teenager hasn't once got off their phone on thisfamily vacation, here's your chance!” Given the proximity of thepiers in New Orleans, we were so close to the Equinox while parked onthe Creole Queen that it was funny to watch all our fellow tour boatriders rushing over to the back deck to take pictures of the Equinox.Felt like a proud mama thinking in my head as I watched these people,“Yeah, and I get to go home to that tonight!”

 

 

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A good amount of the things our narrator pointed outduring the ride to Chalmette Battlefield were on the port side so ourview from the covered tables was great!