A New Orleans Family Vacation

Booking family travel for the March Break can be a daunting and expensive experience. Dismayed at the prices of airfare to get from Toronto to Orlando, even with connecting flights, I took the opportunity to cross another city off my bucket list and headed, not long ago, to New Orleans, Louisiana. March Break in many cities is an opportunity to reel in the tourists at inflated rates, but in New Orleans, Mardi Gras is over, and deals can be found from Ash Wednesday right through the March Break and beyond. There's lots to see and do -  ghost stories and swamp tours, a world class aquarium and Imax theatre, horse and buggy rides, voodoo shops and cemeteries -  there is a lot more to New Orleans than Bourbon Street, and plenty to entertain the under 21 crowd too.

But for a first time visit, typical tourist attractions will be high on your list, and most can be accommodated by walking if you situate yourself in or near the French Quarter. My then 12 year old son and I chose the New Orleans Courtyard Hotel on North Rampart Street as our home base. Once a Victorian mansion and private residence, today it features free wifi and a courtyard pool. Only a short walk to Bourbon Street and the heart of the French Quarter, the New Orleans Courtyard Hotel is close enough to make wandering Bourbon Street your nightly entertainment.

And entertaining, it is! Street performers, and buskers abound from  kid friendly magicians and musicians to the gold painted gentleman who stood frozen with his middle finger extended - probably the highlight of the 12 year old's trip.   If you're worried a tween/teen may restrict the adults in the party from imbibing a little of that New Orleans "spirit", rest assured, drinks can be purchased from take out windows along Bourbon, and enjoyed in plastic take-out cups.

We spent our first evening on a walking ghost tour, something I always suggest, as it helps you to orientate yourself, and pick places you might want to revisit later. I highly recommend picking the French Quarter Phantoms Ghost Tour. Their ticket pick up location has changed from Flanagan's Pub to the Voodoo Lounge on North Rampart, but the two for one Hurricane deal is still in effect, and you may score an awesome deal off Groupon.  Just under two hours, with a much needed pee break midway, the tour explores some of the better known villains of the area, such as the infamous Madame LaLaurie and her house of horrors, recently owned by Nicholas Cage and rumoured to have been sold to Johnny Depp.

From the balcony of this home, a young slave girl was reportedly chased until she fell to her death. According to our Phantom Tours storyteller, tourists regularly report to the police seeing a young girl fall from the balcony; so often so, that the police no longer investigate. The locals and police alike have learned to leave the ghosts well enough alone. Of course, if you choose to stay at the Andrew Jackson hotel, you may find yourself the unwitting victim of a few, long dead, pranksters. Apparently, the ghosts of several children who perished in a fire when the Jackson hotel was a boys’ boarding school, amuse themselves turning lights and televisions on and off, rearranging furniture and moving guests' clothing. Maybe not as unnerving as staying at the Cornstalk hotel next door, where guests report finding photos of themselves asleep taken with their own cameras.

Having survived the evening (and the sleepless night which followed), we woke up early the next morning for the first of two tours by Cajun Encounters. The first, a city and cemetery tour, took us by bus around the city. Highlights include the homes of Sandra Bullock, Anne Rice and the Manning in the historic Gardens district, an emotional tour of the lower Ninth Ward, still devastated some ten years after Hurricane Katrina, and a walking tour of St Louis Cemetery. 

This tour provides a taste of New Orleans' rich and varied history and explains the Spanish influence in architecture, the emergence of voodoo and the levee system. And if you were ever curious about the origins of the expression "getting the shaft" know that bodies left on slabs inside tombs only need one year to decompose in New Orleans heat, before the bones can be pushed over the edge with a long handled, stiff broom, to make room for the next occupant. Sort of, rest in pieces.

Cajun Encounters picks up and drops off from downtown hotels - we took advantage of this and had the driver drop us off at the base of Canal Street. From there, we took in the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas and an IMAX showing of Hurricane on the Bayou. This was particularly meaningful having just witnessed the ravages of Katrina, and as a prelude to our upcoming trip to the Bayou. If you've got money just burning holes in your pockets, be sure to check out the Backstage Penguin Pass, which entitles ticket bearers to meet a penguin up close, and receive a penguin painting, painted by a penguin. Say that three times fast.

Time to take a rest? Enjoy a reasonably priced mule and buggy ride from Jackson Square and then stop for a world famous beignet and café au lait. Next, hail a free shuttle ride to Mardi Gras World and check out where and how the parade floats are made.

Last, but not least, on this far too short trip, was a swamp tour in the Bayou. Our second trip with Cajun Encounters took us out to Honey Island Swamp. Guided by well-educated local field guides, we set sail in small groups to explore the wetlands and the fauna. Reptilian fauna. Hanging from trees above our heads fauna. Holy crap those are snakes hanging from trees inches above my head fauna. That kind. Also the long snout, large tooth, jaw crushing, man eating kind. Lots of native fauna. And flora. Mossy, swampy, spooky kinds of flora. A half hour but a world away from New Orleans. And then, tying it all together, were the boats wrecks from Hurricane Katrina, still lying where they were thrown, 10 years earlier.

We ended our trip with a cab ride back to Louis Armstrong airport, past the abandoned Charity Hospital. Friendly and chatty as most New Orleans natives are, the cab driver related the story of the Hospital's abandonment, which can now be seen and heard in a world class documentary  that focuses on the greed and corruption that followed in the wake of Katrina. Orlando may be the most magical place on Earth, but New Orleans - emotional, historical, spooky and raunchy -  wins hands down, the title most intriguing. Take a trip to the Big Easy; you won't be sorry you did.