The 4 am alarm DID come early. But it hadn’t been the most restful night of sleep. I swear this hotel used to have blackout curtains that could be closed!
I got up and ready for the day, then woke Nick up. He got ready surprisingly quickly, we rounded up our stuff, and headed for the lobby shortly before 5. Here we found a line that extended from outside, all the way to the front desk for the shuttle. Good thing this hotel isn’t afraid to roll 2 buses out at a time but yikes! We turned over the keys to the somewhat bewildered guy at the front desk and joined the line.
While waiting, the kiddo in front of me kept turning around and staring at us. I didn’t think much of it, because it was early, and he’s an elementary aged kid. But eventually he turned back around, looked at me and said “I know you!” When I said “you do?” he responded excitedly with “you work with_____ at my school!”
Turns out he’s in the same class as one of my students at the elementary school. We chatted about our vacation plans and the line moved forward. We ended up seated across from them on the second bus. It’s a small world! And yes, this was used as a lesson for Nick as to why he always needs to be watching what he’s saying. Never know when a student that I’m not familiar with will recognize me.
The bus ride to the airport was uneventful and the cherub told us to “have fun…I forget where you’re going but have fun!” as he hopped off the bus at the first terminal stop. Too bad I won’t recognize him when I walk into his classroom this week!
JetBlue’s terminal was the next stop, so we were inside pretty quickly. We found a kiosk surprisingly easily, and thankfully, JetBlue has made some updates to their app since we flew a year ago, so the kiosk actually printed luggage tags for us. We joined the bag drop line, and after several minutes and our bags weighing in in the 30 pound range, we headed for the Precheck line.
The line was pretty short, and apparently they’re no longer checking boarding passes, just scanning IDs. Is this a Pre-check thing or standard? Security itself moved quickly enough, even with Nick’s boots (WHY IS HE WEARING THOSE TO A WARM CLIMATE?!) setting off the metal detector. And then it was off to our gate, all the way at the end of the hall.
We found a spot and sat down to eat our apple cider doughnuts that I’d picked up with dinner the night before at the Everyday. They were delicious! Of course the folks across from us were snacking on a whole box of fruit and cheese while we were chowing down on doughnuts, but…it’s vacation!
Boarding started about 6:20 am and moved surprisingly quickly. We were fully boarded, closed up, and even pushed back from the gate a few minutes before the scheduled 7:05 departure. It was a nearly full flight, but reflecting either Boeing’s issues or no one wanting to pay upcharges, the exit row was surprisingly completely empty for the flight. I didn’t know that was even allowed. But we were ready for vacation!
Our flight was uneventful and eventually we could see the distinct outline of Louisiana as we made our descent. We landed 50 minutes early (that’s not a typo), and, as we’d been warned, we had to sit on the tarmac for a bit until our gate opened up. We sat for about 20 minutes, and then it was full speed ahead into the gate. Being a New England based flight, deplaning was quick, and soon enough we were inside the new since our last trip to NOLA airport. This new terminal is really NICE. It’s so big and bright!
We made our way to baggage claim which was…an experience. I’m convinced that no matter what city, JetBlue has the slowest baggage delivery. As an added bonus, our flight was initially listed on the electronic board over carousel 3, but then disappeared from all carousels about the same time that we all got emails telling us our bags were arriving at baggage claim, which also failed to list the carousel number. But the bags eventually were, in MSY speak, downloaded onto carousel 3, and we were off to find a Lyft (because I get 10 Chase Ultimate Rewards per dollar plus HHonors points, plus complimentary Lyft Pink, so slightly discounted rides, and my Uber perks exist through other programs but don’t earn me nearly as much right now).
This was actually really easy. I’d found out which doors to use on the airport’s website, so we exited those doors, crossed to the center sidewalk/median and we were in the Lyft zone. I fired up Lyft, requested a ride, and within just a few minutes Sharon pulled up in a Lincoln Nautilus. And this isn’t even the fancy Lyft…this is just standard.
It was a quick ride to our hotel, because New Orleans drivers could compete with Boston drivers, and our driver was simply keeping up with traffic. When we got to the Eliza Jane, we unloaded our stuff and headed inside to see about check-in. No room was available yet, but she took my cell number, “put me in the queue” and stored our luggage for us. And then we headed to lunch!
Thankfully, because those doughnuts and airplane pretzels were a long time ago, lunch was a short walk away. When I’d decided on this hotel, I’d been pretty excited to see that Mother’s, a restaurant we’d really enjoyed on our most recent trip to NOLA was only a couple blocks away. So that’s where we went.
We had to wait in line outside for probably 20 minutes, but once inside, it didn’t take long to make it to the counter to place our order. Ordering was quick and then we were directed to a table that happened to be right by the registers. This allowed us to have quite the show! Mother’s is a real no-nonsense place. They have a system and they’re not rude, but they mean business. And some of the customers were pretty clueless (read…hungover). So…our brief wait for our food was quite enjoyable.
Lunch was delicious. We split the Famous Ferdi Special po’boy, which has ham, roast beef, and debris (basically beef shavings and au jus) on it. And Nick got a cup of crawfish etouffee. It was all excellent!
After lunch we walked back to the hotel where we encountered a second line coming down the road that was joined by what seemed to be a flash mob dressed in flappers clothes. As best as we could tell, the two groups didn’t know each other. But the music was good and the spirit was 100% NOLA.
After they passed, we requested a Lyft and pretty soon a Honda Odyssey in…not great…condition showed up. So apparently in NOLA the Lyft situation is hit or miss, even with “5*” rated drivers.
By some miracle, after rattling across New Orleans, we made it to City Park alive. The driver let us out in front of the New Orleans Museum of Art, and we walked across the road/driveway to the shore of the Big Lake, to see the current major attraction…the tulips.
Apparently the city of New Orleans plants thousands of tulips each year, and our trip happened to be timed just right to see the bloom. It was a smaller area than I’d anticipated when I’d read the number, but it was beautiful and when combined with the perfect (upper 60s) weather, really seemed like spring.
After we’d gotten our fill of tulips, we headed for the sculpture garden, which is just behind the museum. This is free (donations accepted) and huge. Some of the sculptures were really good, some were really weird. We had a good time just walking outside, soaking up the sunshine, and joking about some of the sculptures.
Once we’d made our way through most of the sculptures, we headed for the Botanical Gardens. This one required admission, but is still part of City Park. City Park is absolutely massive! The Botanical Garden was about a 7 minute walk from the front entrance of the sculpture garden.
The Botanical Garden was not in full bloom yet, but was still fun to explore, especially when we got to the train garden. Basically they’ve created an area where they have models of all the different city neighborhoods, and they have train tracks, and, on the weekends, trains, running through the neighborhoods. It was really awesome, and worth the cost of admission just to see the train garden. We enjoyed the entire Botanical Garden, but both agreed that it would be nicer probably in a few more weeks.
Once we’d sufficiently explored the Botanical Garden, we headed out front to request a Lyft. This area was WAY less chaotic than other parts of the park, so this worked well. Within about 10 minutes, we were picked up by our driver in a Kia Sorento that was in much better condition than that Honda Odyssey.
The trip back to the Eliza Jane was uneventful and pretty soon we were back at the desk to finalize check-in. I’d gotten a text while we were at the park that our room was ready, so, within a couple minutes of arriving at the front desk, we had our luggage back in hand, and we were headed to our room, 428.
We were pretty immediately impressed with the hotel. I’d booked this by transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt, and had gotten this room completely on points. $0 out of pocket. The Eliza Jane is part of Hyatt’s Unbound collection. It’s a boutique hotel, about a block and a half from Canal Street, on Magazine Street. The building has a history as a publishing house (I believe newspapers) and a bitters factory. They’ve done a nice job creating a modern hotel, while honoring the historical nature of the building.
We settled into our room after I'd wiped it down and were both really shocked by how quiet it was. Are we really in a decent sized city right now?!
Once we’d settled in and relaxed for a bit, we figured out what we wanted to do with our evening and headed into the French Quarter. Our first stop was about a 15 minute (but easy) walk: The Gumbo Shop. We’ve eaten here at least once on all of our trips, and it’s always delicious.
We were pleasantly surprised to find no line, even though by now it was 5:30. So we were seated immediately. Dinner here was just as excellent as we remembered. We both had the Mardi Gras Mambo (think tropical flavors) as a beverage. I had the chicken and sausage gumbo and Nick had the Catfish St Peter, which involved catfish, a crab cake, and some sort of creamy sauce. We both loved our food. And the service was excellent.
After dinner we decided to go grab a hurricane, because it is our first night in NOLA after all. We headed for the courtyard bar at Pat O’Brien’s and proving I’m old now, the bouncers didn’t even card me. The bartender directed us to a table while she poured our hurricanes in real glasses and provided us with go cups, since we’d asked for them to go. Since it was a nice night, we decided to just sit at the table and enjoy. I mean how can you not like having a beverage outside in February when you’re from NH?!
Hurricanes consumed we walked back to the hotel, searching for beignets along the way. We thought we would be walking by a Cafe Beignet, and we did, but we didn’t find the first one (it was probably closed) and the second one was definitely closed, so no beignets for us tonight.
It was an easy enough walk back to the hotel where we showered and I crashed by 8 pm local time, Nick reminding me that we wouldn’t have even sat down to dinner on the cruise yet. Yup…
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