March 3, 2025 New Orleans Day #1

Just after midnight, Constellation exited the Gulf of Mexico into the Mississippi River Delta channel leading to New Orleans, only 66 nautical miles to go. By 6 a.m. there were 17 nm to go having cruised 475 nm from Tampa.

Today is Lundi Gras in New Orleans. Some passengers have tickets on hotel balconies or on grandstands for this evening’s parades by Krewe of Proteus carnival group, founded in 1882. It was followed by Harry Connick Jr.’s Krewe of Orpheus parade which has the coveted Leviathan doll throw. Both go along St. Charles Avenue which is about eight blocks from the Convention Center near the cruise terminal.

New Orleans is on the shores of Lake Pontchartrain near the mouth of the Mississippi River. The city was founded in 1718 by the French, then taken over by the Spanish in 1760 becoming an important port. It was sold to the USA as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. New Orleans is known as 'The Crescent City' due to the Mississippi’s curving route. Another nickname is 'the First City of Jazz’. You can be immersed in jazz music strolling through the French Quarter, where 'When the Saints Go Marching In' may be heard from brass bands or buskers.

We were outside on Deck 12 to watch the sunrise over the delta area. The channel approaching New Orleans from the south is almost one kilometre wide with cargo ships and barges anchored along the channel. The temperature was 10°C (49°F) as the sun rose at 6:23 a.m. You could feel the wind as the ship proceeded at 11 knots with a nine kilometre wind from the East blowing. After 20 minutes we got coffee in the Oceanview Café where a few others were enjoying breakfast. We could see the high-rise buildings of New Orleans just seven nautical mile (12 km) away when we returned to our cabin after 7 a.m.

The Elite Continental Breakfast is every morning from 8 a.m. until 10 a.m. on the 5th floor entrance to the San Marco dining room where we have dinner. The 4th floor section of the San Marco dining room is where there is a larger breakfast menu for all passengers. While we enjoyed a continental breakfast with Shawn and Graham from yesterday morning, we joined a spry 88 year old German American woman who lives in Oakland, California and Marion and her husband from Florida. During breakfast, the ship was approaching her berth and turned 180° to moor by her port side right next to the Riverwalk Outlet Mall, and a short walk into the French Quarter neighbourhood. The Pontch Expressway bridge was close by. The terminal is beside the Conventional Center at Julia Street.

An announcement at 9:40 a.m. informed passengers that the ship had been cleared for passengers to disembark. There are ship’s excursions offered for the next three days in New Orleans. We will just wander for the next two days and take an excursion on Wednesday. We left the ship after 10 a.m. when the temperature already was 18°C with an east southeast wind of 14 km. The predicted high was 22°C.

We wanted to follow a self guided walk app which started at the French Market location of the famous Café de Monde. The price of gasoline was per gallon $2.67 cash or $2.77 credit which was about $0.42 per gallon cheaper than in Tampa. We started to walk on Julia then right on to Convention Center Blvd to Canal Street and continued walking on North Peter Street (which became Decatur Street) where some of the balconies had purple, gold and green banner hanging on their railings. There is a Café du Monde location in the Riverwalk Outlet Mall, which we saw later in the day with a line of more than 25 people. It was about a two kilometre walk to the St. Ann & Decatur Street original Café du Monde, where the line was down the street, numbering more than 70 people and it was hardly moving. We made a detour on the way, to Woldenburg Park along the Mississippi River.

At the Zulu Golden Nugget Stage a choir from the Krewe of Zulu was singing a jazz tune. This was part of the Lundi Gras Fest Entertainment day long event. Along the riverwalk there were bronze plaques explaining the African slave trade which started in New Orleans in 1719, was illegal after 1808 in the states but didn’t end in New Orleans until 1837.

We took a wide set of stairs, called Moonwalk, back to Decatur Street and across the street was Jackson Square which stretches in front of St. Louis Cathedral-Basilica which was visited by Pope John Paul II. Larry tried to use the self guided walk app and after fiddling unsuccessfully with it for half an hour, we decided to pull out the CAA paper map of New Orleans and use Google maps as our navigator.

On either side of the cathedral are the Louisiana State Museum and the Louisiana State Museum Cabildo. We proceeded up St. Ann Street to Rampart to go to 32 acre Louis Armstrong Park. Lining St. Ann Street were the typical shotgun style houses, where there is a hallway along the interior side wall which goes the length of the house so that a shot could be fired from the front door and go out the back door. Many were destroyed when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005 and failed levies brought flooding to almost all of the below sea level parish. Along St. Ann Street there were several National Guard roadblocks. At the Bourbon Street roadblock, Larry was politely asked to open his backpack for inspection and was waved on. There was a very heavy police presence in the French Quarter. Near Decatur Street there were a few human “statues” standing very still. We had first seen these kinds of “statues” in Barcelona.

As you enter the Rampart street entrance to Louis Armstrong Park you pass under the Armstrong Arch and encounter a bronze life size 2010 statue called “Brass Band” by Sheleen Jones-Adénlié, just west of it is Congo Square. It is close to the area where Houmas Indianians met centuries before Europeans arrived to celebrate the harvest and where the African slaves meet every Sunday for games and singing from 1749 to well past 1819. Not far away on Basin Street was the St. Louis Cemetery #1 which we passed but could only see a bit through the guarded gate. All the burials are in tombs since New Orleans is eight feet below sea level.

We decided to find Lafayette Square, so we navigated back in the direction of the cruise terminal. We walked along Conti Street and noticed more road blocks in preparation of the evening parades of the Krewe of Proteus and the Krewe of Orpheus beginning at 6 p.m. As we got closer to Bourbon Street (it was not yet noon), the noise level increased from the buskers to the point that we wished that we had brought our earplugs. Fortunately, we only had a few blocks to go before turning onto St. Charles Avenue to cross Canal and Poydras Streets to arrive at Lafayette Square.

Lafayette Square honours an American Revolutionary War hero, the Marquis de Lafayette. It was a planned square constructed in 1788 in New Orleans first suburb, Faubiurg St. Marie, originally named Place Gravier. Lafayette was invited to be the first governor of the Louisiana Purchase, but declined.

We continued back to Canal Street to find the transit ticket kiosk to buy a day pass. We found the building just past the Caesar Casino not far from Woldenburg Park. We were assisted by a transit employee to buy the 24 hour Jazzy transit pass at the Seniors rate of $0.80 each, which 60% off the regular price. Next we walked back to Canal Street to find the streetcar stop. The plan was to just ride the streetcar to see some more of New Orleans and give our feet a rest. We had already been walking for two hours and over 12,000 steps.

The first streetcar to arrive was number 48 that went to the City Park and Art Museum. It was about 30 minutes to ride to City Park, in the Mid-City neighbourhood, where we strolled through the park to the Botanical Garden only to find it closed for the holiday. Continuing toward the river, we saw a sign showing a Café du Monde nearby. On the way we spotted and row of turtles on a log in a pond sunning themselves. A sign read that over 2,000 trees in City Park were felled in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. There were only a dozen people ahead of us in the line. We had our order in less than five minutes. We enjoyed the pillowy soft, powdered sugar-covered beignets and a frozen café au lait each all for less than $25 US, which was much better than a Tim Hortons iced cappuccino.

It was almost 3 p.m. so we wandered back to the streetcar terminus and waited for the streetcar driver to move from the controls at one of the coach to the other for the return journey. However, the downtown area streets were gradually being closed for the parades and everyone was told to get off at South Liberty Street which was a little over a kilometre and a half to walk to the Riverwalk. As we got close to the river we saw the Carnival Valor sailing away. Along the walk we found some of the plastic doubloons that get thrown from floats during the parades.

Beginning in 1874 until World War 1, Rex, the King of Carnival, would arrive by boat at the riverfront and with great pomp the King and his royal court would travel from the river to City Hall in grand carriages where the mayor and various city officials would present Rex with the keys to the city and grant him temporary rule of the city beginning at sunrise on Mardi Gras morning. The tradition was resurrected in 1987 by the Riverwalk Outlet Mall and now includes the King of Zulu.

We entered the Riverwalk by the entrance near the Plaza de España. It contains a tile lined pool with fountains which was a gift from the Spanish Government to the people of New Orleans in 1975. At the pool we could see one of the Zulu stages where a Jazz band was playing. The riverwalk was closed from there so we cut through the busy Riverwalk Outlet Mall to get to the cruise terminal. Our sea pass card and photo ID were checked at the Security post at the terminal and we showed the sea pass card again as we entered the ship and went through the ship’s security. We were back in our cabin by 4:15. There was a surprise in the cabin - a small bouquet of flowers including a red rose in a vase on the desk.

We freshened up and changed to go to the Rendezvous Lounge for daily Elite Happy Hour for free drinks. The band Acoustic Duo Lanisters began their set at 5:30 p.m. only to have the electric feed to their equipment fail although the microphones were still active. We were the only dancers on the floor when the music suddenly ended. We still had part of our drinks left and were allowed to take them to the dining room.

Irish was sitting by the window when we arrived and the three of us enjoyed dinner an hour faster than last night. We knew that Beth and Randy were going to the Krewe of Proteus and the Krewe of Orpheus parades which started at 6 p.m. They had grandstand or balcony seats.

1872 was the year that a group of businessmen invented a King of Carnival, Rex, to preside over the first daytime parade. To honour the visiting Russian Grand Duke Alexis Romanoff, the businessmen introduced Romanoff's family colours of purple, green and gold as Carnival's official colours. Purple stands for justice; gold for power; and green for faith. This was also the Mardi Gras season that Carnival's improbable anthem, "If Ever I Cease to Love," was cemented, due in part to the Duke's fondness for the tune.

Irish told us and we had heard from other passengers that the parades for tomorrow were being adjusted due to expected high winds in the morning and rain in the afternoon. The parades were supposed to begin Tuesday morning at 8:00 a.m. with the Krewe of Zulu, then at 10 a.m. the Krewe of Rex followed by the Krewe of Elks Orleans and Krewe of Crescent City. One of the rumours were that the floats would not be allowed just the bands.

We made it to the 7 p.m. show featuring Comedic Magician Kyle Marlett. After the show the cruise director Sarah made her usual announcement about the evening’s activities and mentioned the anyone with tickets for tomorrow’s parades should watch the Mardi Gras parade website carefully as changes are being made and the parades will start now at 7 a.m.

Pesto Pora were playing a set at 7:45 p.m. in the Rendezvous Lounge. We danced the first three dances with the floor to ourselves and the band singer asked what we would like them to play for the next song. Larry said Mambo and they played Mambo Number 5 and one of the other couples who dance well also danced to it. Then we decided that we had used enough energy today and went back to the cabin to write the blog, sort the day’s photos and post the blog.

Total steps 24,860