March 4, 2025 New Orleans Day #2

It was Mardi Gras in New Orleans today. The sun managed to break through the thin lawyer of cloud for a few minutes several times during the morning. At 7:30 a.m. the temperature was 17°C with a south wind at 19 km. The forecast is for a high 25°C, windier and a good chance of afternoon rain which put the Mardi Gras parades on an accelerated schedule, starting at 7 a.m. rather than 8 a.m.

We had quick breakfast at a table for two in the Deck 4 main dining room so that we could be off the ship by 8:30 a.m. to go to the Garden District, an historic section of Uptown New Orleans. There were not a lot of people trickling in to the dining room, maybe three dozen by the time we departed. Being Shrove Tuesday, we had pancakes for breakfast. We climbed the stairs to the Deck 5’s Elite breakfast just to see if there was anyone there and saw about half a dozen people.

Larry checked the transit app and it did not look like bus 11 was running on Magazine Street this morning. We had thought we would use the RTA pass for a ride to Haydel’s Bakery at 3117 Magazine Street and walk back the 2.5 km to the ship before the predicted afternoon rain.

We started our walk over to Magazine Street and at St. Joseph detoured over to St. Charles Avenue to take in some of the Zulu parade. The Krewe of Zulu stated: This year's parade, "Zulu from Africa to the Big Easy," will feature 44 floats and more than 125 units, along with legendary characters like Big Shot, Witch Doctor, and Mr. Big Stuff.

The floats seemed to stop frequently for four or five minutes then move a block and stop again. Many floats were pulled by John Deere green tractors. There were built on flat bed trailers and some were two levels high. A lot of tractors pulled a double float. Bleachers were set up on the median and built above the sidewalk so that people had no problem moving on the sidewalk. At St. Charles and St. Joseph people were standing four to five deep waiting to grab the “Throws”. Throws are the items tossed from the floats that included some stuffed toys; many bead necklaces, sometimes a whole bag of them; plastic cups, nerf balls or mini nerf footballs; plastic coins (doubloons); sparkly hula hoops; mini frisbees; clappers; umbrellas; and other things. There were some spectators with nets used for fishing that were catching “loot”. Each float trailer contained several dozen people on each level all tossing things to the people lining the streets. When the parade ended, we saw people with giant shopping bags full of throws of all descriptions.

The first float we saw was stationary, which we found out happened a lot as the parade stopped and started every few minutes. It was Zulu Tramps and Walking Warriors. Larry walked further up the street to get photos of some floats that had already passed. They were Zulu Maids and another one. Behind the warriors float was the only high school marching band that we saw, with probably one hundred musicians. We probably arrived at the mid point of the floats. We wandered for about an hour toward the end of the parade From St. Joseph Street west to Prytania Street where a police cruiser trailed the final float. The crowd was loudly cheering every float. The names of some of the floats were King & Queen; Melvin Labat (with blue & white printed sides); Junior Zulu then some older fire trucks; Pythian Temple; Friends of Zulu; Parade Duke 1 & 2 (with feather headdresses); Parade Duke 3 & 4 with green feather headdresses); Parade Duke 5 & 6 with off-white feather headdresses); Big Shot (smoking a cigar); Witch Doctor; Ambassador; Mayor; Province Prince (with Indian headdress); Governor; plus It’s Good to be King part of the French Market & Zulu Dynasty. Then came the theme floats of African animals including Zulu Postmaster General (African Leopard); Femme Fatale; Ndonsa (giraffe); Induna (elephant); and Bantu (crocodile).

Although we had not planned to collect any throws today, we did have a small collection including Mardi Gras coloured beads plus a red necklace and a white necklace, a couple of discs with a shield and spears, one more doubloon from last evening’s Proteus parade, a “Big Shot” mini football, a small strap with fleur-de-lis on it, a Mardi Gras mini crowd badge, a clapper and some mini frisbees.

At Prytania Street the parade had finished. We had wound our way past folding chairs, wagons, strollers, tables laden with food, people just on the side streets near their cars with portable barbecues cooking food, since there were more parades to come. They could easily see the upper deck of the floats. We even saw people using five-step ladders to stand on the second or third rung to get a better view of the parade or be better positioned to catch a throw.

We walked down Prytania Street back toward Magazine Street on the road which was clogged with parked cars, which is why there were so many roadblocks in the area to accommodate the thousands of parade watchers’ cars. We encountered Coliseum Square, a nice park with La Fon Fountain. A fountain that had been refurbished in 2010. We were in the Garden District. The trees were Southern live oak and Crepe Myrtles. Many of the yards contained magnolia bushes. Originally the Garden District was developed with only a couple of houses per block, each surrounded by a large garden, giving the district its name.

There were lovely two story homes over one hundred years old from the late Victorian era. There was a house decorated for Mardi Gras at Cap and Felicity near Sophie Wright Place just before regaining Magazine Street. Along Magazine there were businesses and houses again some shotgun style houses. There was a Bed and Breakfast nicely decorated for Mardi Gras. We arrived at Haydel’s Bakery at 3117 Magazine and were not surprised that it was closed. It is supposed to have the best King Cake in New Orleans.

We decided to turn around as it was after 11a.m. and rain was predicted for the afternoon. It would be over a three kilometre walk back to the ship. We stopped at French Truck Coffee for a cappuccino and Americano (our usual) and they had mini King cakes, that were cinnamon buns with a cream cheese frosting sprinkled with green, purple and yellow coloured sugar and a plastic toy purple baby on top. The bill was just over $25 US about the same as yesterday’s City Park snack. It was nice to give our feet a rest. We saw a bus #11 going out to the suburbs. We strolled along the shaded streets of the Garden District admiring the old houses in architectural styles that were explained on plaques that stated the styles were Greek Revival, Italianate or Transitional showing white columns, lacey scroll work of a cast iron fence, or a romantic Romeo and Juliet style gallery. They were mingled with post-Civil War newcomer styles of houses in Queen Anne or Colonial Revival. There was also an example of High Victorian Italianate masonry townhouses. Such celebrities as Anne Rice, John Goodman, and Sandra Bullock have lived in the area. We passed a house with a Krewe of Rex banner and decorations. There was a colourful house on Magazine at the corner with Felicity and Hastings street. The street names on the Magazine sidewalks were spelled in individual tiles, similar to tiles we saw in Spain. We encountered a sculpture that looked like a streetcar and it the names of newspapers on it as we got close to the Pontch Expressway bridge. Nearby there was a post parade party at one of the bars with many costumed customers spilling onto the sidewalk across the street at Erato Street. We have noticed that most of the streets are one way in the centre area of New Orleans including the Garden District and the French Quarter.

The wind had picked up and the clouds were thickening by noon. We returned to our cabin by 12:30 p.m. and went for a light lunch at the Oceanview Café buffet on Deck 10. We joined Zegrid, the 88 year old German American woman who we had breakfast with yesterday. She had seen some of the parades the morning with her daughter, who was meeting an Uber driver from their dinner out last night and she had left her phone in the car.

As we ate lunch we could see that the visibility was a bit blurry. When we walked through the outdoor pool area, we felt a fine drizzle. The rest of the afternoon we sorted the five dozen photos from this morning and updated the blog text.

We went to the Rendezvous Lounge for the Elite and up Happy Hour complimentary drinks and danced to Pesta Pora before going to dinner and were last ones there just before 6 p.m. for the 5:45 p.m. early dinner seating. During dinner the worst of the storm passed through with heavy rain, thunder and a lot of lightning. Peyton and Cher and Fred and Cathy were back having been at the evening parades last evening. Irish was in her regular chair by the windows, which is most comfortable for her since she has a personal air purifier that cleans the area within one metre. Beth and Randy had reservations at a specialty restaurant.

We were the first to leave our table just after 7:45 p.m. so that we could catch Pesta Pora’s next set. As we exited the dining room Larry asked the Maitre d’ if we could be seated at a table of 6 on the following week’s cruise. Ten is just too unwieldy when people are missing and we only have nine if everyone shows up.

The show today, in the Celebrity Theater, is Soundtrack by the song and dance company. We are going to the 9 p.m. show rather than the 7 p.m. show like last night when there were just three of us at the dining table.

Steps 20,337