The journey from London to New Orleans with British Airways restored our faith in the brand.  The check in was smooth, the food and drinks in the lounge excellent and the flight beverages, top nosh and staff were perfect. 

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Immigration was almost friendly, a rare thing these days for the States, and we were swiftly through the airport.  It took a while to work out how to get a taxi, and although some reviews had said that our accommodation was hard to find, we stopped right outside the door.  The apartment was huge, and by huge we mean huge.  The bed was the size of a bowling green, the kitchen had everything and 15 floors up meant we had a great view of the city.  As for the location, well it was on the famous Canal Street and just a 15 minute walk to the even more famous Bourbon Street in the French Quarter.  The only downside was the cost but as we got a heavily discounted late booking of £85/night it was an absolute bargain as most hotels in the suburbs were at least the same and those as close to the French Quarter as we were cost twice as much.

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We came to New Orleans to see Mardi Gras which is on a huge scale with parades taking place over a couple of weeks. Each parade has a theme, and the ‘Krewes’ on the floats throw gifts at the crowds. Traditionally these ‘throws’ were strings of brightly coloured beads, but this now includes cups, badges, toys, bags, tokens and all manner of tacky stuff. The crowds go wild for the throws, ‘Bead Whores’ as we call them will do almost anything for a string of beads and as you can see from the photos Cheryl got sucked into the party atmosphere and collected 27 of her own in one night. Some of the crowd also brought nets to enable them to catch more tat.  It really is quite bizarre but the atmosphere is good, the high school marching bands are great and some of the floats are fantastic.  

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We also enjoyed wandering around the French Quarter and eating at the many great restaurants. One place had a special offer we just couldn’t resist and ended up indulging in the 25 cent martinis which came with our lunch. We also indulged in a spectacular dessert of bread pudding covered in white chocolate and strawberries. It was all so good we needed a snooze in the afternoon, didn’t wake up until 8pm and nearly missed the parades that night!

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The parades on the second night were even better with bigger floats and huge marching bands. Cheryl’s favourites were the Dead Rock Stars who featured over 100 Freddie Murcury ‘lookalikes’ all dressed in the yellow military jacket and white trousers and dancing to ‘Another One Bites the Dust’. The Krewe of Muse parade signature throw is a decorated high heel shoe and even the beads were adorned with shoes and glitter. Even more tat was collected to add to the pile.

We caught a lunchtime parade on our last day run by Bosom Buddies and Breast Friends, a walking parade celebrating cancer survivors and their supporters. The signature throw of this parade are hand decorated bras and Cheryl was lucky enough to be singled out to get one covered in flowers.

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The day ended with a tedious wait at the airport as our flight to Tampa with budget airline Spirit kept getting delayed. We collected the hire car, a Kia Soul, and finally arrived at our overnight hotel at 2am.