I know that I haven’t even finished documenting our trip to Australia but I wanted to tell you all about our trip to New Orleans!
In early January we made our first visit to New Orleans and our first super-long-distance Amtrak trip. This little voyage was an absolute adventure and now when we look back, absolutely hillarious.
We got to LaGuardia early and it was fun to check out the new Admirals Club lounge. Could this be the best view from any airline lounge?
As it always seems these days, our plane hardly had a spare seat. We settled in, ate Pringles and I drifted off until we were just out of Dallas/Fort Worth.
The only other time I was at Dallas/Fort Worth was when I was waiting for a layover to Amarillo. I was so so so sick so I just sat in a chair for hours there. This time, we had 45 minutes and we made the most of it. We found the best BBQ ever. Seriously, Texas Airport BBQ is better than all of the New York BBQ restaurants combined… and a lot cheaper! If you are ever in the American Airlines terminal in DFW check out Dickey’s – it was really good!
We even got time to do some window-shopping… here at Texas Marketplace y’all!
It was the best 45 minute layover ever!
It was then time to board the smaller jet for our flight to New Orleans. I told Bill he could have the window seat on this flight so he could see New Orleans as we flew over it. Um. Slight problem. We were put in the very last row and Bill’s window was covered by… the engine. So it was super noisy with no view on a very old plane.
So for the next hour or so we just looked at the seat back in front of us and drank cokes!
When we landed at New Orleans the first thing we noticed was the different smell – it was strange – almost tropical but with a yummy spicy smell to it… it was actually comforting! We got a shuttle bus to our hotel, Renaissance New Orleans Pere Marquette Hotel and checked in. Here is the lobby –
This was all very exciting as we finally reached Gold status with our Marriott rewards! With this we were upgraded to a high room and were super excited to see this when we checked in.
These are the extra towels and pillow that I always have down in my reservation profile because there are never enough! Little did I know we already would have six pillows between us here! Also the rest of the room –
Now a quick rundown on this whole holiday. We booked our flight using points and then paid to come home on Amtrak on the Crescent train – direct from New Orleans to New York in a sleeper. The trip is about 30 hours – we were going to leave early Sunday morning and arrive in New York on Monday afternoon. A few weeks after booking, Amtrak contacted us to say the train was cancelled. Now our issue was – we booked on points so we’d lose big time if we cancelled our flights, so Bill got in contact with Amtrak. For the same price we could get home by leaving on the Saturday getting the City of New Orleans Train to Chicago, spending the day in Chicago and then getting the train to New York that night. We took that option as traveling by train was basically THE reason we were doing this trip. So that meant we had one night less in New Orleans. When I booked our hotel, I got a good price and added breakfast for both of us in the hotel restaurant each day for $20 more. I thought that was a bargain so was happy with what we arranged. Unfortunately, changing our booking to no longer stay on the Saturday night affected our reservation price and it went up. I didn’t think anything of it and it was only a few weeks before that I thought I should contact them and explain that the change in booking wasn’t our fault, just in case they would lower it. As usual, amazing customer service from Marriott – they did lower our price and still keeping our special of the breakfast every morning. When we checked in, the desk manager said that the breakfast was for the restaurant or room service. I just thought she made a mistake – but when we got to our room, we called the restaurant – nope. Definitely included room service! Anything we wanted, we could order. AMAZING. I am SO happy I chose Marriott as our ‘go to hotel chain’ when I moved here – we have never had a bad experience yet! Hooray!
So anyway, we were tired from the long day so we got room service for dinner and settled in for an early night, ready to explore New Orleans the next day.
Here is what we got for our room service dinner –
This looks average but it was awesome. It was a ravioli dish in a creamy cajun spiced sauce. A nice little intro into cajun foods.
Bill got this delicious burger –
And the highlight? Our dessert of Beignets! They were a-mazing! The chocolate sauce was just perfect!
