New Orleans overnight

Just wow!! We had an absolutely brilliant time in New Orleans..

We had been warned that all crew and even passengers who didn’t want to get off the ship had to be immigration cleared and this could take some time. We were given numbers for when we could go to start the process and we were called at around 8.00 a.m. – that’s good we thought.. Three hours later, still queuing, even our tethers were getting short and you can imagine the complaining going on around us. Some people who didn’t get called until later on didn’t get off the ship until around 4.00 p.m. so obviously very frustrating for them. Not a great start and communication/direction from P&O staff was definitely lacking.

Anyway, not to dwell on that, we were able to leave the ship around 11.30 a.m. in glorious sunshine. We’d booked brunch at The Court of Two Sisters, a well known historic restaurant which Andrew had been to when he visited 39 years ago! We could help ourselves to a buffet of dishes including jambalaya, gumbo, corn bread, grits, beans and lots more traditional choices. These were washed down by a couple of cold mint juleps – altogether absolutely delicious. We sat in the courtyard garden with a jazz band playing in the corner.

After that we had a two hour guided walking tour around the French Quarter. Our guide was fabulous and gave us lots of really interesting information about the history of New Orleans, Cajuns and Creoles and various aspects of life over the years.

After the tour finished we were just in time for our next booking at Preservation Hall.

Now I have to be honest – my jazz knowledge is very limited and when Andrew mentioned booking this I had in mind a regular bar where some old style jazz was played which would be fun. How ignorant am I, as it is truly an iconic venue and what you actually have is a 45minute session (no break, no bar, no bathroom) of absolutely wonderful jazz in a room that doesn’t appear to have changed at all over the years. It had an incredible atmosphere and felt like we were part of something really special. We both agreed it was the highlight of the whole trip so far.

Then back to the ship for our only overnight stop.

Next morning up bright and early to make the most of the time we had, another brunch was obviously necessary. This time Andrew went for a seafood omelette which came with beans and hash browns and, after hearing our guide yesterday talking about one of their French influenced but renowned dishes, I had the beignets with banana sauce – both were delicious.

After that we had a two hour trip on a paddle boat up and down the Mississippi with commentary and a jazz band playing on the top deck.

Just time to do a bit of shopping around a food and craft market then sample a famous Hurricane cocktail in Pat O’Briens. Pat O’Brien’s, Hurricanes are made with a mix of rum and Hurricane mix from the original recipe crafted in the 1940s. Google says – “The Hurricane was created at Pat O’Brien’s in the 1940’s during World War II. During that time, there was a huge surplus of rum coming from the Caribbean islands, while domestic liquor was scarce”.

We were warned to only have one and we paid attention to that!

Very sad to leave but felt we had packed as much as we could in the time we had and it was amazing.

We have since had yesterday and today at sea – the weather is beautiful so we are doing lots of relaxing and reading (and quite a bit of eating)

Of course there had to be more drama – we were woken up at around midnight last night by a tannoy announcement saying a helicopter was being deployed to us for some reason and for people to stay off their balconies on the port side. As yet no idea what actually happened but Chinese whispers are once more flying around the ship like wildfire!

By the way we found this report about the rescue Ventura performed the other day – https://www.cruisehive.com/po-cruise-ship-safely-rescues-three-from-sailing-yacht/96875

Next stop tomorrow Miami!