My Nightmare Mardi Gras (A Long Rant)

I was really excited about Mardi Gras this year. I'm more excited every year, actually. I had big plans as you can see here: http://saintsreport.com/forums/f3/mardi-gras-parade-opinions-wanted-284979/. Thursday was going to be Chaos, Babylon, and Muses. Friday I was going to stay at the Marriott New Orleans to see Hermes, d'Etat, and Morpheus then wake up and see Iris and Tucks. What I ended up with is seeing 2 parades.

So Thursday we leave work at 1:30pm (we're from Baton Rouge, so we had to drive). I had spent the entire evenings of the previous two days working on elaborate posters for which to bring, so we were ready. We decided to view the parade along Napoleon (as suggested in the thread I linked above). When we got there, things were actually pretty nice. There were a billion ladders lined up along the street but that didn't really bother us. We ended up staking out a spot just across the street from St. Stephen's Church. We talked with some friendly folks as we waited for the parade. That's where the fun ended.

Can anyone tell my WHY people insist on just walking up right in front of you? As soon as the first parade started people would just elbow their way in and stand there. What started as leg room in front of our 3 lawn chairs turned into literally nothing. Myself, my wife, and my 3 y/o were either standed behind adults chasing floats with kids on their shoulders or scandily-clad, cursing drunk women. We suffered through the first two parades dealing with the crowds as well as the "blood in the water" behavior over throws. I've been to Mardi Gras nearly every year my entire life and I've never seen anything like the behavior that was going on.

By the time the Muses parade was started, we had already been pushed around, caught less than a handful of throws, and my daughter was crying. The same daughter that has been through countless Mardi Gras parades already and loves them to death. 3 floats into Muses we decided to bail. All my posters from all 3 floats which I had put so much effort into were just ignored - that's if I could even get them up because of the crowds. I looked at my wife and daughter who were just miserable and decided it was time to go. Side note: Everyone that kept pushing their way in front of us I kept politely asking to move as we had driven a long way and been our there for several hours. Their response was always the same: "Well we live here."

Cherry on top? Ticket on my car. Apparently you can't park "against the folow of traffic." What's ironic about this is I spent nearly 45 minutes carefully selecting a legal place to park - passing up many many questionable spots to avoid breaking any laws. I have to plead ignorance; I had no idea I couldn't park on the left side of the road facing into traffic.

So, 4 total hours of driving we were back home with a handful of beads and a parking ticket. But tomorrow will be better, right?

Realizing that driving back after a night's parade is tough, I tried for weeks to get a hotel for Friday night. I struck gold early last week when I got the Marriot New Orleans on Canal for a decent $112. For Mardi Gras on a Friday - not bad. (Come to find out they'd want $40 for parking too, though!)

So, again, we leave work early on Friday and drive to New Orleans. And drive, and drive. Or should I say sit and sit. I knew traffic would be bad so it wasn't a surprise to me that 3 hours later we were still sitting in Metairie. Then hour 4 passed. Then hour 5. So from Baton Rouge to New Orleans we finally were exitting into the city after 5 hours in the car. Naturally every road our GPS told us to go was blocked. I had anticipated this and printed out directions to go around Canal Street and approach from the North or East. I had called the night before and was told by the Marriot that the valet parking would be relocated to the rear of the hotel on Iberville St. Problem was - EVERY street was closed. By this point my gas was running on fumes without a gas station in sight. So here I am lost, unable to get to my hotel, without gas, and having been in the car for 5 hours. FINALLY I spot a police officer who was blocking one of the Iberville entrances. He says he can't let me down there but gives me directions to make this massive loop through the French Quarter, come up Decatur, and that will take me to Iberville. Praise God for the Chevron that was on the way where we were able to fill up. It takes us almost another hour to get up Decatur to Iberville as directed. We go to turn and ... ROAD CLOSED. Seriously?? I park the car on the curb, turn the hazards on, and get out to talk to the mounted police officer. It was that moment I received the biggest profanity-laden lecture about how much of a moron I am to even think I could get to my hotel. I cannot even put into words what this officer said to me and how he acted. He was the most pompus narcissistic jerk I have ever met. After informing me of how much of an idiot I was, he told me not to expect to get to the hotel until well after midnight.

At this point we're now driving in circles around the area in front of St Louis Cathederal. I call the hotel and the lady had no clue how to get to the hotel or what I could do. She was unapologetic and basically was telling me just to wait. She then informed me that even if we were to get to the hotel, their parking was full anyway. !@#$!!!!

I decided at this point it was to my advantage to just go home. I was tired, beat down, depressed, and just wanted my own bed. So, we turned around, spent a while trying to find a way onto the Interstate that was actually open, and drove 2 hours to get home. Didn't see 1 parade in all that.

I know most of you locals will come here and say "well duh!" and "this is nothing new." But I'd be majorly disappointed if I was an actual tourist who flew down and got caught in a mess like this. I learned a lot of lessons. The foremost being that if you're going to go to a hotel check in early in the morning. I also learned to greatly lower my expectations. After seeing several parades in Metairie recently which were all a blast, Nola is a completely different universe. It's just not a fun atmosphere anymore [for families]. Anywho that's my rant!

Edit: And hats off to CajunSaint http://saintsreport.com/forums/members/cajunsaint/ who warned me about this!