New Orleans

March 3-4
New Orleans

The day started off with US immigration, just like any US port that a ship visits for the first time. It’s the same thing as when you fly into the states from another country, but this time customs officials come on the ship themselves and interview every employee and passenger. That being taken care of and immediately followed by a rehearsal, we had finished up everything just before the crew got the all clear to go a shore.
First thing I did, however, was make some phone calls! It’s always great getting the use of your cell phone back, and I took advantage of this brief period of time when I can feel connected to the world again. So after and during some phone calls, the band left the ship and headed towards the French Quarter, the area New Orleans is probably best known for.
I’m happy to report that New Orleans is easily in my top five ports of all time! It was just really cool walking through a city where music was such a huge part of it’s identity, and jazz music at that! Also, because of the French influence, there’s so much more culture in the city, in a way that I’ve never seen in another US port. You felt like you were somewhere totally removed from the states, but everyone still talked like you and used your money. If that’s not the perfect place, I don’t know what is!
Anyway, we simply walked up and down the French Quarter for a while stopping in the different shops and feeling out the area. We went in a number of souvenir shops just to look around, a voodoo shop where I inevitably received some sort of curse for taking a picture, and walked the length of Bourbon Street.
Being with some guys from the band, we wanted to find a music store because we all needed a few things. I asked around and found that there was a shop on the otherside of town that we’d be able to take a bus to, which we did successfully. The shop was small, aimed mostly towards school children and they didn’t stock some of the higher end gear I was hoping to find in a New Orleans Music Store, but I was able to get a pack of reeds that I needed. We then headed towards a bar the store owner recommended for burgers and had a really nice lunch with some local beer, Abita.
Following lunch, we ended up walking all the way back to the ship to go play our show for the night, which was for an opera singer no one really cared for much. The shows were played and we reassembled the group for a night out on the town (this is our one overnight port this cruise). The plan was to take a cab up to Frenchman street and go to a club (d.b.a) where I’d been told there would be good music (thanks Sully – an old college friend). We walked into a bar that didn’t at first seem to have that much going on, and no music playing. We paid a cover and got situated waiting for the band to begin playing again (it was about midnight at this point), and I was getting nervous that the band wasn’t going to be as good as I’d hoped…especially after telling all my friends that this was the place to go.
The band got started with a jazz tune, nothing special. The second tune was about the same, nothing that we were getting too excited about. But by the third song in they’d broke into a great funk tune and then maintained the energy for the rest of the night. The band turned out to be a fairly well known funk group and played a super high energy show from then up till 1:45 that night. Everything was absolutely great, the bar got packed, everyone was dancing, and I was feeling like I was at the right place in New Orleans at just the right time.
Everyone in my group left feeling really excited by what we just heard and we started to make our way back toward Bourbon street to see what was still going on. The group had actually increased in size because we’d run into some other ship friends at the club, and no one really knew how to get back to Bourbon Street, except for me with my now working iPhone and GPS abilities. I reveled for a moment in my ability to find my way to any where in the city because I was an American with an American phone, and then led the group to Bourbon street without a problem. Yeah, I felt cool.
We ended up walking past all the bars because they’d all changed from being small and charming to the late night standard, just another place blasting party music. We didn’t stop at a single one and finally ended at a late night pizza place where we grabbed some food and hung out till they kicked us out round 3:15AM. The group then made it’s way back to the ship and that was it for the overnight experience.
The next day we had a drill in the morning for the US coastguard, but then got off the ship once more before we were set to depart around 5. Day 2 wasn’t as exciting, it was just back to the French Quarter to hang out at some cafés, do some shopping, and just meander through the streets. We heard some live music at the cafes, which was nice and added to the authentic experience, but day two turned out to be more of a way to kill time off the ship. We hung out as long as we could and eventually got back on the ship around 4:30.
We had a production show that night which was fine, and I made a couple final phone calls before losing my signal for the sea day that was to follow.
Actually, we ended up leaving 3 hours late from the port because there was a crew member that hadn’t yet returned to the ship. I’m not sure what happened or if he was ever found, but apparently the USA won’t let a ship leave if everyone isn’t accounted for. Usually we would leave if someone went missing, so this was a strange twist to end the day with. I’ll let you know if I hear any more about how the problem was resolved. Thanks for reading!