Go in off season. some great music and food to be had.

Stay close to downtown.

Get of Bourbon Street---

Jazz Festival has a way better crowd than Mardi Gras

When I went to MG (4 times), the crowd was estimated to be around 1 million in the streets of the French Qtr. .... and the FQ isn't very big .... like sardines. JF is held at the fairgrounds/horse track and draws about 100K each day .... but I was there the day they packed in 160K too :(. It, and most of the club scenes are not in the FQ so I've stayed in the Qtr. several times (with other first time visitors who wanted to) or just a few blocks away in the Faubourg Marigny for JF visits ..... NOLA is small city area wise... across the river, Garden District, Warehouse District, the Fairgrounds, and Metairie clubs are a cheap taxi ride.

I used to eat cheap too ... where the locals went. Hotels and restaurants get pricey during MG and JF....

And ya gotta buy two drinks just to pee :D

But it's worth it :)

On the city side, it may have been Audubon Park, on the west bank, it could have been the TPC course.

I just landed at MSY last week and it was perfect timing to see a huge ship cruising by above us as we were rolling to a stop on rwy 19 as its about 2-3 blocks from the river at that point.

Monteleone is awesome (drink at the carousel and things are spinning before they really start spinning). Cafe du Monde was slammed every time we tried, but there was a more-than-decent beignet slinger between the Monteleone and (heh) the police dept on the same street, not even a few hundred yards away!

I've been to too many conferences there as a stupid grad student and a stupider young engineer (lessons were learnt). Excepting a few places there I have no interest in the French Quarter. I do want to go back though, but it'll be many steps from Bourbon St.

How do you say you had the best orgasm in your life in 1983 staying in the Hotel Monteleone without sounding a little weird?

I actually had a sex partner that time and I ain't joking (about the O - one like that would take me out now).

^^^
lol...we might need a new thread for circumstances like that. :D

(I could relate my Detroit adult movie night...it wasn't good.)