Earlier this year (January 2018) Bonny, Andrew and I were able to have an amazing trip to New Orleans together. As it was our first trip to New Orleans, and we only had a few days, we tried to hit as much as we could.
One of the highlights, and there were many, was Blaine Kerns Mardi Gras World!
We woke up early and ran over to have a great breakfast at the Camellia Grill. The Camellia Grill is a New Orleans tradition and gets 4.5 stars with thousands of reviewers. It is definitely a wonderful experience to start your day. The food is quick, hot, delicious, and served with flair by bow tied wait staff.
Anyways, I digress as I always do when I think about food! Back to it.
After filling up with food, we headed off to enjoy the fun New Orleans has to offer. As it was still early the music and show of the French Quarter and Frenchmen street wasn’t ready to start. We decided to check out Mardi Gras World.
Mardi Gras World is a working museum celebrating years of the Mardi Gras festivals and parades. We took the tour and it was amazing to see and hear about the amount of work that goes into each float, each parade, each season. They put attention into every detail, missing little as they create their works of passion. They even put bathrooms into the floats so the participants can stay on them for the hours each parade will run. 
Each float and festival is paid for in private money collected by Krewes. Members of each Krewe donate thousands of their own money each year to participate in this massive festival, trying to outdo each other and themselves with each passing year.
“The most recent season included 54 parades and featured 1,061 floats, 588 marching bands, and more than 135,000 participants. The combined parade routes covered 301 miles and the processions were on the street for 204 hours. In 2000, it was estimated that more than one billion dollars in spending was tied to Mardi Gras.”
Mardi Gras World is open for tours 7 days a week 9am-5:30pm. Its a bit pricy but we enjoyed it so what the hell, you only live once.
Tickets
Adults and children $22
Seniors, 65+ $17
Students with college ID $17
Children, 2-11 $14
And then it was off to hear the music of New Orleans, or taste the Flavors, or see the Cemeteries, or take the Ghost Tour, or….. A tale for another time.
