Visiting New Orleans

My parents-in-law are traveling to the US soon and they have the option of renting a holiday unit in New Orleans for a week. They are concerned about going there. Does anyone know what the state of New Orleans is these days? Is is a good place for a tourist to go to? Is it safe? Are the attractions and the old city still even there and open to the public?

A lot of their infrastructure is still out of service but I would say it is safe. Their Mardi Gras celebration this year was reduced to a week but still drew big crowds. That tells me that at least their hotels and restaurants are open for business. There are large sections of the city where homes have been condemned and nobody lives there anymore. There are still a lot of groups down there cleaning up - I have a few friends from work who have gone down their with church groups/rescue groups/etc to help with the repairs.

The french quarter flooded but not as bad as the rest of the city. That is the place to be (IMO) and it is open for business. Have them take a riverboat cruise (assume those are open now).

Visiting New Orleans was such a wonderful experience, and it's just heart breaking than so many of the places people have enjoyed over the years no longer even exist.

I don't know about the current state of the city, Anne. Perhaps you could phone the holiday unit where your parents may be staying to request information about the available tourist attractions, restaurants, etc. Fortunately, if you learn it's not the best place to visit at this time, your parents-in-law will be able to select from their other options for their vacation to the US.

Thank you for the info. We are looking through other channels as well. Looks like the historical part is open for business, but I'm not sure they will have enough to do there for a whole week.

My cousin owns his own construction company and was volunteering with our church to go to New Orleans to help with the rebuilding. They were there for a week last month and he said it was very dangerous. There were still a lot of gun fire and such going on. His wife was planning to join him and they were going to stay for Mardi Gras but he called and told her not to come. He felt it just was not safe enough.

I live about 60 miles SE of New Orleans. I've only been to downtown NO twice since the strorm & that was about a month after Katrina. I do think that is safe to plan a trip there & I believe that most of the French Quarter area is up & running. New Orleans has opened their doors & are welcoming tourists back, if fact by visiting N.O. they would be doing a great service to the city. New Orleans needs it's tourists back!

You can get more info here... NewOrleansonline.com Perhaps you can email or phone them for more info. Here's press release about post Katrina attractions.... "Visitors returning to N.O....".

We had the great joy of visiting New Orleans last spring break. I'm so glad we did. My 12 year old really had a firm visual image of the city to grab hold of during the horrible events that happened in the late summer.

I would be concerned that there would not be enough attractions to fill an entire week. There are some great things to do within a 150 mile radius or so. It was certainly a fun city to visit in "the good old days".