Cruises from New Orleans: Cruise the Caribbean, Bookend It with NOLA

Sailing from New Orleans: what to know

No cruise port on earth has a better opening act. Sail from New Orleans and the vacation starts two days before the ship: beignets at dawn, po'boys and sazeracs, brass bands on Frenchmen Street, then a Sunday walk up the gangway a few blocks from the French Quarter. For travelers who treat the pre-cruise night as a throwaway, NOLA is the port that converts them, we plan these as city-plus-cruise trips on purpose.

The sailing itself has a signature: ships spend the first and last half-day transiting the Mississippi, a slow parade past refineries, plantations, and river traffic that cruisers find either fascinating or slow, know your temperament. Once in the Gulf, itineraries run Western Caribbean: Cozumel on nearly everything, Costa Maya, Grand Cayman, and Jamaica on the 7-night loops. Carnival homeports multiple ships here year-round; Norwegian and seasonal Royal Caribbean fill the calendar out.

Planning notes: the terminal sits at the convention center at the Quarter's downriver edge, hotel-with-parking packages beat the port garages for drivers, and the drive market (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, east Texas) rivals Galveston's. Courtney builds the full sandwich, two Quarter nights, the cruise, and the dinner reservations that gate-keep walk-ins, and her planning is free; the cruise lines pay her, not you.