Review of Marriott New Orleans: Best Mardis Gras Hotel!
If you are interested in traveling to New Orleans in the future, please read the article below for useful information about places to stay!
We decided to make a quick trip to New Orleans in the fall, and the Marriott New Orleans was the main hotel for our stay. We did move to the Sheraton New Orleans to use SPG points for the last night since prices went up so drastically. Both hotels were awesome and fit our needs, and we would gladly stay at both of them again.View from the room
Because we could stay at this property for under $90 a night before taxes, we opted to pay for this portion of the stay rather than use 35,000 Marriott Rewards points per night. We NEVER redeem points when there is that much of a discrepancy between price value versus point value.
In order to gain Marriott points faster, we have the Marriott Rewards credit card through Chase that gave us an 80,000 point sign up bonus. This is a quick way to accrue Marriott points, but as in this case, sometimes it makes more sense to pay for the hotel rather than to use points. Find out more about Marriott Rewards by following this link to a prior article.Lobby
Our flight didn’t land until around 10:30 PM, so we got to the hotel around 11:15 PM after getting our bags and taking a short cab ride. We were checked in to our room within 2 minutes of talking to the attendant at the front desk. She did upgrade us through our Gold Elite status to a room on the top floor, and she thoroughly explained how the lounge worked at the hotel (more on the lounge later).
The lobby is very spacious with tons of seating including couches and tables. There is a restaurant/bar in the middle where the food actually looked really good. We spent a few minutes relaxing each day watching football on the projector screens on one side of the lobby.Room View at night from room
As stated previously, our room was on the 40th floor with unbelievable views of the French Quarter from above. All of the other aspects of the room were standard for what you would expect at a Marriott (which is a good thing), and the housekeeping was taken care of at around 10 AM for our room every day.
Because the hotel is split into two towers, the pool is in the middle of the towers. The area looked very relaxing and would be appealing if staying there in warmer months. The pool area also had a good view of the downtown lights at night!
I don’t know about each person’s preference for beds and mattresses at hotels, but we tend to favor the Hyatt king beds; however, I should probably re-rank the mattresses because of how well I slept on the Marriott beds!Breakfast in the lounge
Unlike the Sheraton lounge in New Orleans, the Marriott lounge (M lounge) is on the first floor, and it didn’t have any windows that I noticed. It is also connected to a restaurant, which could be confusing if it was not explained so clearly by the front desk workers.
A few points about the lounge:
The food was really good for breakfast, and it did have some New Orleans style foods like beignets and andouille chicken. It got extremely busy in the lounge at breakfast.Special touches for breakfast in the lounge
The dinner hors d’oeuvres were also tasty both nights and could definitely substitute for a meal. We seriously liked the New Orleans style foods that this hotel offered to make it fit more into the city vibe. It reminded us of what we feel like at an Autograph Collection hotel.
The lounge is open 24/7 to grab a drink or some snacks. We saved quite a bit of money by getting drinks from the lounge rather than buying them at a store.
Elizabeth and I were both extremely happy with our hotel choice and it’s location on Canal Street. There were no negatives with the hotel besides how busy the lounge could get in the morning. Expect to receive high levels of service from the employees at the hotel, and as always, let us know if you have questions by emailing us at teacherstravelingonpoints@gmail.com!