We are planning a trip to NO and area in Oct. or Nov. Any thoughts on which timeframe is better? We have never been to LA before and, besides the city, we would like to see some plantations and Cajun country. Is that doable while staying in NO or is it too far? If we need to drive to Cajun country, any recommendations on where to go, stay, eat? We are an almost senior couple. Thanks for your help.

We went in October a few years ago, and thought that was a good time. We spent 5 days in NO (at the Lafitte Guest House) and 4 days in Lafayette (at La Grande Maison B&B). I'd recommend both places.

FYI: October is a big convention month. Avoid Halloween weekend. There is a convention of 60,000 people. Hotels will be hard to find (and expensive!)

Oak Alley is a very nice plantation that isn't too far from the city - looks like you think a plantation would look. We did an swamp tour in the area through Airboat Adventures (I believe that was the name) the same day as Oak Alley. If you do a swamp tour (which I highly recommend) make sure you book it with a company with the small fanboats so you don't end up on one of the big "booze cruise" style boats that don't even really get into the swamps.

We like staying at Royal Sonesta right on Bourbon. It's very nice - has a lovely oak bar and great rooftop pool; plus, you really can't beat the location. It is a quiet Oasis in the midst of the mayhem of Bourbon - walking distance to almost everything!

When we were in NO, we took 2 trips out of the city.

One was a half day tour to Oak Alley and Laura plantations. That was really interesting. We went with Spinato tours - they picked us up at the hotel in a van with about 8-10 other people, drove us out to the plantations where we had tours, and the brought us back to out hotels. The driver was great - good tour guide who told lots of stories and gave good restaurant recommendations. We saw a fair amount of the countryside on the tour, although I think it would have been fun to be able to stop in some of the little towns to poke around a bit.

Our other trip out of the city was a swamp tour with Capt Nick. He also picked us up at the hotel and took us out to the marina in Lafite on Bayou Barataria. We went out in a small flat bottomed boat with an outboard motor. It was very cool. We went through some really interesting swamp land, saw a couple alligators and a ton of birds. Some fish too. I have heard that the airboats are noisy, so you don't get a chance to see as much wild life. They are fun to go fast through the swamp though. Some friends went on a swamp tour with Honey Island and really enjoyed it.

Don't go Thanksgiving weekend, either, at least not to New Orleans. The Bayou Classic football game books the whole city, and getting a rental car at MSY the latter part of that week is always very difficult. It will still be fairly hot in the earlier part of October, btw.

You do need to drive to see Acadiana (aka Cajun Country); other than Lafayette, all towns are small. This is not plantation-home central; there are only a few plantations in that area, most notably Shadows-on-the-Teche, Chretienne Point, and Iberia. Most of the open plantation homes are on the River Rd. between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Several of the more famous ones now offer B&B accomodations.

You *can* skip having a car in NO if you are only interested in the Quarter, the CBD and the St. Charles Avenue environs. If you wish to go farther afield than that, you will want one. Parking is very difficult in the Quarter, if you are staying there and will have a car, make provision for parking it.

Airboats/Fanboats are only noisy when they are going fast and they give you headphones to put on. They are actually smaller and more agile than any flat bottom boat and get into the little alleys of the swamp - plus you can cover a lot more ground getting from one spot to the next. They are more expensive as well, but the extra cost is worth it!!

I wouldn't be as concerned with the noise affecting my ears as I would be that the noise was causing the animals to disappear. Also, I would think that a noisy boat would take away from the experince in general. For me, the point of taking a swamp tour is to get out into nature, have some peace and quiet, and hope to spot some wildlife. I think it's just a matter of what people want to get from the experience. I think that the best way to experience the swamp would be in a canoe.

The flat bottomed boat we went on was fairly small and able to get into narrow channels. This was not a pantoon boat like you see in some of the brochures, this was more like a john boat with an outboard motor, except a little wider and flatter.

It's only noisy when you are moving quickly - from one area of the swamp to the next (we only used our headphones a couple of times). The vast majority of the trip the boat is completely quiet as you travel in and out of smaller undisturbed areas.