Baton Rouge or Gulfport Airport to a New Orleans Cruise by Rental Car

Both drives are I-10. The geography runs opposite ways, though — which matters the moment you ask where the car goes back.

From Baton Rouge, MSY is the nearer of the two: about 76 miles, against about 90 to the Erato Street terminal.

From Gulfport it’s the other way round, with the ship at about 79 miles and MSY at about 87. A Gulfport car that has to go back to the airport costs you extra miles, then the $36 cab into town.

The Baton Rouge drive has the better detour.

The River Road plantations lie between Baton Rouge and the city, so Houmas House, Oak Alley or Laura turns the drive into a day — and Houmas House runs mansion tours until 7.

From Gulfport it’s the coast and the state line. Mississippi’s transportation department says the state has no toll roads, and the one Louisiana toll anywhere near the route, the Causeway, is one you won’t use.

Bay St. Louis is on the way if lunch on the water sounds right. The plantations, the swamps and their hours: River Road before or after the cruise.

Neither airport sends you on a shuttle to a rental center — the main counters are in the terminal at both, with only Nifty off site at GPT.

One Saturday snag — Hertz at Baton Rouge closes at 5 PM, so a late Saturday landing there leaves you with the other companies.

At our assumptions, a day’s car comes to about $71 out of Baton Rouge and $72 out of Gulfport, with no drop charge counted.

Put the one from your quote into its box. That number decides it, not the daily rate.

Avis, Budget and Enterprise all list one-way rentals out of BTR, and Hertz mentions an “intercity fee.” None of them prints the amount.

Enterprise’s general line is that a drop charge “varies based on location and time of year” and appears when you book. We found no company publishing one from BTR, GPT or Houston into New Orleans.

So price it twice before you buy the flight — the one-way from BTR or GPT, then the same car from MSY.

If the drop charge is bigger than the fare difference, fly MSY and take the $36 cab. How these one-ways work at every port we cover: our one-way rental guide.

Reach New Orleans from Baton Rouge on a Saturday evening, and every downtown counter we list is closed until morning.

You can drop at MSY that night, or keep the car and return it downtown on sail morning — if the counter opens in time for your boarding window.

The key drop at the Hilton Riverside looks like a way out.

In Budget’s words, though, you answer for the car, and anything it racks up, “until the contract can be closed on the following business day” — and before a cruise, that’s the next morning the counter opens.

The car stays yours on paper while you’re at sea. We’d skip it.

Pick up at GPT and our calculator applies Mississippi’s 11%, not Louisiana’s rates, since it’s a Mississippi rental. At BTR, the parish’s missing share is why the fees box carries a placeholder — a guess, not a figure.

Mobile’s flights still use Mobile Regional (MOB), since the new downtown terminal at Brookley slipped to early 2027, local TV reported in May. MOB is about 142 miles from the terminal by our routing, just under three hours with no traffic.

Houston is another order of distance. It’s about 342 miles from Bush Intercontinental by our routing, or about 385 by Enterprise’s own road-trip page, which calls it six and a half hours.

Nobody publishes a Houston drop charge into New Orleans either — so at that range, price the MSY flight before you commit.

Search the one-way from BTR or GPT into New Orleans, then a round trip from MSY for the same dates.

Compare the rental totals, not the daily rates, then the fares — and book the flight last.