The Night Before a New Orleans Cruise: Do You Need a Car?

Here the no-car side of the math is printed, not guessed, because the city sets it. A cab from MSY downtown is a flat $36 for one or two of you, or $15 a person for three or more.

On sailing morning the city’s cruise-ship rate, in either direction, is $14 if you’re riding alone, or $8 each for two or more, luggage included. If the meter comes to more, the meter wins; it starts at $3.50 and adds 30 cents every eighth of a mile.

For two of you that’s at least $16 to the ship, bags and all. The one caveat is age — the city’s rate page was last updated in September 2022, so settle the fare before the trunk closes.

Know your terminal before you flag the cab. Carnival sails from Erato Street, and Norwegian and Royal Caribbean from Julia Street.

Six of our top 20 hotels publish a walk to the terminals, if you’d rather skip even that cab — the ranked list.

Two nights at $50 is $100 before the parish’s cut — and before the rental itself.

The Hampton Inn & Suites at the Convention Center sells extended cruise parking at $22 a night plus tax, less than the port’s garage by the day. That’s a deal for your own car — not a rental, which the company keeps billing for every day you’re at sea.

On paper, a Sunday meter costs nothing.

The catch is everything around it, because permit zones and posted signs apply every day.

A tow to the North Claiborne pound starts at $228.75 plus $34 a day — more than four nights of the Monteleone’s $50 valet.

For a car you’re keeping overnight, we’d pay the hotel.

About $248 against about $36 — and the $36 has already delivered you to the hotel.

It would take a great many cabs to Frenchmen Street to close that gap, so count yours in the calculator below.

A ride on an RTA bus or streetcar is $1.25. A Jazzy Pass, bought in the Le Pass app, is $3 for a day, $8 for three and $15 for seven, and it covers the ferry too.

The Riverfront line is the one pointed at your ship. RTA’s timetable runs it along the river from the French Market to Julia Station, by the Convention Center — the end nearest the terminals, which isn’t the same as the terminal door.

We haven’t measured the walk from Julia Station to either terminal — with big bags we’d take the cab, which is a set fare anyway.

For an evening across the river, the Canal Street ferry to Algiers Point is $2, every 30 minutes from 6:15 AM to 8:45 PM (10:45 PM on Friday and Saturday).

Then rent that morning downtown, and give it back that evening. Paying for the car on the nights you’re in town, and parking it, buys you nothing.

Avis and Budget share a counter in the Hilton Riverside’s lobby, the closest we found to the ships at roughly 0.4 road miles from Julia Street, by our estimate. It keeps weekday hours of 8 to 6, then 9 to 2 on Saturday and 9 to 1 on Sunday.

On a Sunday, Enterprise on Canal Street keeps longer hours, 8 to 5, and the rest of the downtown counters are here.

A downtown pickup also skips MSY’s $7.95 daily charge and pays 13% tax rather than 14.75% — by our sums, not the counter’s.

Drive-through daiquiri shops are real, and so is the fine print.

A frozen drink counts as an open container once the lid comes off, a straw goes in or a sip is gone — so for the drive, it stays sealed, not half-finished.