Renting a Car After Your New Orleans Cruise

The city sets the cab rate to or from a cruise ship: $14 for one of you, $8 a person for two or more, bags included, or the meter fare.

That makes the Hilton Riverside a short, cheap hop, and the airport a 15-to-17-mile ride you’d only take for a reason.

Sunday afternoon is one reason, since the lobby counter has shut by then. Wanting National or Alamo is another.

If you’ll hand the car back at MSY later, we found no company publishing a charge for that downtown-to-airport return, so check the one-way terms on your contract before you drive off.

The coast is the easy win — about an hour and 20 minutes to Bay St. Louis and under two to Biloxi, by our estimates, with no tolls on the way.

Cajun country is 2 hr 41 min each way, which makes it a long day, not a day trip. Two nights is kinder.

Rather go upriver? The plantations are about an hour out, and they get a page of their own.

Almost nothing you’ll drive charges a toll — the Crescent City Connection, the river bridge downtown, stopped charging in March 2013.

I-10 is free east to the Mississippi coast and west to Baton Rouge and Lafayette, and Mississippi has no toll roads at all, its transportation department says.

The exception lies north. The Lake Pontchartrain Causeway charges southbound only, back toward New Orleans: $6 cash or card, 3% more on a card, or $3.40 with a toll tag. Going north is free.

An out-of-state tag is no use here — those don’t work on Louisiana’s state toll bridges, and neither Avis e-Toll nor Enterprise’s TollPass lists Louisiana. Pay at the Causeway booth, and before a Grand Isle run, ask the counter how an LA 1 toll-by-plate bill would reach you.

The River Road plantations sit nearer the airport than the ship. By our estimates, Oak Alley is about 41 miles from MSY and Whitney about 34.

So collect the car at the Hilton Riverside, spend the day upriver, and return it at MSY. Houmas House gives mansion tours until 7; Destrehan, by its own count, is 10 minutes from the airport and stores luggage free while you tour.

Two times to plan around: Whitney is closed on Tuesdays, and Laura’s last tour starts at 2:20.

$56 against $73 for a day, and $282 against $364 for five — and the airport also needs the pricier cab.

Mostly, what MSY buys you is the ending. If the trip finishes with a flight you want the car there, and a one-way return from downtown may carry a charge we found no one publishing.

Carnival sells a “Big Easy Hop On Hop Off: MSY Airport Transfer” at $94.99 an adult — a sightseeing loop on a bus while your bags go ahead to the airport, per Carnival.

Its plain transfer back to MSY is $27.99 a person, and it says not to book a flight before 11:30 AM.

Staying another night in town? Amtrak’s Mardi Gras Service runs twice a day along the coast, stopping at Bay St. Louis, Gulfport and Biloxi on its way to Mobile — a slow, easy day out, and no car to park.

Louisiana’s seat law, section 32:295 of its statutes, starts rear-facing under 2 and moves to a harness seat from 2 until the child outgrows it.

Boosters start at 4, and at 9, or whenever the booster is outgrown, the adult belt takes over — and under 13, the back seat, when the car has one.

None of that changes because the car is rented.

Your own seat checks free on American, Delta, Southwest and JetBlue, which beats paying the counter for one.

Enterprise’s US figures are the ones to pack by: 5 people and 3 bags in a midsize car, 5 and 5 in a standard SUV, 7 and 3 in a full-size SUV, 7 and 5 in a 7-passenger minivan.

Search New Orleans with the Hilton Riverside or Canal Street as the pickup — or MSY, if you want the whole field of companies.

Then set the return to MSY if you’re flying home, not back downtown.