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| photo credit: Astor Crowne Plaza |
While planning our trip to New Orleans, I knew that I wanted to stay in the French Quarter or as close as possible without breaking the bank. Before I even started to look for a hotel, I came across a tweet by Ric Garrido of the Loyalty Traveler blog which helped make my decision very easy.
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The tweet was for a post Priority Club Rewards Deep Discounts. Priority Club was adjusting their hotel award rates. Hotels going for 35,000- 40,000 points were currently available for 15,000 points per night.
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I did a quick search and booked a room at the Astor Crowne Plaza located in the French Quarter on Bourbon Street.
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From the moment we arrived, we were impressed with the hotel. The location was excellent. It is located on Canal Street at Bourbon which is right at the start of where all of the restaurants and night time partying/ craziness begins. Bourbon Street can be very loud with tons of people walking by but the good thing about the Astor is that the main entrance is on Canal Street which seems like a different world.
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| Ear Plugs |
Our room faced Canal Street and was quiet as could be. My guess is that it could be pretty noisy for rooms on the other side of the hotel since the room came with a pair of ear plugs!
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| photo credit: Astor Crowne Plaza |
The Astor has a beautiful lobby with seating just beyond the reception desk. The entrance is at the far end of the photo above. We found the staff to be very friendly and tried their best to make each guest satisfied. At check- in we were told that we got upgraded to better room, were given a small gift and offered a refrigerator for the room. We accepted but there was already a fridge in the kitchen area of our room when we arrived. I asked if WiFi was included with the room and found out that it was only free in the lobby. However the supervisor told the representative checking us in to waive the fee for us. Talk about great service. Before we got to our room I was already a fan of the hotel!
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| View from the doorway |
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| View from opposite end of room |
The Main Room:
When we opened the door to our room we were impressed. It was a very nice size, I am guessing a one-bedroom suite. The photos above shows how long the main room is.
The first door on the right is the bathroom (sorry, no photos). Just past that is the kitchen area, followed by a dining table with a couple of chairs. I ended up using the dining table as my work area. Then there is a living room section with a couch and flat screen TV mounted on the wall across from it. The room definitely had the feel of a small apartment.
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| The Kitchen |
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| Dining Table & Couch |
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| Chair by the window |
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| What a view |
We had a beautiful view from our window. It seemed like this would be a great place to buy some vanilla. Too bad they were out of stock!
The Bedroom:
Just across from the kitchen area is the bedroom. The room was a very nice size and had a big closet, roomy enough to keep Kim’s roller luggage in. The king bed was very comfortable as were the pillows. A second flat screen television was also inside. The bedroom had more seating- a chair in the corner by the TV and a desk & chair with a large mirror over it.
The bedroom could definitely be it’s own hotel room if the bathroom was attached to it.
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| Comfortable Bed |
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| Entertainment Center |
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| Work Area |
Overall, we had a great stay at the Astor Crowne Plaza. The location was awesome and the room was spacious giving Lucas lots of room to play and run around.
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While the points have gone up significantly to book a room, it still might be worthwhile if you have the Priority Points to spare and want to stay close to the action in New Orleans.
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If you haven’t done so already, check out my posts about how we spent our time in New Orleans by clicking the links below.
