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Mardi Gras, New Orleans
Our Day 1

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Sunday, February 15, 2026

Click On The First Photo Below For A Slideshow
Or Click On Any Photo For A Larger Image.

Our Southwest Airlines Flight
Portland, Oregon (PDX) to Denver, Colorado, and
Denver to New Orleans, Louisiana (MSY)


Departing From Our Home In Vancouver, Washington
Took A Photo To Remember Where We Parked Our Car


Barbara and I don't pay anything to fly on Southwest Airlines as we have enough points to cover any trip that we take. But on top of that, we have earned "Companion Pass" such that Barbara flies for free wherever I fly costing no points or money other than a minor tax of about $5. The only problem with Southwest Airlines is there is very few places they fly where we don't have to either stop or change planes. But with my Companion Pass, it is about half the price of us flying on any other airline. So, we are willing to put up with the inconvenience for the savings.

This was our very first time flying Southwest Airlines with assigned seats. It was not our first time flying on Southwest Airlines with their new extra leg room seats. Our previous Southwest Airlines flight had the new configuration with extra legroom seats but did not yet have assigned seating. Since my status level is A-List Preferred, we were able to board early and sit at one of the extra legroom seats near the front of the plane. On this flight, I was able to select the seats we wanted when I booked this flight again because of our A-List Preferred status. I selected seats in row 5 for the first segment of our flight and row 4 for the second segment.

People seated in the extra leg room seats get extra, better, and healthier snacks as the two types of pistachios shown in the above photos. Everyone was also served Remy's Grahams and pretzels. People seated in the extra leg room seats also get one free alcoholic premium drink. With our A-List Preferred Status, we also get 2 free alcoholic drinks per flight segment. Because this trip had 2 segments with our change of planes in Denver, we were entitled to 6 free alcoholic drinks! That was a bit much for us and we just each had one drink on each flight segment, a Bloody Mary on the first segment and a red wine on the second segment.

On Southwest Airlines flights I also get Free WiFi both because I'm a T-Mobile customer and because I have A-List Preferred Status. I'm hoping Southwest Airlines will soon convert to Starlink as many other airlines and most cruiselines have switched to as it is much fater and more reliable than previous satellite internet providers.

The Uber Ride
From The New Orleans Airport
To The Sheriton New Orleans


Some Parade Floats we saw during the drive.

Above are photos of our very large hotel room.


Above are photos from the window of our hotel room on the 43rd floor.
We were actually able to see the Mardi Gras parades from our hotel room window!
The above center photo is of a marching band in the parade.



The parade went right by the front of hotel.
All of the above photos were taken from the sidewalk in front of our hotel.

Click each of the above play buttons to view each video.


We grabed a quick dinner at the restaurant in the lobby of the hotel.
We could actually see the Mardi Gras parade going by the windows of the hotel restaurant.

Bourbon Street




We walked down Bourbon Street until we got to the Cats Meow Karaoke Bar.
We took a couple of photos there before heading back to our hotel.

Bourbon street was extremely crowded with people, maybe mostly out of town visitors. Oddly most of the live music was hip hop, current rock and pop, and DJs, but very little jazz. I think for Mardi Gras they were mostly catering to the younger out of town guests rahter than playing the traditional New Orleans Jazz. In my postings from tomorrow you will see that we found most of the traditional New Orleans Jazz on Frenchmen Street.

Click On The First Photo Above For A Slideshow
Or Click On Any Photo For A Larger Image.

If in this report you see any typos, misspellings, factual errors or other types of errors, please let me know. Please include the web address (URL) of the report in which you found the error. Thank you! Send your email to:

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