New Orleans Mardi Gras World

When you've been to the same city 9 times, you start to think like a local and ignore a lot of the magical things around you. This is how it is for us in New Orleans. When we had a short weekend getaway last week, we decided to check out places and tours we had not done before.

One place that always peeked our interest was the Mard Gras World. Prior to our wedding, we thought it was a building of Mardi Gras memorabilia. Boy were we wrong. Someone in our family visited the museum, letting us know that they saw mardi gras floats up close. We made it our mission to visit on our next trip.

When we arrived at Mardi Gras World (we took Uber but there is a free shuttle), we noticed a lot of activities going on. Food trucks, free standing bars, free sno balls, no one taking tickets....what on earth?

That's when we found out we were there during their halfway to festival celebration! They even had a free concert that night with Rebirth Brass Band. This was truly an unexpected experience. The floats are giant and familiar faces were all around.

It was amazing going back and seeing the floats that were a work in progress. The one shown below is Endymion's Salute to Rudyard Kipling.

Seeing the above drawing turn into massive real life art: Poor elephant.

Around another corner we saw artist hard at work:

Once we left the art station, we found the actual floats, so massive it was difficult to fit into one photo.

Seeing Mardi Gras World made us realize how much planning goes into the floats which produce 40 parades each year. It also made us want to visit New Orleans during Mardi Gras - something we have yet to cross off our Crescent City Bucket List.

Click here to visit Mardi Gras World website to see their specials and events. You can also visit them on facebook and twitter.

New Orleans Central Visitors Bureau provided us with a city VIP pass which would have gotten us free access to Mardi Gras World but the day we visited, everyone was free. As always all opinions are my own. You can visit NOLA CVB on facebook, twitter and Instagram to find out the latest festivals and events happening throughout town.