The Country Inn & Suites in Metairie is the closest to a true “park ‘n cruise” hotel that you’ll find in New Orleans.

Their package includes up to eight days of parking, a hot breakfast, and a shuttle to the port. What it doesn’t include is a shuttle back from the port.

Uber/Lyft prices run $15/20 for the return trip. The hotel shuttle driver may offer to sign you up for a return shuttle at $10/person. I will include the contact information for that shuttle service later in this review.

The cost of the park n cruise package varies by weekend. I booked it about two months before my cruise and got it for $170 after taxes. I price checked it a week before the cruise and it was up to $205.

You must book the park n cruise rate in order to be able to park during the cruise and utilize the shuttle service.

When you check in they will ask you to sign up for a shuttle time. They offer shuttles at 9:45 and 11am. They will give you a special parking pass to place in your vehicle and direct you to park in the parking lot on the east side of the hotel which is a gated parking lot.

The area around the Country Inn & Suites in nice. The hotel is walking distance from ACME Oyster House, Kmart, and Rouse’s grocery store. It is also extremely close to Lakeside Shopping Mall. On my stay I ate dinner at ACME Oyster and picked up items I forgot to pack at Kmart on embarkation morning.

The hotel has a fitness center and self service laundry room for $2/wash and $2/dry.

Here is a look at the hotel pool area.

I had a room in the corner on the second floor.

This was a queen bed room. They did have a two bed or king option for more money but this was all I needed.

This is what’s going on in the breakfast area. They also have a waffle iron, fruit, breads, fruit cups, yogurt, apple juice, fruit cocktail juice, and community coffee.

I had a noon check-in time so I signed up for the 11am shuttle. We ended up leaving late because the shuttle didn’t have enough baggage space for everyone on the early shuttle. They had to make a second trip with the rest of their baggage. They took the first five people in line for the 11am shuttle with them on the second trip.

The shuttle returned and we pulled out at 11:45am. I can see why they had baggage issues earlier. We had room for about five more people on the shuttle but we wouldn’t have had room for five more suitcases.

Here is a look at the route from the hotel to the cruise terminal.

We arrived at 12:08pm.

The driver signed people up for the return shuttle at $10 per person. I didn’t sign up initially. After the cruise I had planned on using uber or lyft. I had heard lyft had a discount code “carnival” that you could use for transportation from the port.

When I returned and made it through customs, the lyft price was fluctuating from $15-18 and the wait time was going up to 20 minutes. I decided to call the shuttle to see if I could get a seat on it quicker. She said she was just pulling up and sent me a picture of her shuttle.

Here is the card for that shuttle service I used.

Here is the shuttle she was driving.

On the return ride we only had seven people in the shuttle. I had the entire back row to myself. The driver used her horn liberally but we made it back to the hotel without incident.

I recommend this hotel with it’s park n cruise package for a person or family who just want the convenience of a park n cruise hotel. I can usually do as good or better with a hotel near the port on Hotwire.com, parking at Fulton Place and using their shuttle. This time Fulton had a seasonal price increase and I came out better using the park n cruise package.

• hotel
• New Orleans
• park and cruise
• park n cruise