Friends of The Cabildo

Just went on the annual Creole Christmas Holiday Home Tour (Dec 27-29) and it was amazing. Appreciated the very rare opportunity to tour inside a number of these historic French Quarter residences with a focus on holiday traditions of the early Creoles in New Orleans.We visited Beauregard-Keyes House, Gallier House, Hermann-Grima House,1850 House, and Spring Fiesta. Each location had its own speakers giving interesting remarks, telling stores, and taking questions. Our favorite location was Spring Fiesta with a beautiful Christmas tree and brighter lighting in the parlor.

Loved our tour guide Cindy! She's very kind and thoughtful. She made sure to be very inclusive and respectful of our tour mates, the performance artists and the other walking tour guides. For $30 tour, free admission into the 1850 House Museum. Appreciate the volunteer guides and grateful for their time to celebrate their love of New Orleans with visitors from around the world.

Very knowledgeable tour guides: we loved Stormy! We learned so much about the city and it really helped as we explored on our own later. Highly recommended!!

We thoroughly enjoyed our tour of the French Quarter with Jay. It was extremely informative and really enriched our stay in New Orleans. He was born and raised in New Orleans and really had a good grasp of the history and why the city developed the way it did. If you are looking for a gimmicky legend and lore tour, this is not it. This is history.

Unfortunately we had a huge group that should have had two docents but one was not able to make it, so there was just one guide for a group that contained everything from very little kids to young adults to senior citizens. Tours like this can be great because you get real, local knowledge and perspective, but no guide in the world can match the pace and interest levels of a group of 30 people who span probably an 80-85 year age range. So, our tour, while it had some good info, unfortunately moved too fast for older people, too slow for younger people, and no one could hear the guide. We spent more than half the tour (about a 2-hour walk) just trying to regroup our group and find a place we could huddle up to listen to the guide without blocking traffic (auto or pedestrian). It seemed like they took walk-up / last minute patrons, so if I were to go back, I'd probably wait until the last minute and then ask how many people were already on the tour. If more than 10 or so, I'd pass, but if a small group, I'd definitely go again.

How disappointing! My friends picked this tour because they were interested hearing really history of New Orleans rather than the typical "legends and ghosts" stuff. Sounded awesome!Well, we obviously got a not-so-good tour guide. After assembling in the super cute courtyard of the 1850 House, our tour guide rushed in, late and harried. And then he began to talk. And talk. And talk. About the house (a little), about the Battle of New Orleans (a lot), about the history of the colony (randomly), about the history of the US and Canada (wanderingly) - it was completely disorganized and hard to keep up with unless you already knew all the stories. I didn't. After 40 minutes of our 2 hour "walking" tour, we left the courtyard. We made it two storefronts before he stopped us to continue taking. We finally crossed the street, perhaps making it two tents of a mile. And then we stopped, and he rambled about the Army Corps, Katrina, Bobby Jindal, the flow of the river, you name it. After an hour plus on this tour, I finally gave up, walked away, and went out for lunch. Waste of time.

Highly recommend! Best tour I've had in a long long time-- totally non gimmicky, non dramatized, very historically accurate tour of the beautiful homes of the garden district. Our tour guide was friendly, down to earth, and a wealth of information about the area. Really enjoyed the back stories and pace of the tour. Wear your hiking boots, cause the streets and sidewalks in the area are ankle turners for sure!

Friends of the Cabildo French Quarter Tour: We took the Friends of the Cabildo French Quarter Tour. Michael was an amazing tour guide. Michael walked about 6 of us through the French Quarter and gave us a step by step history of this incredible area. There is so much rich history in New Orleans and having a knowledgeable and personable tour guide made all the difference in gaining the most out of our visit. Absolutely loved it Michael! Thank you!!

Wonderful informative walking tour for the intellectual, cultural, or historically curious! Wear hat or weather appropriate clothing to be outside for two hours. Guides are very knowledgeable and humorous!

The tour was very boring and the guide rambled on and on. The stories were not interesting. It was a waste of our time.