The Roosevelt New Orleans, A Waldorf Astoria Hotel

November 20th, 2020

Enroute:

For one reason or another, I’ve been to New Orleans quite a few times. I love the city as a destination, but only with a strict time limit. It gets a little old after a couple of days, so I always spend just one night there. With that said, I’m happy to return every time, mostly because it means I get to eat at possibly my single favorite restaurant in the world, Cochon.

I’ve stayed at different hotels on each visit, none was decent enough to warrant an encore. This time, we decided to try the Roosevelt, which is affiliated with Waldorf Astoria. The hotels in the city are, uh, very dirty. Like actually not clean. I swear the floors in a lot of the hotels we stayed at felt as sticky as the sidewalk in the Quarter.

Check-in:

I finished my engagement in Metairie mid-afternoon and got to the hotel at about 4:30. Check-in was painless. The common theme in hotels in New Orleans is that the rooms are all tiny, and our room was no exception. For our quick overnight stay, it was sufficient enough.

Unpack:

We booked a one king deluxe room, which I’d estimate to be around 250sqft. In the narrow foyer was a closet.

The bathroom was compact as well. The toiletries were from Ferragamo.

The scent of the toiletries was so excessively intense that I sneezed every time I used it. Otherwise the bathroom was fine and appeared to be, pretty clean?

The bedroom was next and pretty no-frills.

Not that Waldorf Astoria is that premium of a brand, especially one in a more secondary market like New Orleans, for this hotel to provide designer brand toiletries, Nespresso, robes and slippers, and a stocked minibar, I think it’s worth acknowledging. When you take pride in running a hotel, it shows. Oh not to mention this was the cleanest hotel in New Orleans we’ve stayed at.

Unwind:

While November isn’t really pool weather for New Orleans, we did spend the next morning sitting by one while having our morning coffee. The pool was sandwiched between the two towers of the hotel. I don’t think it’s the kind of pool you’d want to be in, but the pool bar seemed like a fun place to hang out by. There was a much larger deck space that pretty much went the whole footprint of the building.

Refuel:

We didn’t eat anything at the hotel. Because why would you? But the hotel does have one establishment that’s worth stopping by - the Sazerac Bar. The bar was beautiful, with high ceilings and murals on every wall. The drinks were equally delicious. In addition to sazerac, which you obvi have to get, duh, there was another called the port of New Orleans, which was concocted with white port and mezcal. It was one of the tastiest cocktails I’ve had in my life.

Depart:

Other than that, we mostly just ate at Cochon and recovered from eating at Cochon. Going to New Orleans for a night is always fun, and I’m glad we found the Roosevelt. It’s nothing grand, but it’s clean and comfortable. We would definitely stay here again whenever we’re back in Nola.