St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 — Attraction in New Orleans

Visiting Cemetery №1 in New Orleans was a rather disappointing experience for me. To begin with, I was skeptical about the whole idea of visiting graves and memorials as it was never my area of interest. However, I decided to give it a try since it was a must-see tourist attraction in the city.

As I arrived at the cemetery, I was taken aback by the fact that I could not enter without a tour guide. This was somewhat concerning as it limited my ability to explore the site at my own pace. Furthermore, I found the information shared by the tour guide to be unnecessary and useless. It neither entertained me nor provided me with any educational value.

Additionally, the fact that the tour revolved around graves and tombs made me feel uncomfortable. I could not understand why someone would want to pay a considerable amount of money to see such sights. The experience was just bizarre and uninteresting.

Moreover, the ticket price of $25 seemed unreasonable for a tour that offered little to no educational value. The tour guide attempted to tell stories about famous people who were buried in the cemetery, but I found it difficult to understand why I should care to see their graves. Instead, I believe that studying what these famous people did to become successful would have been more beneficial and interesting.

Overall, I did not find the experience at Cemetery №1 in New Orleans to be engaging or informative. I believe that there are much better ways to learn about the rich history of the city. There are many other tourist attractions and landmarks that would provide a more meaningful and enjoyable experience. Therefore, I would not recommend this tour to anyone looking for an exciting and informative way to explore...

PSA: To go inside the cemetery, you must buy tour tickets in advance and there is only one tour company that has access to the interior of this cemetery.

On the day of your tour, check in at the visitor’s center located to the right of the cemetery entrance and wait there to start your tour. There is air conditioning and clean restrooms in this building and a big parking lot. —— Fascinating historic cemetery at the edge of the French Quarter. Our tour guide Buddy was a sweet man, very knowledgeable, and he gave my pale daughter and I an umbrella for some shade which was appreciated.

I have taken this tour a couple times in the past with different groups, and but Buddy was the first person to explain how the crypts are basically natural crematoriums for the bodies put within them. That was a cool, new fact to learn!

We went in late June and it was HOT. The cemetery is primarily concrete and white stone and, in the New Orleans sun, heat just radiates out of that place. Temp was in the 90s in the rest of the French Quarter that day, but there were signs that said it was 110° within the cemetery so if we felt sick, we should depart.

Having the umbrella was very nice, and there are also a few covered stops within the cemetery that also have a misting system to keep you from overheating.

Oh! And the famous cemetery cat, Esmeralda, even graced us with...

The St. Louis Cemetery 1 is a fascinating look back at the history of New Orleans. The tour covers a variety of topics, from how the family wall tombs work to a few notable residents such as Marie Laveau and Homer Plessy. You will also see Nick Cage's future tomb. Our tour guide was fantastic and went over a lot of info in our tour. Unfortunately, the tour experience itself has issues and I do understand some of this is beyond anyone's control. Due to the rampant vandalism and even competition amoung tour companies, the Catholic Church has installed a single tour operator and this is the only way to gain access to the cemetery if not a family member of a resident. Tours are every 30 minutes to even 15 minutes in groups of 20. I understand this is to meet the the huge demand for this historical location, but groups of 20 in such a small and narrow environment takes away from the experience. The tour also feels very rushed (not our guides fault) due to how frequently they run. Ours even ran over about 15 minutes and the time just flew by. Just something to keep in mind when setting your expectations. The guides also have to spend a lot of their time telling people to stop leaning on the tombs, stay with the group, etc. because people can't just be...