Disney Cruise Line, Port of New Orleans - Erato Street Cruise Terminal — Local services in New Orleans

We normally have a good experience with the Erato Street Terminal. This time however was a complete disaster. We were scheduled to check in with Carnival between 1 and 1:30pm. We arrived to a traffic disaster because the parking garage at the terminal was completely filled. I would estimate that some 200 vehicles had no place to park in the garage. The parking people had us drop off our bags at the terminal then loop back around toward the entrance to the garage. Again there were hundreds of vehicles. So, we arrived at 12:29 and it took almost two hours to park.

That's not the good part! They escorted the overflow to an old open gravel construction parking lot almost 1 mile from the terminal. Oh yeah and they still charged 90 bucks the same people paid for the garage at the terminal.

On the Carnival check in they ask if you will be parking in the garage??? You would expect they would have enough room but they do not. Now, I don't think this is Carnival's fault. This is the typical New Orleans parking debocal that was just a mess.

If I have any suggestions, I would park anywhere but hear and take a Taxi an Uber or Lyft to the terminal.

The parking mess made us almost 2 hours late. Then to top it off. We finally get back to the terminal and the lady checking us in says what time is your boarding? We say, 1 to 1:30. She says well it's way past that now. Really!!! We have been here almost 2 hours because of this...

The terminal is easy to find using Google map directions. The parking garage was mostly full when we arrived but we found a spot on level 5.

The staff were friendly, they directed us where we needed to go, and it was smooth sailing after that. I think it only took us 10 minutes to get from parking onto the cruise ship.

I took away one star because I'm in a wheelchair and as my husband was pushing me to the elevators in the parking garage there was a 4 or 5 inch wide by maybe 1.5 or 2 inch deep area across the entire concrete that did not have a grate over it and we didnt see it until it was too late. The front wheels of my wheelchair dropped into the ditch and I went tumbling out of the chair and face planted on the concrete. I tore up a spot on my chin, two knuckles and the palm on my right hand, and damaged my left hand, that took the brunt of my weight. They should cover the section with a grate or at least install a warning sign because someone could be more seriously...

My god are the staff at this cruise terminal rude. I cruised with Disney, which has wonderful staff on board and during the embarkation experience, but they are forced to work with the staff at this terminal. I had the worst ever experience with the porter when disembarking, who rudely told my wife to keep up and even threatened to leave my luggage on the floor if we didn’t. Then, he must’ve remembered that you need to be friendly if you want a decent tip because he attempted to strike a conversation with me. When it was time to drop off my luggage, I still tipped him fairly even though he was incredibly rude ($8 for 2 large bags and 1 very light bag), but he must’ve been unsatisfied with the tip because he just turned around and left with neither a thank you or even a simple “bye.” The workers here need some lessons in simple customer service. Never cruising out of this...