During Mardi Gras Festival in New Orleans, Endymion is one of the Super Krewes with a celebrity guest, this year Rod Stewart!
Normally, the ball will be scheduled on the Saturday before Mardi Gras day ( Tuesday), the parade rolls and finishes its route with a loop around the venue of its Extravaganza. Even a rainy day will not stop the fun, and no matter what happens, it wouldn’t stop the ball!
Tickets:
First of all, we’d like to thanks Candice & Troy, our friends who suggested this great experience. Troy is an Endymion member and he rode in the Endymion parade this year.
The tickets for two of us was $500 (actually it’s $254 each, I think we got some discount from friends of Candice who didn’t want to do the VIP zone). Our tickets included buffet & open bar.
Candice & Troy paid the same price tickets for the ground floor or football field (Superdome), there is no buffet or open bar down there but they got more chance catching the beads!
The Parade will be around – around those tables.
We saw people brought food and beverages (and Kingcake!) by themselves (as much as they can!). So it would be a great idea for a big group of friends or family to share the same table!
So I’m not really sure where to get Endymion tickets, you may have to check on their website at https://endymion.org/, but I’ve heard that they are only sold in pairs.
Dress code:
This year’s theme is “Jazz…Our Gift to the World”
There is nothing about that theme related to dressing up.
But Yes, We do have to get dressed up.
It wasn’t big deal for Tim because he already has a black suit. But I did order him a golden bow tie – because he picked my dress in gold, so were a perfect match!!
However, men will wear a tux or a black suit with white shirt and a bow tie. But you are allowed to wear sneakers!
I think sneakers are good idea, it’s easy to move and more safety to step on the mardi gras beads (they are everywhere on the floor after the parade!).
For women, we need to wear a long dress! Mini or short dresses are not allowed for this ball. If you didn’t look just right for the ball, they might stop you at the gate!
I always wanted of going to a Ball (since I turned to be a housewife for 2 years!). I picture myself in fancy dresses, and sometimes I was wearing high heels shoes for cooking at home!
So it’s kind of my dream come true for this ball!
Then I went to try on the dresses at Dillard’s shopping mall every Friday for 3 weeks until I found the right one for me (actually, I found three but Tim picked only one!)
The problem is, the dress was too long for me. So I had to pay another $30 extra to hem it. Well, I think I could do that by myself since the Chinese lady just sewing it, not really hemming it.
Also, it’s my first time to do my hairstyle in USA which costs me $55 (3-4 times expensive than Thailand!). It’s kind of updo fails for me, I think I could it better by myself…
So, we probably spent about $705 for our dresses & tickets for this ball already!
(excluded our hotel and the tricycle ride!)
But it’s worth it!!!
We had so much fun and so many drinks (especially Tim who always had 3 different beers & cocktails in his 2 hands!)
The buffet food was ok, as I could remember there was some salad, pulled pork, beef roast, chicken nuggets, mac&cheese(?) and yes I saw the gumbo!
They also had some sweet like cookies and brownies. But I couldn’t eat too much, I don’t want to blow up my dress!
The open bar is nice, they have many drinks you want – and more than enough for the whole night!
The sad part is…our table was empty! There were only 2 of us on that table.
It would be nice if there were more people for us to making some chats and showing our fancy dresses Hahaha!
But the best parts are:
First, we get better restroom (a real one!) when the main floor people are lining up for the tempory WC, we don’t have to!!!
Second, we had the best view of the parade ever!
Parade:
I didn’t know that they would parade inside the ball! It’s a big huge and long parade which I think they started at 8pm and end about 11.30pm!!!
The motto of the Krewe is “Throw ’til it Hurts”, So it’s parade and mardi gras beads throwing for more than 3 hrs inside the ball! They estimate that they toss over 15 million throws along the parade route!
As I mentioned, there were mardi gras beads everywhere on the floor (even though they tried to clean it up during the parade!), and it’s kind of slippery if you walked on it!
after the parade was over, we came down to see Rod Stewart, Tim enjoyed him so much – at 74 years old Rod Stewart still rocked it!
I think we left early (earlier than others) at 1 in the morning!
I thought we would walk back so I bought my sneakers to change. But we finally rode back on the tricycle (Pedicab) which costs about $25 for 2 of us!
But it was a good idea, it’s getting crazy at Bourbon street and it would hard to walk thru drunk people for us.
It was a little surprised that Tim who just came back from another part of the world for this ball and he could make it after midnight!
But he couldn’t make any longer anymore the minute after he got back to the hotel he was out!!!
Well, it’s really a great experience – when we were asked about Mardi Gras and once we mentioned we did Endymion, many local people are feeling amazing for what we did!
