Country Inn & Suites By Carlson, New Orleans French Quarter, LA

My dad and I stayed at the Country Inn & Suites for four nights in mid-​May when we visited New Orleans for vacation. My mom was actually the one who found and booked the hotel for us, mostly because of the hotel’s close location to the French Quarter and the happenings in downtown New Orleans. I have to agree, the location of this hotel is perfect. Magazine St. is close enough to walk to the trolley, the best restaurants, lots of shops, etc., but is not as busy as Canal or Bourbon to be noisy and constantly crowded with drunk tourists.
The hotel is a beautiful building, or I should say buildings, because it is a historical location comprised of buildings put together. The lobby is oblong, but there is lots of seating and it is beautifully decorated. The adjacent bar is open ²⁴⁄₇ and has outdoor seating that is great for an early morning Mimosa or a late night chill spot. The elevators in the hotel were a bit confusing at first because of the layout, but it is easy to navigate once an employee explains it to you.
There is a small convenience store in the front lobby with an emphasis on the small aspect of it. I’d rather just go to a vending machine down the hall or walk to a convenience store at the end of the block if I need a snack or toiletry item. Also, there is a small fitness center, but I did not use it. The pool in the courtyard is absolutely beautiful from a glance, but I also did not use it. As for the breakfast, it was weak, but then again it was complimentary, so I didn’t expect much. There were not very many options for food and it wasn’t exactly five stars. I only ate there one morning and ate at Starbucks the rest of the mornings.
Our room had two queen beds and it was very comfortable. There was a desk, a dresser with a TV on top, an armchair, a coffee machine, a mini-​fridge, a microwave, a closet with a safe inside, and a nice bathroom. The TV had lots of channels, including HBO, but we did not stay in the room long enough to make much use of it. There were all the amenities you could need and want. On a side note, the hairdryer in the bathroom was worthless. Make other arrangements if you need to dry your hair.
The staff was wonderfully friendly and helpful. The front desk staff were genuine and accommodating to us when we checked in, checked out, and every time we walked by in between. I have to shout out the concierge, Valerie, though, because she was the star of the show. My dad and I had some places we wanted to check out and things we wanted to do while in New Orleans, so Valerie made some suggestions, booked all of our tours, gave us directions, etc. She was a huge help to us and helped make our vacation in New Orleans awesome. I definitely recommend stopping by her area in the front lobby to talk to her.
Overall, if I ever came back to New Orleans (and I sure hope so), then I would love to stay at this hotel again. I have no major complaints about the accommodations, amenities, location, or staff.

Great hotel. Lots of history, and very traditional appearance. Apparently this was an old bitters factory – how neat! Staff is very friendly. Rooms are spacious and clean. Pool could be bigger, but that’s ok. The bar attached is great for a quick drink too. The best part by far though is the concierge. Eddie and Valerie were the best people to help us plan our trip!

Stayed Mother’s Day weekend. Four days three nights. Everything was great, I checked in early no issues at all. My room was cleaned everyday. I ordered room service it was quick and pretty good. The bartenders at stackers were nice. The free hot breakfast and wifi was a nice touch. A short walk to bourbon street. No complaints at all.

From the moment we arrived the staff was extremely pleasant and attentive. Great customer service! We mentioned it was our 33^rd anniversary and they surprised us with a room upgrade and a bottle of champagne. The complimentary breakfast was great! Scrambled eggs, sausage fresh fruit. It’s not all about the extras, the hotel is in a great location. Easy access to French quarter and bourbon street. The hotel itself is such a nice mix of old New Orleans updated with modern. We will definitely choose this hotel again!

Stayed here our first night in NOLA. Just about a block outside of the French Quarter, so it’s a great location and close to everything. We paid more here than another hotel that I thought was more spacious and in the middle of the Quarter, so although I had a great experience here, I’d stay at the other place on future visits. Great bar inside the hotel and the Ruby Slipper is a block up the street for some good morning eats!

Location, location, location! This hotel has a great location right near Bourbon Street and French Quarter. There are lots of great restaurants, shops nearby. The concierge was incredibly helpful in providing recommendations for places to eat and catch some live music.
We were upgraded from a king bed to a suite which was incredibly spacious! Nobody likes paying to park at a hotel but the $ 35 was well worth it. The valet remembered my name the next day and was incredibly friendly. We called down to request our car before checking out and found out they had already brought it up front since they knew we were checking out!

Very good room and clean with a good reasonable price, 15 minutes walk to bourbon street. We had an wonderful stay here.

I like the over all feel of the hotel. The lobby is decorated for the holidays and looks very festive. The staff is very nice. The valet pricing was $ 35 per day… which sounded crazy to me. Once we checked in the person helping us up with the bags didn’t know the elevator system, something about regular floors and R floors. Oh and the elevator moves soooooo slow that if you are in any hurry I suggest to give yourself some extra time. The beds and pillows are very comfortable but we just had a sheet over the mattress so it kept moving around and exposing the mattresses, a fitted sheet would have been a much better choice. I am surprised that the bathroom doesn’t have a fan, very disappointing. But why the 4 stars? Location is great, it looks beautiful inside, and the beds are awesome!!!

I’m gonna go full 5 stars because that’s what this place deserved! What an amazing stay! In a city that’s always playing music we enjoyed beautiful silence.
We started off getting to the hotel late and were greeted by the doorman and the beaded necklaces which was calming after a 7 hour ordeal to get there from New Jersey. Then our only slight problem was that the incidental fee is taken from your card and not put back on until 5 business days from when it is put on. That almost put a serious damper on our vacation. We lost that much money to spend right off the bat. However, that was the only flaw other then that the breakfast was amazing, the hospitality of the front desk was superb always wishing you a good night and good morning as well as the doorman with direction to the closest food. The cleaning ladies were always friendly as well as prompt as every time we came back the room was always as like we were never in there! Well done we really felt the southern hospitality and would definitely stay here again when we come back!

We got to the hotel very early and were expecting to be ignored by the staff until the 4 p.m. check-​in time. We are happy to report they were beyond helpful pointing us to different staff members who were able to store our bags and even went as far to suggest we talk to the concierge if we were looking for things to do for the day. We stored our bags for the day (the room was locked and there was someone outside the front of it at all times — very secure!) and really enjoyed the city.
We ended up coming back to the hotel and came back about 20 minutes before check-​in time in hopes we would be able to get into our room early. Again, we were anticipating annoyance from the staff but they were over and above accomodating. They apologized profusely for not being ready for us 20 minutes early! To make things even better they asked us if we truly needed the two queen bed room we booked (it was the only option we could find) we said, «no» and they upgraded us to a suite! After going up to our room and dropping off our bags we made our way back out to the city and they stopped us AGAIN to make sure everything was satisfactory. The customer service did not stop there! We checked out the next morning and stored our bags again. We asked the person taking care of our bags about taxis and he offered to order one for us or suggested we come back when we were ready but warned us that it could take up to 20 minutes to get a cab. We came back later in the day and they were cheerful and kind all over again After they ordered us a cab we were ushered inside to make sure we stayed out of the heat.
Our entire time at The Country Inn & Suites was fantastic and we highly recommend anyone staying there!
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1^st & foremost: great location, service, amenities & quality at their price point.
8 minute walk or less to Bourbon & the French quarter.
The building and décor in common areas retain that old school charm that many enjoy about NOLA. Beautiful exposed rafters throughout & in rooms.
Breakfast is the standard mid-​market fare. Perfectly suitable, not mind blowing.
Staff consistently have the lovely southern charm.
Hotel bar is solid with local brews & cocktails.
Rooms are a bit dated but clean & taken care of.

I’m dumbfounded by the rave reviews. This hands-​down the worst hotel I’ve stayed at in New Orleans and we come every single year.
To begin with, when we checked in, at 12:30am, we were given keys with the room number of one room. We went there, but our keys didn’t work so the porter let us in. I put my daughter to bed, unpacked and crawled into bed myself. My husband went down to the front desk to straighten out the key issue.
He returned informing me that the front desk clerk had written down the wrong room number and in fact we were in another room. I called down to complain but the receptionist stated that the room she sent us to is already booked so we can’t stay. It’s about 1:00am now. So, we pack up our belongings and our sleeping daughter (3 ½ yrs old) and move to another room; at least the porter helped us that time.
We get to the new room and it is like a coffin. The only window in the entire «suite» (and I use this term very liberally here because that’s what they call it) is to the hallway. There isn’t a single window in the «suite» which opens. It’s like a shotgun coffin room. It’s incredibly dangerous if there is ever a fire because there is only one exit — the door or window (right next to one another) which opens to a small walkway. The smell in this room is atrocious. It smells like mold. Not surprising since the only ventilation in the room is the AC. I’m pissed, this isn’t an inexpensive room, but I’m SO tired so we make our daughter’s bed again, and unpack, but while we are unpacking I get this headache that just won’t go away. It gets worse and worse. It becomes apparent that the culprit is a powerful mold smell in the room. It smells like a very damp basement. My husband put his foot down and went back down to the reception desk to demand a room without mold.
It’s about 2:30 am now. It takes about ½ an hour for the receptionist to agree to move us BACK to the original room. It seems that the room IS actually available except for the last night of our stay (5 nights). So we move our daughter, repack and move for the third time that night back into the ORIGINAL room. It takes us about ½ an hour to repack all our things and haul it across the hotel to the original room. This time we have no porter to help. We remake my daughter’s bed, don’t even bother unpacking, and fall into bed at about 3:30am. Oh, and they wanted to charge us for the difference between the old room vs. the new room. Here’s the irony. When I called down to the receptionist I OFFERED to pay more to stay in the original room, but she LIED to me and told me it wasn’t available. After they made us pack and unpack, pack and unpack, and then pack and unpack in the middle of the night moving a 3 ½ yr old 3 x’s I pretty much lost any desire to pay for a non-​moldy «upgrade.»
The receptionist apologized to my husband, but never once offered an apology to me. Also, management never even bother to acknowledge what had happened or apologize. Because we we kept running around the hotel for the whole night we got about 3 hours of sleep our first night and one full day of our vacation in New Orleans was ruined due to exhaustion. We had to come back to the hotel early the next day and nap the entire afternoon just to make up for the 3 hours of sleep we got the night before.
The last night they moved us to another room. They moved us FOUR times. Three times to non-​suite rooms (when we paid for a suite). Never did anyone offer to move our luggage until the last time when
All that being said here’s my sum of the hotel:
Pros: location (very close to FQ, Aquarium, St. Charles street car, and top notch restaurants like Lüke, Palace Café, and Cochon), plunge pool to stay cool in, decent WI-​FI (free & relatively fast) VERY friendly and helpful maid and valet staff (10 thumbs up for these people who do the hardest work and get the least reward!), beautiful old warehouse style hotel reno with exposed berms and high ceilings, and the front desk went around to check it out and the smoke smell quickly went away. I don’t know how they resolved it, they never told us, but they did resolve it.
Cons: There is no ventilation in any of the rooms, poorly designed and poorly maintained. Even the nicer rooms with a single window to the world outside don’t open, and the bathroom vent motors don’t work. All the bathroom ceilings I have seen (3 now) have black mold all across them, horrible insulation (we can hear the people above us IPhone ding for messages and can make out their ENTIRE conversations, the breakfast is pretty bad (think reconstituted eggs), lastly (bupper management apathy regarding service and lodging issues.
We travel to New Orleans every year and I can promise you I will never come back to this place. Listen to the bad reviews. I wish I had. They have a place that could be a real gem with a little renovation and a big shake up with the reservation staff and upper management.

Really comfortable, clean hotel at New Orleans, French Quarter. The customer service was great and the location was located close to everything! The hotel called us the 1^st and last day to make sure we were happy with our room. They have a store inside the hotel ²⁴⁄₇ in case you need snacks or drinks. Complimentary breakfast. Highly recommended.

These stars are for the great location only. I’m a Club Carlson elite member and was horribly disappointed by my stay. Luckily I was here for free nights from redeeming my membership points, otherwise I would have left and gone to a different hotel.
1) Key maker wasn’t working so every time I had to get to my room throughout the night, security had to let me in to my room.
2) I paid extra rewards points for an upgraded suite and got the ugliest, windowless room I’ve ever seen. It looks NOTHING like it does in the pictures.
3) After talking to the front desk, they told me to talk to the manager the next day– they had no power to resolve the issue. The next day, the manager told me this WAS my upgrade and that I’d have to contact membership services for any refunds. I called membership services, and they told me to talk to the front desk.
I quit my membership and won’t be staying with their hotels again. I’ll just go back to Marriott.

I blindly booked this hotel through Hotwire.com’s special rate deal. I was glad that I did.
The staff was extremely friendly. The hotel was nice and clean. The location was great as well as it was almost walking distance to all the important sites to see while in New Orleans.
I especially enjoyed their complimentary breakfast. It wasn’t your normal continental breakfast which you get in other hotels; they had eggs, biscuits and gravy, sausage, pancakes, waffles, and etc.
I also enjoyed the complimentary cookies when you walk in/​out of the hotel as well.
If I do come back to New Orleans, I’ll make sure to stay here again.

Rooms are small, pool is small, but everything in this area is a renovated 300 year old building. So in my opinion if you’re going to complain about lack of space don’t stay in this area of town. On my last morning to wake up in this hotel I could here jazz music very loudly coming from somewhere. I just laughed because that’s all you here everywhere especially in the French Quarter, just straight up jazz.
I used the phone since the message light was flashing. The phone smelled like barf! I looked at the phone & realized it had dried pink stuff all over the cord. I went to use the other phone on nightstand, same thing! AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!! So gross! I called front desk (with my cell phone) & asked them to please get the phones. They were nice & apologized.
Breakfast is not great, but not horrible. Eggs are definitely not eggs, they must be egg substitute or something because no one in my family could eat them. Coffee is great.
I told my husband I wanted a hotel that had free breakfast & a pool, which is hard to find in New Orleans. There are only a few hotels close to the French Quarter that offer those amenities. Maybe next time I won’t try to be such a cheap ass & stay somewhere else.

Enjoyed our stay here in April for hubby’s 60^th birthday. The staff was warm and friendly; the included breakfast was very good. The property is conveniently located and the room was quite comfortable. We’d definitely return.

I’ve always liked my Country Inn stays throughout America. I enjoy the complimentary breakfast and quality care from workers. It’s probably the new Orleans charm here that made me feel more comfortable than at other Country Inn. I was accommodated even though I got in at 10am in the morning and normal check in isn’t until 4pm. The room was spacious, especially the 14′ Windows that allowed me to see the Chop house across and listen to jazz music with the event at night. But perhaps it’s the charm of this hotel being a bitters company and a printing press place before it became this hotel, it’s a 3* hotel with 5* interaction and amenities. Breakfast had cereal, yogurt, fruit, waffles, and hot food that was French toast on one day and potato and eggs on another. Close proximity to canal Street and French Quarter but not too close that you can smell the puke from the street.
My only complaint, the swimming pool was really the size of a hot tub. It’s really meant to be a stand around and drink type of pool. Gym area is a nice addition.

THE LOCATION
The hotel is located about 2 blocks from Canal Street. It is prettyeasy to find and just a short walk over to the French Quarter. The Harrahs Casino is fairly close and the walk to the convention center isn’t bad either.
THE PERKS
There is a concierge on staff to assist you with travel and tours. Also, breakfast is included — some combination of oatmeal, bacon, sausage, waffle, eggs, yogurt, fruit, toast, bagels, cereal, juice and coffee. Not too bad. Also, they may offer discounts for certain employers so be sure to ask about that.
THE AMENITIES
The room offers a mini fridge, microwave and coffee maker. I didn’t use the pool, fitness room or other amenities so I can’t speak on them. There is free WiFi in the rooms.
THE ROOMS.
The room and bathroom are a pretty decent size. It appeared to be decent and in order upon arrive. Pretty much there were 2 queen beds, a tv, a desk and chair, coffee maker, The bed and pillows were comfy enough.
THE STAFF
The folks at the front desk for check in were very nice and friendly. During my first breakfast I ended up chatting with a lady and the subject of my rough travel day on my birthdaybirthday came up. I didn’t see her badge so I didn’t know that she was hotel management. Shortly after returning to my room, I received a small gift basket and happy belated birthday card from the hotel.
That was a pleasant surprise.
MISCELLANEOUS
They offer luggage storage for if you arrive early or have a late flight. Also, you can purchase postage from the front desk.

Staying in downtown New Orleans can be an expensive outing even for just a couple of days as we found hotel rooms be rather pricy and eating out even more so. We stayed at the Country Inn and Suites on magazine Street just a short distance from the French Quarters. That was an excellent decision on our part.
The hotel was just a couple of blocks from Canal Street. The reception desk had excellent staff, that were professional and courteous. You will have to leave you car for the valet, as there is no parking anywhere around the hotel. Takes about 15 minutes to retrieve you vehicle. The cost when we were there was $ 28 plus tax per day. Check in was quick. The lobby is nice and a very nice sitting area to the right as you enter the building.
The elevators are in the back of the building. There were three that we saw and two that we used. Service was always timely. Our room was 404 on the fourth floor. That was at the end of a long open area where one could actually look down to the first floor. The room was very nice with a separate sitting area. Two TV sets and a very nice clean bathroom. Everything worked perfectly in the room. Even though we were on the street side, we heard no street noise.
There is a small swimming pool located just off he first floor. Don’t get too excited as this pool is very small and if kids are present it will be full. There is a lobby bar just opposite the entrance to the pool and behind that breakfast is served. There is ample seating in both the dining area and in the lobby area and there is very good service. No matter what time we went to breakfast the staff always had a good hot breakfast waiting. In addition there was the usual Danish, toast, etc. plus fresh fruit and bagels. There is a free USA Today available in the lobby. Plus if you need guest services, that too is available during certain hours.
This is a very nice medium priced hotel that had a great location in downtown New Orleans.
Room Tip: Our room (404) was great. We heard no street noise even though we were on the street side.