Tours by Isabelle

We took a Friday morning City/​Katrina tour with Ellen as our tour guide. We have been to New Orleans many times, but had not done a tour. Ellen was incredible! We learned so much — visited every neighborhood in the city with the history of how each came to be. Since Ellen grew up in New Orleans, she offered much incite into all. The Katrina events are very well covered and Ellen patiently answered all our questions. This tour is not to be missed, especially if you want a great overview of the city and Katrina. This tour covers a lot of ground and is well worth the price. Thank you Ellen!

We’ve been to NOLA 10 times and took a Carriage ride tour but never a formal your. Great tour by Ellen! She gave us many facts we never knew — Pre and Post Katrina as well as a great deal of historical facts. A great value too!

Not only was this tour fun and exciting, I found it very educational and learned a lot about the history of New Orleans. Our tour guide, Muriel, was very informative and kept us entertained during the ride. The airboat swamp tour was exhilarating! The plantation tour was very insightful. I would definitely use Tours by Isabelle again!

Make sure you are the FIRST pickup if you are taking a small group tour. My family was last and my dad and brother both 6’5″ had to mangle their bodies to get into the backseat. Those back roads are really bumpy and the last row is not for the faint of stomach. Overall the bus driver was nice and very chatty/​informative on the way out. We were safely transported from the French quarter to two of the plantations that are over an hour away. It was better than renting a car because we didn’t have to worry about directions and we could just sit back and take in some of the history or nap. The experience was fine, but could have been better. The bus/​van is like a basic church van with three rows.

The best part of our plantation tour was the ride out and back with Ellen, a New Orleans native full of understanding, funny and willing to answer any and all questions. We went to two plantations, Laura and Oak Alley, quite different and very interesting. Tour guides at both houses were excellent, and we had enough time at both places. We would have liked to include Whitney, a plantation that emphasizes the role of slavery in the plantation economy, but then the tour would have to be a couple of hours longer. Our only complaint would be that at each house they combined our small group with two our three others so that we went through each house with 25 – 30 people which made it hard to ask questions or dwell longer in a particular room.

A delightful tour with Billy! We took the city tour and a trip to the longue Vue mansion. We felt like we got a great insiders view of the city. Our guide even helped us find a place to eat dinner. I highly recommend this tour. Worth every penny!

This tour was a lot of fun and we learned a lot. Our guide Katha Fields, was great. Friendly, full of information and kept us on schedule for a busy tour. From the time she picked us up until the time she dropped us off about 9 hours later, she was giving us insight into New Orleans, the impact of Katrina and of course, the history of the area. I never did know the difference between Cajun and Creole. But I do now. As we were picking up the others on the tour at a couple of other hotels, she was describing how the different parts of the city were affected by Katrina and her own personal experience.
Once she dropped us off at the boat tour of the Bayou, the boat guide was also interesting (sorry I can’t remember his name). I didn’t really know what to expect of the bayou but it was much nicer than I thought. More like boating down a river than through a grassy marsh (which is what I expected). Because of the cool weather, we only saw one gator, but the trip through the bayou was still really nice, with some wildlife and beautiful scenery.
The plantation tours came next. Oak Alley was a beautiful plantation and the tour guide did a nice job showing us through the mansion and describing the history of the place and the people who had lived there. The grounds were magnificent, but of course the most moving part of the tour was the slave quarters, hearing about their treatment and seeing the names of all the slaves who had lived there. Obviously we knew about slavery in the south, but seeing the names and hearing the stories brought it home all over again. The grounds were beautiful. We didn’t have time to see all the things we could have seen there.
The lunch at Oak Alley was very good. Just enough for lunch and very tasty.
The final tour at Laura was somewhat chaotic. I think due to some confusion at that plantation, our tour group was joined by two or three others. We had a huge group with us. The young man who guided our tour on this plantation, still did a good job though he seemed a bit flustered by the huge group (which made it difficult to see details of the different rooms).
Somehow, both my wife and I came away though with a more vivid memory of his description of the characters and history of that house than at Oak Alley though. So he did a nice job.
All in all, it was a very enjoyable day, seeing and learning about a part of the country that we didn’t really know much about. Again, Katha was great. So friendly, professional and knowledgeable. We had a great time.

We took the All Day Plantation Tour with Gisele.
Due to an last minute cancellation, we ended up with a private tour for our group of 3. Gisele’s knowledge of New Orleans and its history was amazing.
We had some unexpected cold weather on the day of our tour and Gisele even loaned her jacket to one of my friends.
My only regret is that we didn’t have more time at Houmas House (my favorite plantation that day).
I would definitely recommend Gisele as a tour guide.

We took the City and Estate tour with Jerry as our tour guide. I cannot recommend this highly enough! Worth every penny! The tour is especially good if you’re not otherwise familiar with the city. A great way to explore all the interesting sections of the city in a few hours.
Jerry, our tour guide, did a wonderful job — Lots of great stories and local history that we would not have picked up otherwise. The tour van was cool, clean, and comfortable. Tour started and ended exactly on time. The tour included all the parts of town we wanted to see, with a few pleasant surprises as well. This tour really made our visit to New Orleans (and helped us plan other areas of the city to visit on future trips!)

Take This tour. Great time! We were lucky enough to get Lance LaCrosse as our air boat driver/​guide. Google him to see the you tube video of him kissing/​dancing with alligators or read more here:
So, you could easily assume he is very comfortable with alligators. Very. Comfortable.
Also, he is very knowledgeable, passionate about what he does, and fun!
This made the boat part of the tour super fun! The fact that we went in Feb-​ish 2015, when alligators are really not prevalent, made it slightly less fun, but it was a beautiful time anyway!
TIP: Dress for 20 degree less than ambient temperatures, because when the boat gets going, you get a lot of wind and can get splashed with water. Cuddl duds did the trick for me and layering, lots of layering!
TIP 2: the boats are super noisy, so *do* opt for the headphones provided by the swamp tour guide.
As far as the tour (or the Isabelle part), she did a great job! she picks up the people who made reservations with her, at their various hotels, all the while sharing historical tid bits of NOLA. She ensures everyone is comfortable and even had some rain gear in the van in case anyone needed some for the boat ride. It was ~ 45 minute drive from getting everyone (6 of us total) to the actual swamp riverboat place, and about an hour (?) on the water. Ours was a bigger boat, and we did get to touch a baby alligator. well, I didn’t. So, that’s a fun thing at the latter part of the boat ride. Back to Isabelle’s part, she entertained us with local facts and news articles (esp about Lance the alligator kisser) and other historical items of interest to the group in the van during the ride there and back. I would recommend both Isabelle tours and the swamp riverboat tour. Go when it’s warm and you’ll see some amazing reptiles I’m sure!

Tours by Isabelle proved to be the perfect guided tours for us. We were picked-​up from our hotel, and given three informative, relaxed, tours of the City/​Estates, Oak Alley and our favorite, «Laura’s House,» the swamp tour and tour of St. Josephs and beautiful Houmas House. (Ellen, on our City/​Estate tour, was so informative, and had a fabulous sense-​of-​humor. (We are still laughing about her opinions and comments).
We are very grateful to have had the opportunity to «Tour with Isabell.»

We took the Grand Tour, which included a swamp riverboat tour and tours of Oak Alley and Laura plantations. We had a great time! Our driver and guide, Ellen, was incredibly knowledgeable, friendly, and helpful. So were each of the guides at each location. Oak Alley was beautiful, and Laura had a great history.
One tip — we went in March, and even though New Orleans was warm, the swamp can be a bit chilly. Dress appropriately! Our guide warned us that because of the cold we might not see any gators, but we saw about a dozen basking in the sunlight.
Highly recommended.

Lovely day. We took the high speed swamp tour along with the plantation tours. The day included lunch. We had four guides that day: one that drove the van, one that drove the boat, and one at each of the plantations. All were wonderful! The day was very memorable. The best day of our trip.

GINNIE (our tour driver) was WONDERFUL! We had a great time! She was welcoming, enthusiastic, and incredibly knowledgable! We did the tour plantations which included the Laura as Oak plantations. The hour ride to our destinations was filled with historic and modern information. She also gave us time to take pictures outside after the tours and provided umbrellas for the rain. We could not have asked for better service.

Easy to work with we enjoyed our time with Ana who drove us to our swamp boat tour.
The 30 minute drive was filled with fact and lore about the crescent city.
Highly recommend.

We took a NewOrleans/​Katrina tour on Tues. July 23, 2014. We were a party of 3 adults and 1 yr. old boy/​teen. We were staying in Abita Springs so we drove to Harrah’s in NO and they met us there to begin the tour. Our tour Guide, Joseph, was very knowledgable, friendly and a delight to share his experiences with us. He has lived in NO his entire life so was able to share so much of life in NO and his unfortunate experiences with the Katrina disaster.
The tour began exactly on schedule. We traveled on a approx. 18 – 20 passenger van which allowed for a much more intimate tour rather than on a large tour bus. We could hear Joseph very well and the smaller vehicle allowed us to ask many questions. There were 6 participants so it was very comfortable. Joseph was very pleased to change the temp. either up or down as requested, which was much appreciated.
We began traveling through NO and Joseph explained many things about the French Quarter & inner city. We then went through the areas to see what was left of the devastation of Katrina and how things have progressed in the last 8 or so years. Quite slow going as we expected. He was very thorough explaining the levee breaks and exactly what occurred & individual personal stories about folks he knew who were affected. We stopped midway at the beautiful city park to stretch our legs, get a drink and snack. We continued on to the cemeteries to be enlightened about the methods of buriel due to NOs location below sea level. We then drove through the Garden District with it’s beautiful architecture, mansions and various homes of interest
We saw SO much more than I could possibly mention. Joseph’s narration and excellent New Orleans knowledge made this a most enjoyable and memorable tour that I’m sure we will never forget.
I highly recommend this Tour By Isabelle for anyone who is interested in an in depth, comfortable, enjoyable tour of New Orleans.

Kat was FANTASTIC. Extremely knowledgable and very thoughtful. Would recommend to anyone!

In addition to writing this review I think it would be best to review the other tours that we went to through Tours by Isabelle separately.
Booked the grand tour for 2 people and I am glad we got to do so. The airboat tour was great and while not the wife or my cup of tea the plantation tours were a must at least once. I don’t know if we really saved money or not, but the information learned on the trips between the airboat, plantations, and hotel was good though my wife fell asleep.
Next time if wife and I visit NOLA we will probably rent a car for the day and do the tours separately.

They were great picked us up at the hotel — John our driver /​guide was full of fun facts /​stopped at two plantations — Laura & Oak Alley! Laura was ok but Oak Alley was stunning! What an amazing plantation!!! Would use them again.

We booked the Grand Tour of Cajun Country with Airboat about 3 months in advance– the staff though the booking agency called us periodically to let us know how full the tour was (they only run it if they have enough people), which was really thoughtful. The day that it booked to capacity they called again to personally let us know that we were good to go.
This tour cost 185 $ a person, so we had high expectations.
We were picked up at out hotel by our tour guide, Muriel, on time. She was a funny, sweet lady with a French accent– lots of facts packed away about Louisiana.
First stop was the Swamp Tour for our airboat where we were greeted by Captain Garry. Totally funny guy– made the trip amazing and very memorable with his hilarious stories. The tour is about 90 minutes, and they offered us rain coats, which I declined. There was a bit of spray and it is SUPER chilly, so make sure to bundle up. We saw some alligators which is of course something you’d want and expect to see on this type of tour. We learned about the area, the local flora and fauna, and about people falling off the boat ;) haha Don’t fall off the boat! I had no idea how beautiful the swamp was– for me this was the highlight of the day. This portion of the trip was well worth the upgrade in price.
After the swamp we drove to Oak Alley Plantation for lunch and a tour. The food was very good– I was a bit surprised as sometimes tours serve their guests questionable food. We started with a salad and cup of gumbo, then moved onto a seafood étouffée, black beans and rice, and andouille sausage. The desserts were pretty fun– they had bread pudding with a bourbon sauce, yum, as well as a buttermilk pie. I thought this stuff was pretty amazing– buttermilk and super sweet condensed milk. Wow.
We had a bit of time to wander around the plantation before the tour started which was nice. The tour itself was very good. If you just came to the plantation and walked around you would not get nearly as much out of your time there. We learned so much about the history of the plantation, the people who lived there and their daily lives. The tour guides wouldn’t go int he death room as they claim it is haunted and that many tourists get an outline of a ghost in their pictures of the room.
After this plantation we drove to Laura House. These two plantations are night and day in differences– from the style that their tour guides use, to the information provided, to the general look and feel of the property. I though it was very cool to see two very different plantation homes. Laura house is a multi-​colored structure, and was historically run by some pretty fascinating women women. This tour lasted a little over an hour, and while I thought this might be too long, it wasn’t at all. Loved the place.
In between each place, Muriel gave us information in the car about the place we were going to, so we had a bit of background prior to arriving. She was very casual and approachable. Great tour guide.
I 100% recommend this tour and tour company. It’s great when you book something like this and come out of it wanting to do it all over again.