Many years ago, Bride of Scarydad surprised me with an impromptu birthday trip to the Crescent City. It was the first time I had ever been, which is pathetic since I live less than 300 miles away. Ever the fan of things dark and mysterious, and even more so a fan of booze, food, and more booze and food, I couldn’t wait. Here is the story of what happened that time I got drunk in New Orleans.
Bride uses sites like Priceline and Travelzoo to book our flights and hotels. For the most part, these agents rate the accommodations with stars and customer reviews rather than history lessons. That is how we came to book and stay in one of the most haunted hotels in New Orleans and not realize it until after we got home.
The Bourbon Orleans Hotel is listed on just about every site, including its own, as one of the ten most haunted hotels in New Orleans. It has a long and varied history.Originally constructed in 1817 as a theater and ballroom, it played host to opulence and vice for decades. From the late 1800’s until the 1960’s it was a convent and girls’ school, and finally it became a hotel. Literally thousands of people have passed through these halls and many have stayed.
Bride and I did not know this as we handed the keys to the valet so many years ago. Our minds were on stretching our legs and hitting the bars. In fact, nothing significant to this story really occurred until later, and we didn’t realize it until much later. Mostly we went out, we ate and drank a lot and we did it again the next day and then we went home.
So what happened on this trip to cause your hero to write about it all this time later?
Kids. Kids are what happened.
Specifically, loud and obnoxious giggling little girls who were playing some kind of game in the hallway at four in the morning. I, having drunk half the city and feeling rather head-spinny was not happy about this. Who the hell lets their kids run around a hotel hallway this late at night? So, after a while I just couldn’t take it anymore. I got up and went out into the hall to yell at someone’s flippin’ little noisy brats.
Of course there was nobody there; just a long hallway of doors in both directions. And of course as soon as I was back in bed the game started up again. It went on for a bit before I got up again and again there was nobody in the hallway.
At this point, “ghost” or “haunt” was the furthest thing from my mind. All I wanted was an aspirin and some shut-eye. I went back to bed vowing that if they didn’t knock it off I was going to call the front desk and give them a piece of my mind. I must have drifted off to sleep then because I woke up the next morning without having called the front desk but cursing myself for being born in the first place. I was in so much pain.
We finished up that trip and loaded into the car and came on home.
A few weeks later I was watching one of those haunted shows on the Travel channel. Lo and behold, there was the Bourbon Orleans in all its glory. I watched segment after segment about Confederate soldiers and nuns and whatnot. I thought that this was all very cool and that I would have to tell Bride about this when she got home.
Then they said something that really got my attention. I don’t remember it verbatim but it went something like this, “Guests who stay on the fourth floor often report hearing children playing some kind of game and laughing; thinking it’s another guest, they often call the front desk to complain…”
We were on the fourth floor. That was me. I didn’t call and complain but I was this close.
I had one of the most real encounters with a ghost ever had and didn’t realize it until weeks later.
Damn it!
