Gray Line Tours is offering three days of tours at special discounted rates for MLA members.

The Daytime Jazz Cruise: Wednesday, October 26, 2016, 11:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m., $37.75 per person

Daytime Jazz Cruise

Climb aboard the Steamboat NATCHEZ for a day on the river filled with live jazz music, a delicious meal and beautiful sights. The music is provided by The Steamboat Stompers, a group of the most talented musicians in the genre. The meal is a New Orleans style brunch that will make your mouth water. The sights are provided by the shoreline and the might Mississippi River.

The Plantation Tour: Thursday, October 27, 2016, 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. (choice of Whitney or Oak Alley), $55.75 per person

The Whitney Plantation Tour

In 2014, the Whitney Plantation opened its doors to the public for the first time in its 262 year history as the only plantation museum in Louisiana with a focus on slavery.

Through museum exhibits, memorial artwork, restored buildings and hundreds of first-person slave narratives, visitors to Whitney will gain a unique perspective on the enslaved people who lived and worked here.

The early owners of Habitation Haydel, later known as The Whitney Plantation, became wealthy producing indigo before the plantation transitioned to sugar in the early 1800’s.

Whitney is also significant because of the number of its historic outbuildings which were added to the site over the years, thus providing a unique perspective on the evolution of the Louisiana working plantation.

The Big House is one of the finest surviving examples of Spanish Creole architecture and one of the earliest raised Creole cottages in Louisiana.

The Whitney Plantation Historic District is on the National Register of Historic Places.

As a site of memory and consciousness, the Whitney Plantation Museum is meant to pay homage to all slaves on the plantation itself and to all of those who lived elsewhere in the United States.

Oak Alley Tour

You’ll experience a bygone era in one of the South’s most beautiful settings-Oak Alley Plantation, built in 1839.

Marvel at the unbelievable quarter-mile long alley of 28 magnificent Oak trees, each over 250 years old, and view the Majestic Cypress Trees in Louisiana’s swamps bordering the Mississippi River.

Your guided tour will reveal the fascinating stories of the home and its history. Perhaps the most photographed plantation ever, Oak Alley has been the setting for such motion pictures as Interview with a Vampire, Primary Colors, and the wedding of Bo and Hope from the daytime soap opera, Days of our Lives.

On your journey to this historic plantation, you’ll also have the opportunity to enjoy a panoramic view of Lake Pontchartrain as you cross the Bonnet Carre Spillway (the flood outlet of the Mississippi River).”

Travel past Whitney, Evergreen, Felicity & St. Joseph Plantations, ghosts of the past that front the Mississippi River, where rich crops of sugar cane, cotton and indigo from these fertile lands once  travelled to ports of trade.

The Super City Tour: Friday, October 28, 2016, 12:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m., $38.75 per person

The Super City Tour

Absorb the sights & sounds of the world famous French Quarter and historic Jackson Square, home of the Cabildo and Presbytere Museums.

Travel through historic neighborhoods such as Treme & Faubourg Marigny.

Visit one of our historic cemeteries, referred to as “Cities of the Dead,” and learn about this unique above ground burial system.

Marvel at stories of voodoo and piracy on Bayou St. John, the waterway used by Jean Lafitte and his band of pirates, as we make our way to City Park, one of the ten largest urban parks in America.  Here you may visit either the Morning Call Cafe or the Besthoff Sculpture Garden.

Follow the path of the St. Charles Avenue streetcar, the oldest continuously operating passenger railway system in the world (until service was disrupted by Hurricane Katrina).

See the homes of former Kings & Queens of Mardi Gras, stately mansions and the world-famous, exclusive Garden District.

View Tulane and Loyola Universities across from Audubon Park, home to one of the top five zoos in the nation, The Audubon Zoo.

Includes cemetery stop and narrated motorcoach tour.

Click here for more information and to buy tickets.