laura: a creole plantation

Based on a friend's recommendation I made the trip out to see the Creole plantation. The tour started promptly on time which was great. Our tour guide (Rocky) did a fantastic job explaining the history of the plantation and making the characters come to life. It really did make you feel like you understood the family that owned the plantation and the way of life back when the plantation was running. I expected something more "grand" but found the experience interesting and worth while. Perhaps a tad expensive, but otherwise excellent.

Our tour of the Laura plantation was incredible Julia was an excellent guide and provided us with very interesting information and an incredible story about the owners of this beautiful creole plantation. I highly recommend this to everyone

The main draws for Laura Plantation would be the fact that it's Creole and has some original slave cabins, but their over-the-top slick marketing implies that there's so much more. There isn't. Even the name is recently made up, as it's taken from a woman named Laura who grew up there at the end of the 19th century and wrote a detailed history. The vast majority of the furnishings are not original, the house is small, made smaller by a fire, and if it wan't for a fault line running under the property, it would've been leveled for a chemical refinery in the early 1980s. It was interesting, but $20 per person was far too expensive. Although, when there's slick marketing that makes an average attraction seem special, admission is often more.

As others have said, the house is not an impressive mansion as the other plantation homes;however, the tour expertly conveys creole history. As our guide explained, the tour is not the typical explanation of period furnishings. Rather, it is a story of the people that lived and worked here.

Our tour guide, Bryan, was the absolute best tour guide I've ever had. His explanation of both the plantation and the local history and culture added a perspective we hadn't heard before. This plantation is not the prettiest in the area, but the tour is by far the best around. Go check it out!

Laura plantation is completely different from the neighbouring Oak Alley plantation. Less grand but equally with an exiciting history about which you can learn during the tour. It is just 1 hour away from New Orleans and worth a day trip out of town.

I loved the tour of Laura Plantation. Our guide, I believe his name was Doug, did an excellent job explaining the story of the plantation and the family that owned it. I loved the fact that they were able to tell stories based on the book by Laura herself. And for people who say that slavery was not mentioned, not sure what tour they took but the tour I was on talked about slave lives on the plantation a whole lot. That is what made the tour so great, it talked about the owners and the slaves lives. I think it would be impossible to talk about one without the other. Also, some people have mentioned that they felt rushed, even though we could not see the grounds independently, I felt the our tour guide never rushed us. Overall it was an excellent tour.

I was wrong-Bryan, our tour guide was very adept at weaving history and personal stories about the family that owned this plantation. He was entertaining & informative. I really enjoyed this tour that lasted quite long-but because it was so interesting went by rather quickly. Loved it!

Laura is not like other old south plantations that you envision or may have visited. Being a Creole plantation, it is very unique. This made the tour incredibly interesting, learning about the unique Creole culture and how their plantations looked and were run so differently. The tour itself is based on actual memoirs of Laura. While not quite as scenic, this is definitely worth a visit for the unique experience. Our guide was a bit off-putting with her formal, almost-acting style, but she was very thorough, answered everyone's questions, and provided tons of interesting facts. Highly recommend if you are interested in learning about a very different kind of plantation.

....but full of history. We took an organised coach tour from central New Orleans which cost $81 for two of us. The entrance fee if you made your own way there was just $20 each but it was an hours ride and about 50 miles. Brooke took us round and she was knowledgeable and informative. There is still a slave hut which we visited and was in use until 1977. Packed full of history a fascinating visit spoiled by the fact that we were kept waiting 40 minutes for our tour. Where, you guessed it in the shop!

The house and its surroundings of this creole plantation are not so beautiful as Oak Alley Plantation but it has their own charm and history; you can see some restored places of the house due to the fire occurred some time ago, the fire damages really affected the originality of some part of the house.

Our visit to the Laura plantation was quite different to what I expected in a really good way. This property was formerly owned by multiple generations of a Creole family that was dominated by an amazing group of women. It is a place of amazing contrasts - women were calling the shots of this huge business enterprise in an incredibly challenging environment - it was miles ahead of many businesses today. However, this is against a backdrop of slavery, which cannot and is not sugar coated. Much of the information about the property has been obtained from the letters and diaries of Laura, who was associated with the house during her lifetime. This makes the house very engaging for adults who are interested in history and social issues.Access to the property is limited to group tours, which are run in a fairly regimented manner. This obviously has pros and cons. Our guide was very knowledgeable and I thought all information was provided in a very objective manner. If you are interested in history, a visit to this site will probably prompt further research into Laura's life and the events that occurred in the house and the region. This is due to the very professional manner in which this site is maintained and shared by the staff and volunteers who run the place. The house has also suffered many setbacks in the recent past, as there was a major fire. However, it's great to see that the fees to the property are being invested in the site, and the restorations are very sympathetic to the history of the place. Highly recommended.

Like Oak Alley, Laura Plantation is quite a commercial operation and the $20 per person entrance fee is quite steep.The site is beautiful, but please note the property was severely damaged by fire some years ago and restored afterwards, so it has lost it's authenticity.It was very busy when we were there and it felt we were rushed through the plantation and we were not allowed to walk around by yourself.

I was very excited for this tour, but it fell short of my expectations. The tour itself was quite short in length, the time we spent on the bus and waiting around for the bus took up most of the time. The tour guide was knowledgeable, but I thought there would be more of a history lesson. We were not able to walk the grounds unsupervised, and we were pushed to purchase items in the gift shop. I would have rather rented a car and driven to the plantations near each other to get a feel for all of the plantations.

Very informative tour that starts just outside the gift shop and begins with a description of the dangers boiling sugar process with the huge cast iron cauldron. A great slice of history comes to life at this plantation and a must for students and visitors to the area.