I’ll admit, as the daughter of a Baptist preacher, visiting New Orleans for Halloween was not exactly on my to-do list.
My New Orleans travels typically take place in July, defined by bounce music, second lines, and streets filled with Black women during ESSENCE Fest. Ghosts and haunted houses were never part of my usual Big Easy itinerary, but I didn’t need much convincing once Nobu entered the conversation.
I was invited on a press trip to experience Ghouls Want to Have Fun at the Nobu Hotel inside Caesars New Orleans. New Orleans has always been a beloved city for the women in my family. When I was younger, my mother and grandmother traveled there annually for a women’s conference rooted in faith and Southern tradition, led by the mother of New Orleans’ own PJ Morton.
At home, New Orleans lived in our kitchen. My mom kept magnets with gumbo recipes on the fridge, often recreated her own version of bananas foster for dessert, and brought back photos each year to show me just how special the city was to her. That early intimacy made me tender toward New Orleans long before I ever landed at Louis Armstrong International Airport.
This invitation asked me to move differently. Ghost tours instead of main stages. Afternoons mixing cocktails in a private Nobu class instead of late festival nights. Breathtaking views from the top of the Vue Orleans observatory, instead of shoulder-to-shoulder crowds. Visiting in the fall felt like stepping into the Louisiana I first encountered through films like Eve’s Bayou, rooted in things that are felt as much as they are seen.
At the same time, the food still grounded me in what I already loved, from old favorites like Café du Monde to new ones like Nina’s Creole Cottage by Chef Nina Compton, the James Beard Award-winning, Saint Lucian-born chef behind Compère Lapin and Bywater American Bistro. There, I enjoyed some of the best red beans and rice, gumbo, and fried chicken I have ever had.
My welcome to the city came before I even reached the hotel. When my driver arrived, his warmth and Southern drawl did what New Orleans always does: made me feel at home.
Courtesy of Yasmine Jameelah
We talked the entire ride about our families, life in New Orleans twenty years after Katrina, and how happy he was that Caesars had acquired the property that once belonged to Harrah’s. “It was a hot mess before,” he said plainly. “They needed Caesars.” That man had me in stitches, but he was right. What once stood as Harrah’s reopened after a $435 million transformation, reemerging as Caesars New Orleans with a clear sense of intention.
The overhaul brought an expanded dining lineup that spans high-end Japanese cuisine and deeply rooted Creole classics, along with the Nobu Hotel, Louisiana’s first. Nobu Hotel exists as its own world within the larger property. Tucked into a quieter corner of the Caesars Hotel, the energy shifts the moment you arrive.
Courtesy of Yasmine Jameelah
There is a private entrance that feels calmer by design. After check-in, I was handed a chilled matcha lemonade I am still trying to recreate. The rooms lean darker by design in comparison to Caesars' signature rooms with deep neutral tones, soft lighting, and subtle Japanese nuances that create a sense of quiet the moment you step off the elevator. That balance, modern design paired with southern hospitality, showed up everywhere.
Courtesy of Yasmine Jameelah
Courtesy of Yasmine Jameelah
On my first night, a staff member greeted me formally with a “Nice to meet you, Yasmine,” while guiding me to dinner. By day two, it was a fist bump and, “Hey, Yaz, wuzzam baby?” That is what is so special about this place. In New Orleans, strangers become family quickly.
Dinner at Nobu felt like a luxury dinner theater. Plates of sushi, wagyu, and Maine lobster topped with black truffle arrived effortlessly. The menu also nodded to the city itself, with dishes like fried okra and sweet potato donuts that honored New Orleans’ culinary soul.
Courtesy of Yasmine Jameelah
Courtesy of Yasmine Jameelah
That night ended with a ghost tour through the French Quarter. I expected fear and instead found myself captivated by storytelling.
I had never been on a ghost tour before, so I imagined a guide dressed in all black with a witch's hat. Instead, she arrived in a pink puffy dress and immediately won me over with her wit, pacing, and honesty. She opened the tour by naming what many avoid: New Orleans was built on both trauma and triumph. “That’s scary enough,” she said. She was captivating, and we ended up going over the time with her, asking her for more stories, and having voodoo daiquiris (famously known as Purple Drank) on Bourbon Street.
Courtesy of Yasmine Jameelah
The next morning, after sleeping like a baby on Caesars’ custom mattress, I returned to the French Quarter for my annual Café du Monde breakfast. It is the best in the city, I do not care what you have been told. I indulged in beignets and a café au lait, happy with powdered sugar everywhere, dancing as the band played in the background.
By midday, after a shrimp po’ boy and hurricane at Manning’s Sports Bar and Grill, we gathered for a cocktail-making class, mixing lychee martinis with Nobu’s head chef. I complimented his Nobu hat, and minutes later, he came back like Oprah, “you get a hat, you get a hat,” with arms full of Nobu snapbacks for all of us. His only condition was that we wear ours backwards like him.
A full tour of the property followed, revealing just how expansive Caesars New Orleans truly is.
Courtesy of Yasmine Jameelah
From rooms overlooking the Mississippi River to private spaces tucked away from the casino floor, the scale was impressive, even for someone who has no idea how to gamble and still found herself tempted. That evening, I stopped by Octavia, the hotel’s center bar, to take in its $750,000 chandelier before indulging in chargrilled oysters, BBQ New Orleans-style shrimp, and an Oscar-style ribeye at The Steakhouse.
Before the parade, I visited Vue Orleans, an observatory and immersive museum overlooking the Mississippi. What stood out was not just the view, but the care taken in how the city’s story is told. Exhibits shaped by local historians, musicians, and culture bearers grounded New Orleans’ civil rights history, music, and Black culture in voices that actually belong to the city.
Courtesy of Yasmine Jameelah
Our final day brought rain, but the skies cleared just in time for my first spooky second line at the Krewe of Boo parade. What began as a small fundraiser for families impacted by Hurricane Katrina has grown into one of the city’s most joyful Halloween traditions. Marching bands, costumed families, glittering floats, and the kind of joy that only comes from a city determined to keep its light.
I caught a Moon Pie, a handful of beads, and found myself reminded of why New Orleans always finds me.
Courtesy of Yasmine Jameelah
New Orleans does not ask you to forget its past in order to enjoy it. It invites you to carry both. That truth lives in the music, the food, and the joy of a people who refuse to be erased and the pride of a people that spans far beyond the Mississippi River. This trip reminded me that luxury here does not exist in spite of history, but alongside it.
That balance is exactly what makes Caesars New Orleans and the Nobu Hotel feel like a natural part of the city’s heartbeat.
Featured image by Shutterstock
