Schiros is a really nice B&B. I took 11 people down there during Mardi Gras 2007, rented the whole place and had a blast! If you have never been to New Orleans before, This is the place to go. Forget the Days Inn, or some other cookie cutter place. This place is UNIQUE. First of all, It is a local place, not a touristy place. Second, get out and walk around! Every time I stepped out the front door, someone said hello and had a smile. The neighborhood looks a little shady at first, but as soon as I walked around, I saw that it is really a nice little community of people who know eachother and are very friendly. I had a lot of fun talking with the locals and even gave directions to a guy on a bicycle that was 10 feet tall from the balcony! Where else can you do that! Schiros is walking distance from Burbon street, uptown, and every Mardi Gras Parade. Not having to drive in nasty traffic and pay for parking makes this place a real gem. (trust me) Most of all my experience there will be something I will never forget. Come here with a positive attitude and a few friends and you will have an absolute blast, I guarantee it.

Don't be fooled by the pictures on their Web site! This is not a lovely b&b that offers what they say they offer. A complumentary drink? We paid for ours. A breakfast at 9 in the morning? Sorry, we don't have any left anymore, but you can grap some soda and a muffin from our convenient store. A good night's rest? The bed was squeaking so badly that we did not get any rest at all... even after a couple of beers. Some shampoo in the morning? There was none. Overall, don't book it. Spend your money ($130) on something that is closer to the French Quarter and offers a functioning bed and some decent soap.

We booked here for three nights following the American Library Association conference in 2006. The neighborhood has changed a lot since Katrina (the city is emptier, for one thing, which makes the hood more vulnerable)--a couple of people warned us about walking here as two women. We found another place and called the Balcony to cancel our reservation, assuming we'd pay for the night regardless of whether we were there. To our surprise, the owner charged us for the entire stay we had booked. When we asked why, he said he could have sold the room to others because of the conference--which was actually over by the time we had reservations at Balcony. Basically, he seemed to regard the conference as an extenuating circumstance allowing him to bill us for the entire amount of our stay. The refund policy on the B&B's website says that failing to cancel 14 days in advance should mean you lose your deposit--in this case, the amount of the first night's stay. The only exception to that is special events, which are listed on the website as Mardi Gras, Hallowe'en, etc. No mention of the conference.

We have a lot of sympathy for small NOLA businesses, which is why we came to the conference, chose to stay in a B&B, and spent our money there. (A lot of it!) We want to help NOLA get back on its feet. The people we met during our stay were resilient and friendly--terrific folks overall. It was really discouraging to get shafted by this guy, who appears to be using the situation to his advantage. Full disclosure: He did offer us a "rain check" for the stay, valid until September 2006. Since there's no chance of us coming back to NOLA that soon, and since we don't want to stay in an unsafe neighborhood, that's pretty useless to us.

We'll give him one more shot to do the right thing--we're happy to forfeit the one night's deposit, especially since we gave short notice to cancel--but I'm not hopeful. If you book here, make sure you know what you're getting into!

Our reservations were made about a month in advance. We requested the suite because we were two mothers taking our daughters on vacation. The owner, Zac, phoned to confirm reservations and to say the sofa bed, (the extra bed we were counting on) had been broken, but hoped to have it replaced by the time of our arrival. When we arrived he was correct, the sofa was broken. This was about 1:30 p.m. We asked the person who checked us in about it, we were told we would have an air mattress within two hours. We also asked for two extra pillows because there were four of us. We asked about the safety of the area. Zac had said it was a very safe neighborhood when I had spoked with him. After seeing it we had our doubts. A dear man named LeRoy informed us of the areas to stay clear of, and suggested we stay together when we toured and all would be fine. That afternoon we walked to the French Quarter and back, 7:30 p.m. we still had no air mattress. We again had to ask, by this time the four of us had agreed it might be best if we just leave even though we had already paid for two nights. At that time someone knocked at the door with the air mattress and told us we could plug it in and air it up. We asked about the pillows, he than had to go to Target to purchase extra. We did stay, and paid over $300. to sleep on the floor. Not once did Zac talk with us or offer to us a discount for our inconvenience.