6 Days In Lake Charles, Louisiana – Here’s What We Did

If you’ve followed our 50 state road trip for any length of time, you’ll know that we’re not doing it very efficiently. That’s the case not only when it comes to traveling from state to state but also when traveling within a state.

That happened again during our time in Louisiana. We’d booked a stay in New Orleans for Mardi Gras towards the end of February, but wanted to spend some time there before it got too busy to get a taste for “normal” life in the city. A couple of points and miles Facebook groups that I’m part of arranged a meetup in New Orleans for early February, so we decided to book our initial New Orleans stay during that time so that I could attend.

That gave us 6 days in between to find somewhere else to visit, so we picked Lake Charles as there were a few things we wanted to do out that way. The downside of that is that New Orleans and Lake Charles are on opposite sides of Louisiana, so it was a 3 hour drive to get to Lake Charles which turned into a 6-7 hour drive on the way back because of Mardi Gras traffic.

We had to spend a few days working while in Lake Charles, but I’m glad we visited as we got to do some fun stuff during our 6 days there, plus it provided the opportunity to help build our points and miles balances. Here’s what we got up to while there.

Gator Chateau

I’d seen on Sites & Bites that nearby Jennings was home to the Gator Chateau where you get to hold baby alligators. The building the Gator Chateau is in is more like a large shed/small warehouse than what you might picture of a chateau, but don’t let its nondescript exterior fool you.

The staff members there were lovely and extremely welcoming. We were taken out back by Anna where she got out Petite for us to hold.

While spending a couple of days in Florida a few years ago, Shae got to hold a small gator, but its mouth was taped closed to prevent it from biting. The gators you get to hold at the Gator Chateau are small enough that this wasn’t a concern. That’s because they have very small teeth at this point in their life, which you can just about see in the photo below.

The Gator Chateau is free, but they accept donations. They also have a gift shop with some cute items you can buy.

They’re also pet-friendly which we didn’t realize until we visited. We were a little disappointed that we hadn’t brought Truffles along, so we stopped back by on our way to New Orleans the next day so that Truffles could come along. She got to meet Ethel, but wasn’t as excited about it as Shae was 😉

You can read a little more about the Gator Chateau here.

Prien Lake Park

We stayed at the Candlewood Suites Lake Charles South and although they had some grass around the hotel, there wasn’t really anywhere to take Truffles on a walk as it was next to a busy road with no sidewalk. I therefore took her to Prien Lake Park a few times during our stay to get her out of the hotel.

It’s a beautiful park that’s next to Prien Lake. There are pathways running in and around it, there’s a boat launch, playground, picnic area, fields and more. We therefore spent about 45 minutes walking around there several days, particularly enjoying it at sunset.

Prien Lake Mall

I mentioned at the start of the post that we managed to boost our points and miles balances while in Lake Charles. That’s because Lake Charles is home to the only Simon Mall location in Louisiana – Prien Lake Mall. Simon Mall sells $1,000 Visa gift cards, so it’s a great way to do what’s known as “Manufactured Spend”.

I won’t go into great detail here about manufacturing spend, but the gist of one method is that you buy Visa gift cards with a credit card, use the Visa gift card to buy a money order, deposit that money order into your checking account and pay your credit card bill. You’ll be paying about $5 in fees (for the Visa gift card activation and the money order), but the points, miles and/or cashback you earn from your credit card can outweigh that cost. For example, if you have a credit card that earns 2% cashback on all transactions, you’d be earning $20.08 cashback for every $1,000 Visa gift card you buy seeing as it has a $3.95 activation fee at Simon Mall.

There’s more to manufactured spending than just this basic overview and it’s important to start small when doing it for the first time as mistakes can be made and things change all the time. If you’re curious about this subject, I’d recommend reading this guide on Frequent Miler, particularly the buying and liquidating gift cards section.

Bayou Rum / Louisiana Spirits Distillery

In addition to the Gator Chateau, Cassie at Sites & Bites had also mentioned Louisiana Spirits Distillery as it makes Bayou Rum and is the largest private rum distillery in the US. Traci subsequently confirmed that it’s somewhere we should visit and that their Satsuma rum was particularly worth trying.

We don’t need much encouragement to try different spirits, so we stopped by there just after visiting the Gator Chateau the first time round. I’m not normally a rum drinker as I much prefer whiskey, but their different types of rum were all tasty. The Satsuma rum had a much stronger orange flavor than I was expecting, so you could probably make a tasty adult popsicle with it.

Millennium Park

Although I much preferred Prien Lake Park, Millennium Park was also a nice park to wander round. It’s in downtown Lake Charles and is on Lake Charles itself.

There’s a statue, 9/11 memorial, walking paths and an incredibly fun-looking playground that I wish I was young enough to get to play in.

Raising Cane’s

We saw a million Raising Cane’s fast food restaurants in Louisiana, so we finally decided to check it out while staying in Lake Charles. Their menu basically consists of chicken tenders of varying quantities; I got the Caniac Combo which had six tenders, crinkle fries, Texas toast, coleslaw and a couple of small tubs of Cane’s sauce. It was a whole lot of food, so I actually got a couple of meals out of it.

Their tenders were good as there was a lot of chicken inside rather than it being predominantly breading, while their sauce was also tasty.