FAQ

• General Admission: $25
• Students, Seniors, Military: $23
• Residents of  St. James Parish: $15
• Residents of St. John Parish: Free
• Children 6-18: $11
• Children Under 6: Free
• Please visit our Group Tours page for group tour pricing

All ticket prices include Louisiana sales tax of 9.7%.

Yes. We offer a self-guided audio tour on a downloadable app. You can find our app if you search for “Whitney Plantation” in the apple or android app store. The audio tour takes approximately one hour and 10 minutes, and you may stay on the grounds for longer if you like.

The museum opens at 9:30 a.m. and closes at 4:30 p.m. The last entry for self-guided tours is at 3:30 p.m.

We are closed on Tuesdays, as well as New Year’s Day, Freedom Day, Mardi Gras Day, Easter Sunday, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Break (December 20-26).

The audio tour is appropriate for all ages.

The audio tour lasts one hour and 10 minutes. Most visitors stay on the site for two hours, to allow time to explore on their own and visit the exhibits in the Visitor Center.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, we have suspended all group tours for the remainder of 2021. We will not accept group reservations at this time.

Directions can be found on our contact page.

We recommend that you dress comfortably for the weather, remembering that you will spend most of your time outside. Plan for extreme heat in the summer and cold in the winter. We give tours rain or shine, so if rain is in the forecast be prepared with an umbrella or poncho. Most of the tour is on a gravel path, so we recommend comfortable walking shoes, with closed-toe preferred but not mandatory. Bring bug spray as the grounds are home to mosquitoes, fire ants, wasps and bees.

There is plenty of parking on site, including for vehicles as large as 50-passenger tour buses and tractor-trailers. We ask that all large vehicles park on the sides of the parking lot. The parking lot has four handicapped parking spaces.

The Visitor Center, constructed in 2014, is ADA compliant. Because most of the tour is on a gravel path, smaller wheelchairs may have difficulty navigating the grounds. Motorized wheelchairs work well on the gravel. Some of the historic structures are not accessible except by stairs, but the majority of the tour can be viewed from a wheelchair. Unfortunately, the Whitney Plantation does not have wheelchairs available to rent.

The audio tour that is available on our downloadable app contains a full transcription of every stop for deaf visitors.

Baby strollers may be used in the Visitor Center and taken through the grounds if they are able to go over gravel.

Yes, photography for personal, non-commercial use is permitted. Flash photography is not allowed inside the historic structures.

Yes, outside food is permitted. However, food is only allowed in and just outside of the Visitor’s Center. There is no food permitted on the tour or inside any of the historic structures. Guests may bring drinks on the tour.

There is not a restaurant on site, but the gift shop sells drinks and light snacks.

Backpacks, purses, and small camera bags are permitted on the tour. The Whitney Plantation does not provide luggage storage.

The Whitney Plantation does not have any lockers or storage facilities and does not provide bag-checking services.

Whitney Plantation is a private non-profit organization without an owner. It is governed by a board of directors. The founder of the museum, John Cummings, does not own the museum.

Woodrow Nash, of Akron, Ohio is the artist responsible for the “children of Whitney” statues. The property also features art installations or paintings created by Rod Moorhead, a sculptor working in Oxford, Mississippi; Ed Wilson, of Houston,Texas; Beth Lambert of New Orleans, and Ulrika Francis of New Orleans. Elise Grenier of Grenier Conservation in Florence, Italy preserved and restored the murals in the Big House.

The Wall of Honor contains the names of enslaved individuals heldon Haydel family-owned plantations. These were recovered from official court documents such as the Inventories of the Successions of Haydel family members, and other original documents pertaining to the family. In addition to the names of the slaves, the descriptive information included in the Inventories concerning each person, which was provided in the legal documents as a justification for the value assigned to each one, is engraved as well. The 18 Walls Monument presents names from the Louisiana Slave Name Database, which was created in the same way as the Haydel information. An exhaustive search of every succession proceeding in every courthouse in Louisiana through 1820 provided the names and basic information of all people enslaved in Louisiana between the years1719-1820. This project was the work of Dr. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, the author of “Africans in Colonial Louisiana”, and was participated in by Dr. Ibrahima Seck, currently the Director of the Whitney Institute.

Several buildings are original. They include: The Big House, Overseer’s house, one pigeonnier, the plantation store, the mule barn, the kitchen, and the French barn. Two slave cabins belonged to Haydel family members on a neighboring farm – the Mialaret Plantation. They were moved along with four additional cabins from other locations along River Road. The blacksmith shop and carriage house were rebuilt according to their original designs.

Given the sensitive nature of the museum’s focus, Whitney Plantation does not allow weddings or other private events. If you have an event in mind that is in keeping with the mission and values of the museum, you may submit a request to [email protected] for consideration.

Service dogs with appropriate paperwork are allowed on the tour and throughout the museum. The museum does not allow pets on the tour, and there is no safe place to keep your dog during the tour. We strongly advise that you do not leave your dog in the car in the parking lot during your visit.