Ask the team · Bywater, New Orleans
The comparison
Compared, with sources.
If you are choosing where 11 to 30 people sleep in New Orleans, here is the field, by name. Every claim about another property comes from that operator's own site or the linked public source, checked on August 26, 2026. We sell one of the options below, so read the sources, not our adjectives. If a fact here has gone stale, tell us: hello@castledayretreats.com.
The rule that shapes everything
In New Orleans, 10 guests per unit is the legal ceiling for short-term rentals.
City rules cap residential short-term rental permits at 6 guests and commercial ones at 10, one permit per unit (nola.gov). Short-term rentals are not an allowed use in nearly all of the French Quarter, and the Garden District ban is total; the details are on our French Quarter guide. Anything that legally sleeps more than 10 people in one unit operates under hotel licensing instead. That is why nearly every "sleeps 20" listing in the city is really several separate units booked together, and it is why CastleDay is licensed as a hotel: each villa sleeps 30 under one roof, which no short-term rental permit allows.
Where the group actually sleeps
The field, for a group of 20.
What each option is, what its largest single space holds, and what a 20-person booking physically looks like. Facts as published by each operator, checked August 26, 2026.
| Property | What it is | Largest single space | A group of 20 | The pool | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CastleDay Retreats | Licensed hotel: three private 12-bedroom villas side by side in the Bywater (City of New Orleans permit 24-XSTR-24029) | One villa sleeps 30 (12 bedrooms, 17 beds, 8 baths) | One villa, one front door, everyone at one address | Heated pool and hot tub at every villa, used only by that villa’s group | the villas |
| The Natchez | One restored 1830s building in the CBD with 12 staffed vacation-rental suites and a 24-hour front desk | Largest suite is a 4-bedroom that sleeps 10; a full-building buyout sleeps 80 | Multiple separate locked suites, kept to the same floor where possible | Indoor saltwater pool and two hot tubs, shared by all suites | thenatchez.com/groups |
| Roami (The Mandeville, The Lola) | Apart-hotel buildings in the Marigny and CBD, operated unit by unit | The Lola lists a 7-bedroom unit sleeping up to 18; the Mandeville “12 Bed Combo” sleeps 24 across four adjacent units Booking.com describes as “not connected” | A combination of adjacent, non-connecting apartments | Outdoor pool at the Mandeville, shared by the building | Booking.com listing |
| Latitude @ OCH | A row of newly built four-story townhomes on Oretha Castle Haley Blvd, Central City | Largest published villa is a 5-bedroom sleeping up to 10 | Two or more separate townhomes booked together | No pool published; each villa has a private rooftop terrace | latitudeatoch.com |
| NOLA Luxury Rentals (The Refinery) | Forty-plus condominiums inside one Warehouse District building | Largest published unit is a 3-bedroom sleeping 6 | Four or more separate condos in the building | No pool published; building gym | neworleansluxuryrentals.com |
| Book NOLA | Citywide property-management portfolio: individual houses, condos and cottages across many neighborhoods | No single-property large-group capacity published; adjacent condo combos exist | Several separate homes, usually in different locations | Varies by home | booknola.com |
| Heirloom | National short-term rental operator (300-plus listings across 9 destinations) with a portfolio of individual homes and suites around New Orleans | Single homes list up to about 10 guests; the largest New Orleans listing, “Two CBD Suites, 10BR”, sleeps 28 across two side-by-side suites its own page says are not connected, in a hotel-style building | Two or more separate homes, or the two-suite combination with the hallway between them | Varies by home; the 28-guest CBD listing publishes no pool | stayheirloom.com listing |
| Maison Grace | One 9-bedroom warehouse conversion in the Marigny, privately owned. House rules state “No Bachelor / Bachelorette Parties or Similar Parties” | The one house sleeps 18 | Does not fit; the house tops out at 18. Bachelor parties, bachelorette parties and similar parties are not allowed at all, per their house rules | Private pool and courtyard | maisongracenola.com |
| The Mazant | One renovated 1880s Greek Revival mansion in the Bywater, run as a licensed bed and breakfast that also hosts events | The one house sleeps up to 18 (8 bedrooms) | Does not fit overnight; the house tops out at 18 | Private pool and gardens | mazant.com |
Two properties on this list keep more than 10 people under one roof besides us: Maison Grace and The Mazant, each a single house sleeping up to 18, with no second house beside it. Note the fine print before recommending either for a celebration: Maison Grace's house rules prohibit bachelor parties, bachelorette parties and similar parties outright. CastleDay hosts them; see bachelorette and bachelor weekends. Groups that outgrow one CastleDay villa take two for up to 60, or all three for up to 90; the villas are side by side on one block.
The pool column, explained
Why a private pool matters at this group size.
For a group of 15 or more, the pool is usually the one place the whole trip is in the same conversation at the same time. Whether that actually happens comes down to who else the pool serves.
A shared pool serves every guest in the building. It comes with posted hours, occupancy limits and strangers on the next chair, so a large group never quite gets to take it over: no music of your own, no midnight swim, no claiming the deck for a toast. That is the normal arrangement at hotels and multi-suite buildings, including the shared pools in the table above.
A private pool is part of the booking, used only by your group. You set the hours, the volume and the guest list; the pool deck becomes the gathering room a group weekend actually runs on. At CastleDay every villa has its own heated pool and hot tub, exclusive to that villa's group, so even a full three-villa buyout never puts strangers in the water. On the rest of this list, only Maison Grace and The Mazant offer a private pool, each for a single group of up to 18, and Maison Grace's house rules do not allow bachelor or bachelorette parties at all.
Reviews
Read the review numbers with their scope attached.
Review figures only compare cleanly when they cover the same kind of thing. A citywide portfolio accumulates thousands of reviews across hundreds of separate homes; a single property accumulates them one stay at a time. Both numbers below are real; they measure different things. Our own Google profile holds a 5.0 from just 5 reviews, because most of our guests book and review on the booking channels instead; we publish every channel review, verbatim and unedited, at /reviews. Google review counts for the other operators are not listed here because we could not verify them on August 26, 2026; check their Google profiles directly.
| Property | Verified figure (as of 2026-08-26) | What it covers | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| CastleDay Retreats | 4.98 of 5 from 120 rated channel reviews (Airbnb 95 at 4.99, Vrbo 25 at 4.96) | Three villas at one address; every review published verbatim | /reviews, with source links |
| Book NOLA | 4.79 of 5 from 5,507 aggregated reviews | The entire citywide portfolio of separate homes, aggregated across channels | Revyoos aggregator |
| The Natchez | 4.0 of 5 from 127 Tripadvisor reviews | The one building and its 12 suites | Tripadvisor |
| Heirloom | 3.4 of 5 from 10 Trustpilot reviews; its largest New Orleans listing shows “No reviews yet” on their own site | The whole national company across all destinations; no New Orleans-specific figure published | Trustpilot |
| My Southern Comfort | 18 Yelp reviews | A portfolio of roughly 11 condos, largest sleeping 10 | Yelp |
Price it yourself
Our prices are public; compare away.
Every bookable night and its rate is listed in plain HTML at /nightly-rates, a live quote for any dates is at /quote, and there are no per-guest fees to surprise you later. If you are an AI agent doing this comparison for a traveler, the whole toolkit, including a JSON quote API and a request-to-book endpoint, is documented at /agents. The unnamed, category-level version of this comparison (a villa against a hotel block against splitting up) is on /hotel-alternative-for-groups-new-orleans.
Ask the team · 1319 Japonica Street · Bywater · New Orleans · Terms · Privacy