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Mobile looks forward to resuming Cruise business in March

Guy Busby

After a two-year wait, cruises are set to sail again from Mobile in March. A carnival cruise made a short visit to Mobile last year. Since then, the docks at the Mobile Cruise Terminal have been empty since then due to COVID-19. Now, Carnival Cruise lines plans to start sailing out of the Alabama’s port city. Visit Mobile Director David Clark said the city is ready to welcome the return of the ship and its passengers.

“Our cruise ship is coming back March the 5th. That’ll bring another thirty five thousand hotel rooms here to the marketplace that were missing the last year and a half. So we’re grateful for Carnival’s partnership,” said Clark.

Clark says it’s more than just the tourist industry along the Gulf coast that’s waiting for Carnival Cruises to resume sailing from Mobile Bay. The whole State benefits from the business that the ships draw to Alabama.

“Because a lot of these cruisers, they come from Atlanta, from Nashville from Kentucky, down 65 throughout other cities of the state. So, the whole state benefits from cruising from Mobile.

GB: Before the pandemic, cruise passengers rented about thirty five thousand Mobile area hotel rooms a year. The Carnival cruise ship Sensation docked in Mobile for a day last May to allow crew members to be vaccinated. New COVID outbreaks postponed plans to resume regular sailings after that.

Guy Busby is an Alabama native and lifelong Gulf Coast resident. He has been covering people, events and interesting occurrences on America’s South Coast for more than 20 years. His experiences include riding in hot-air balloons and watching a ship being sunk as a diving reef. His awards include a national Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists as part of the APR team on the series “Oil and Water,” on the anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Some of his other interests include writing, photography and history. He and his wife, Elizabeth, live in Silverhill.
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