page_title: Mobile, Alabama
section_title: Water
hierarchical_section_title: Mobile, Alabama / Transportation / Water
caption_attribution_description: English: The Alabama cruise terminal at the port of Mobile.
context_page_description: Mobile is the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 as of the 2010 United States Census, making it the third most populous city in Alabama, the most populous in Mobile County.
  Alabama's only saltwater port, Mobile is located on the Mobile River at the head of the Mobile Bay and the north-central Gulf Coast. The Port of Mobile has always played a key role in the economic health of the city, beginning with the settlement as an important trading center between the French colonists and Native Americans, down to its current role as the 12th-largest port in the United States.
  Mobile is the principal municipality of the Mobile metropolitan area. This region of 412,992 residents is composed solely of Mobile County; it is the third-largest metropolitan statistical area in the state. Mobile is the largest city in the Mobile-Daphne−Fairhope CSA, with a total population of 604,726, the second largest in the state. As of 2011, the population within a 60-mile radius of Mobile is 1,262,907.
  Mobile was founded in 1702 by the French as the first capital of Louisiana.
context_section_description: The Port of Mobile has public, deepwater terminals with direct access to 1,500 miles (2,400 km) of inland and intracoastal waterways serving the Great Lakes, the Ohio and Tennessee river valleys (via the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway), and the Gulf of Mexico. The Alabama State Port Authority owns and operates the public terminals at the Port of Mobile. The public terminals handle containerized, bulk, breakbulk, roll-on/roll-off, and heavy-lift cargoes. The port is also home to private bulk terminal operators, as well as a number of highly specialized shipbuilding and repair companies with two of the largest floating dry docks on the Gulf Coast.
  The city was a home port for cruise ships from Carnival Cruise Lines. The first cruise ship to call the port home was the Holiday, which left the city in November 2009 so that a larger and newer ship could take its place. The Carnival Fantasy operated from Mobile from then on until the Carnival Elation arrived in May 2010. In early 2011, Carnival announced that despite fully booked cruises, the company would cease operations from Mobile in October 2011. This cessation of cruise service left the city with an annual debt service of around two million dollars related to the terminal. In September 2015, Carnival announced that the Carnival Fantasy was relocating from Miami, Florida to Mobile, Alabama after a five-year absence and would offer four and five night cruises to Mexico that started in November 2016 through November 2017. The four night cruises will visit Cozumel, Mexico while the five night cruises will additionally visit Costa Maya or Progreso. Her first departure from Mobile left on November 9, 2016 on a five night cruise to Cozumel and Progreso. Carnival Fascination will be replacing Carnival Fantasy in 2022.
  Although Carnival Cruise Lines did not operate from Mobile after the Carnival Fantasy left in 2011, the Carnival Triumph was towed into the port following a crippling engine room fire. It was the largest cruise ship ever to dock at the cruise terminal in Mobile. Later it was eclipsed by the Carnival Conquest, which docked in Mobile when the Port of New Orleans was temporarily closed. Larger commercial ships routinely arrive at the Port of Mobile.
caption: The Alabama cruise terminal
exif: {"Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Express 9.8 (Android)", "Image DateTime": "2019:06:02 15:23:03", "Image ExifOffset": "160", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB"}