The Carnival Spirit cruise ship will come to Mobile in October 2023 for six to eight-day excursions to Mexico, Belize, Jamaica, and the Bahamas, according to Carnival Cruise Line president Christine Duffy.
Carnival Spirit’s cruises from the Mobile Alabama Cruise Terminal will be seasonal and will run for six months each year before the ship is moved during the summer months to Alaska, she said.
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Duffy, in Mobile Saturday, announced the new plans for Mobile during a news conference on the day that cruising returned to Alabama’s port city following a 720-day hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It will be a great ship for Mobile and will allow us to operate longer itineraries of six to eight days, with eastern and western Caribbean sailings,” Duffy said. “It gives people a lot of options.”
The Spirit’s arrival will come following a year-long pause in cruising from Mobile.
That pause will begin in mid-October when the Carnival Ecstasy sails for the final time. The Ecstasy is the Miami-based company’s oldest operating ship and was departing from Mobile Saturday for the first sailing out of the city since the pandemic began in March 2020.
“I don’t like to have a gap at all,” Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said about the forthcoming cruising hiatus. “But by the same token, it’s good to know there is a very bright future.”
‘Unique opportunity’
Indeed, the arrival of the Carnival Spirit will give cruisers options out of Mobile that they have not had since cruising returned to Alabama in 2016, following a five-year hiatus.
The Spirit will be the first none-Fantasy class ship to sail out of Mobile with cruisers since 2016. The vessel is newer – it was launched in 2000, compared to the 1991 launching of the Ecstasy – and is bigger. The capacity for the Carnival Spirit allows for more than 2,100 passengers, which is slightly more than the Ecstasy and the Carnival Fantasy, which sailed out of Mobile from 2016 to 2020. The Fantasy was retired during the COVID-19 pandemic and has since been sold for scrap.
But for city officials, the Spirit’s biggest allure is with its itineraries, which includes destinations that have not been offered before out of Mobile.
The vessel is also taking longer excursions of six to eight days. Currently, excursions offered out of Mobile are sailing for shorter time periods to Cozumel and Progreso, Yucatan.
“We think more customers will come in and stay before and after longer in Mobile,” said David Clark, president & CEO with Visit Mobile. “With those longer opportunities, you will be able to see more of the Caribbean. This is an opportunity we never had before in Mobile and it’s a good thing.”
Duffy said the commitment for sailings out of Mobile will be for two-to-three years. She said the company has opened up its itineraries to 2024 and is planning for 2025 soon.
“Mobile is a great drive-to destination for many of our guests,” she said. “We have ships in New Orleans that people can drive to as well. The difference now is the ships in New Orleans are for seven days or shorter cruises. (In Mobile) we’re giving people something different.”
She said the seasonal excursions from Mobile will offer an opportunity for people to cruise from the city to Alaska, since the Carnival Spirit will head north for the summer months.
“It gives the opportunity for people to come to Mobile to take that journey when the ship moves from Mobile up to Seattle,” Duffy said. “It’s a very, very unique opportunity for people to come to Mobile for those cruises and there is a lot of demand for those itineraries.”
Filling a ‘void’
Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson speaks during a news conference on Saturday, March 5, 2022, at the Mobile Alabama Cruise Terminal in downtown Mobile, Ala. (John Sharp/jsharp@al.com).
The challenge for Mobile could be on finding alternative uses for the cruise terminal whenever the Spirit is not sailing out of the venue.
Stimpson said he’s uncertain on how the venue could be utilized, although he said the absence of a ship could open the venue up for offering more weddings.
“It’s the prettiest location we have along the (Mobile) river,” said Stimpson, who acknowledged that the city will have a “void” during the summer months. The Ecstasy’s sailings this summer will mark the last time cruising will occur in Mobile during the summer season for the foreseeable future.
Stimpson said that cruising brings approximately $12 million in economic impact to Mobile. On an annual basis, the cruise industry can fill up to around 35,000 hotel rooms in Mobile.
It also helps pay for the city’s bills. Whenever a cruise ship is in the city, it brings in around $6 million in annual gross revenues from wharfage and parking alone.
The revenue offsets the outstanding bond payments on the cruise terminal. The city’s typical debt on the venue is around $1.8 million. The terminal’s bond does not expire until 2030.
During fiscal year 2020 – the year that cruising was halted during the pandemic – only around $3 million in gross revenues were generated from the terminal.
“We’ve been fortunate during COVID that our revenues are up,” Stimpson said, referring to the city overall. “But there is a hole created by not having a cruise ship here. We have to backfill when we don’t have the revenue to amortize the debt on the cruise terminal.”
Cruising, he said, is “beneficial not to just the city (government)” but also to downtown’s restaurants and bars.
The Excelsior Band serenades Carnival Ecstasy cruisers as they arrived to the Mobile Alabama Cruise Terminal on Saturday, March 5, 2022. (photo by Jason Johnson with the city of Mobile).
Clark said he’s hopeful that there is potential to lure a second Carnival cruise ship to Mobile, or for the city to attract a cruise ship from another company.
“The infrastructure is there for the most part (to support more than one cruise ship at the same time),” Clark said. “We have to continue driving demand for cruising from Mobile.”
Stimpson said there will be a need to upgrade the cruise terminal once the Ecstasy departs in October. The biggest upgrade will involve spending potentially up to $5 million to replace the facility’s gangway, or the raised platform that serves as the walkway leading cruisers and crew members from the terminal to the vessel.
‘Emotional’ return
For now, Stimpson and other city officials are all smiles as a cruise ship has returned to the city for the first time since the industry was shuttered during the onset of the pandemic.
“Many of you have been waiting a long time to take this vacation,” Stimpson told a crowd of cruisers who gathered to listen to the news conference hours before the Ecstasy department the terminal. “We are glad to be a part of it.”
The news conference also served as a celebration — or, as Carnival cruise officials labeled it, a “Sailabration” — of the company’s 50th birthday. It drew not only representatives of the local media, but a large group of cruisers who looked on and applauded at the announcement that the Spirit will be arriving to Mobile in 2023.
A crowd of cruisers await a news conference to begin on Saturday, March 5, 2022, inside the Mobile Alabama Cruise Terminal in downtown Mobile, Ala. The passengers were also waiting to board the Carnival Ecstasy for a cruise voyage to Cozumel, Mexico. It marked the first time cruising returned to Mobile after a 720-day hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic. (John Sharp/jsharp@al.com).
The news conference was also a celebration for Carnival has it has almost resumed sailings at all of its homeports. The Ecstasy’s departure from Mobile was the 20th Carnival Cruise Line ship to resume sailing since the COVID-19 pandemic upended the global cruising industry.
“We are almost completed with all of our fleet back in service,” Duffy said. “It’s emotional for our crew to have guests finally back on board.”
Among those waiting to board the ship were Ray and Melanie West of Calhoun, Georgia. The couple were going on their 48th cruise, and their 11th from the Mobile terminal.
“We’re excited to have a newer and bigger ship (coming to Mobile),” said Ray West, referring to the Carnival Spirit. “This (terminal) is within driving distance from almost everywhere in the Southeast. It’s an easy place for us to get to … and we don’t have to fly.”