The Real Deal

By Sharman Egan Lagniappe columnist

Mobile’s fantastic voyage

Well, it’s about time. After years of speculation, Carnival Cruise Lines finally announced it’s bringing a bigger ship to Mobile. In November 2009 the company will replace the Holiday with the Fantasy, a ship that carries about 600 more passengers, a 40-percent increase in capacity.

The larger ship is expected to generate about $2 million more per year for the city. Of course, there’s no free lunch buffet here. Under a new contract with Carnival, the city will have to spend $3 million on a new gangway, provide more parking, a small warehouse downtown and a new crew center.

But the numbers still work out to a big potential gain for the city, especially since it recently paid off a loan from the Retirement Systems of Alabama that was taken out to build the terminal. Prior to that payoff, the city had to eat any losses from the terminal operations, and it split any profits with RSA. Now it gets to keep all profits. Of course, the city had to sell bonds to pay off RSA but the larger ship combined with a lower interest rate will make it easier to pay off those bonds.

There was other news at the press conference that may have more long-term impact for the city. It was clear Carnival has bigger plans for Mobile.

The city is one of 12 primary homeports for the company. As its newest port, it has the smallest and oldest ship in the fleet. That’s just the way Carnival does things, and it won’t change with the arrival of the Fantasy. Carnival will shift the Holiday to a business partner in Spain, and we’ll still have the oldest ship in the fleet.

So Mobile is the ugly stepsister of Carnival’s ports, right? Not according to what Terry Thornton, Carnival’s senior vice president of marketing planning, said at the recent announcement.

Thornton described Mobile as a “terrific homeport” and said the support of the local community has been “nothing short of exceptional.” He even told a little story about how when he arrived at the terminal (apparently incognito with no indication he was a Carnival Pooh-Bah), he stopped and asked a police officer where he could park. He couldn’t believe the officer’s courtesy. Thornton said that if he had been in his hometown of Miami, “the officer would have arrested me.” He went on to say, “You all should be very proud of what you’ve created here,” and he thanked the staff of the terminal saying, “I wish I could just bottle them up and put them in every port.”

Yeah, yeah, just a bunch of hype for the locals, right? I don’t think so.

There’s no question Mobile has been a very successful port for Carnival. The Holiday has a listed capacity of 1,452 based on two people per cabin. It averages about 1,600 passengers per sailing.

Thornton said since Carnival began sailing from Mobile in 2004, the port has always ranked either 1st or 2nd in customer satisfaction, in terms of service during embarkation and disembarkation.

It was clear from Thornton’s statements the Fantasy is just the beginning of a long-range plan to upgrade Carnival’s service here. That plan includes major upgrades to the ship itself and longer cruises.

In early September the Fantasy will go into dry dock at Atlantic Marine for what Carnival describes as an “extreme makeover.” Enhancements will include Carnival’s Waterworks, a tropical resort-style pool with a four-story twister slide, a two person side-by-side racing slide and a spray park for the kids. The ship will also get Carnival’s Serenity adults-only retreat area. Only three other ships now have these features, including Carnival Dream, the company’s newest and largest ship.

So when the Fantasy arrives in Mobile in a little over a year, we’ll have a ship that’s both bigger and better. Thornton said the company would be looking for a little higher cruise rates to reflect the improvements. I checked the online cruise site www.vacationstogo.com and found identical fares for five-day mid-November sailings on the Holiday in 2008 and the Fantasy in 2009. They start at just $279 per person, an incredible value, if you ask me.

Thornton also revealed plans to introduce seven-day cruises from Mobile in 2010. The company currently offers four and five-day cruises. The longer itinerary will be offered on a limited basis in the beginning, “setting the stage for building the market for seven day cruises,” said Thorton.

When Mayor Sam Jones spoke at the Fantasy announcement, he shared in the Carnival/Mobile lovefest. But he also made it clear he has bigger plans for the cruise port. “Now if we can just get one more,” said Jones, referring to the city’s efforts to bring a second ship to Mobile.

Several factors favor another ship here. The slow economy combined with the high cost and security hassles of air travel benefit drive-to cruise ports such as Mobile. According to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Division, Mobile had 130,000 cruise passengers in 2007, up from 99,000 in 2006. The report goes on to say Mobile has emerged as a “significant cruise port.”

Perhaps more important, over the last few weeks, Mobile has demonstrated its ability to handle two cruise ships efficiently, even without the increase in facilities and staff that everyone assumed would be required (and no doubt will be if a second ship comes here permanently). The terminal has been handling both the Holiday and the Fantasy since a fuel spill in New Orleans on July 23.

Maybe a second ship isn’t just a fantasy.

Sharman Egan is Lagniappe lagniappe columnist. Contact her at Sharman@SharmanEgan.com.

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