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Yucatan Holiday: short sailings from Mobile to Mexico aboard Carnival Cruise Lines' classic "Fun Ship".

Article Excerpt
A year-round slate of twice-weekly sailings to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula onboard Carnival Cruise Line's oldest and smallest ship is creating the latest buzz in Mobile, Alabama, the Deep South's new cruise port. Introduced last October, four- and five-day Western Caribbean jaunts on the 1,452-passenger Holiday are selling like hotcakes, drawing a largely regional crowd. Folks feel fight at home heating conversations peppered with "y'all" and "over yonder."

Some 26 million people live within an eight-hour radius of Mobile, and most of them drive to the spanking-new Alabama Cruise Terminal, according to Al St. Clair, Mobile's director of waterfront cruise development and special projects. The spiffy, spacious complex on the Mobile River, complete with a massive parking garage, was built just for the Holiday and plays a big part in the ongoing renaissance of downtown Mobile. Thrilled with the economic impact, local officials say their ship has come in.

"We've never seen a city so supportive and so excited to have us," said Vance Gulliksen, a spokesman for Carnival Cruise Lines, which now counts 30 U.S. cities as home ports, a reflection of travelers' desire to drive to their ship. "Mobile has welcomed the Holiday with open arms."

The Holiday, which entered service in 1985, previously opened markets for Carnival in Los Angeles, Tampa, and San Juan. Because this is the only cruise ship sailing out of Mobile, passengers feel they're getting the red-carpet treatment, an experience enhanced by the hospitality that just comes naturally in this part of the country. (Curiously, Delta Queen Steamboat Company's historic paddlewheeler, the Delta Queen, was docked right next to the Holiday the day we boarded in February; she...