Gulf Shores, Dauphin Island and Bellingrath Before or After a Mobile Cruise

Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island is open 9 AM to 5 PM; $10 for adults, $5 for ages 5 to 12; closed Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and Christmas.

The Mobile Bay Ferry crosses from Dauphin Island to Fort Morgan in about 40 minutes: $15 for a car under 22 feet plus $6 a person, driver included, so $27 for a car and two; pay at the landing, no advance sales. Four people make it $39, our arithmetic.

Fall departures from Dauphin Island run 8 AM to 5 PM every 90 minutes (a 6:30 PM boat only in daylight-saving time); it runs weather permitting and closes Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Fort Morgan, 110 Hwy 180, charges $7 for adults, $5 seniors and students, $4 ages 6 to 12. Its page lists prices, not hours — call before you build a day around it.

Put two adults through it and the loop comes to about $144 by our arithmetic, car and fort and ferry. Two adults with two children aged 5 to 12 run about $166, our arithmetic — the children’s ferry seats cost the same $6, their fort tickets $5.

Skip the ferry and drive back the way you came, and Fort Gaines alone is about $113 for two, our arithmetic — cheaper and shorter, though you see one fort, not two.

Dauphin Island’s old tourism address now serves an unrelated site; use fort-gaines.com, which is the address we cite below.

These are free-flow routings, not promises. Traffic will stretch every one of them, and we can’t put a number on how much.

Before a cruise, the return is what goes wrong. Branches shut at 6 on weekdays and noon on Saturdays, so a long day ends at Mobile Regional — the hub’s checker shows who’s still open.

USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park, 2703 Battleship Parkway, is open 8 AM to 5 PM daily (last tickets at 4), closed Christmas Day.

Adults 12 to 55 are $18, over 55 $15, ages 6 to 11 $6, 5 and under free; parking is $5 a car, $30 for RVs and trailers.

About 2.8 road miles and 9 minutes from the terminal across the river, our routing; Visit Mobile calls it a 10-minute Uber ride.

Two adults by car come to about $125 with the tickets and the $5 lot, our arithmetic on a full car day. By the third-party meter the ride is about $8 each way, so the same visit lands near $53 — a cab trip, not a car day.

Skip the rental for this one — unless the battleship is a stop on a longer drive east.

Bellingrath Gardens and Home, 12401 Bellingrath Gardens Road in Theodore, opens 8 AM to 4 PM; gardens only $17 for adults and $11 for ages 5 to 12, gardens and home $27 and $18; closed New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Magic Christmas in Lights runs Nov 20 to Jan 9, 5 to 9 PM — an evening visit, which means the car comes back after every branch in town has shut.

Two adults on the gardens-only ticket, with a car day, come to about $123; with the house added, about $143, our arithmetic.

It’s about 17.3 miles on to Fort Gaines, so the gardens can open the ferry loop if you start at 8.

Plan a lights visit around a Mobile Regional return. The airport counters are the only ones on our list still open at 9 PM.

Gulf State Park, 20115 State Park Road, opens its trails and picnic areas sunrise to sunset; neither the park’s page nor the city’s showed us a beach parking price, so we can’t give you a beach day’s full cost.

The car alone is about $96 for the round trip, our arithmetic on Discover Cars’ “from” price, with Alabama’s 7% and fuel.

The Foley Beach Express, from I-10 exit 49 toward Orange Beach, is a toll road billed in the lane by card or later by plate; we couldn’t read its rate. Its own page calls it an alternative to Highway 59, the way to stay toll-free.

We left the Beach Express out of every total here. Take it if the time matters more than the toll — and pay by card in the lane.

Flying into Pensacola puts Gulf Shores about 42 road miles from the airport by our routing — the airport page covers that pick-up.

Fairhope is about 21 road miles and 34 minutes from the terminal, our routing, across the bay on the Eastern Shore.

A car day there and back is about $89, our arithmetic — most of it the rate, very little of it fuel.

Enterprise has two Daphne branches on that side of the bay, about 12.9 road miles from the ship; the hub’s desk cards have both. Neither opens on Sunday.

We didn’t price anything to do in Fairhope itself — no admissions to check, and we won’t guess at lunch.

Book the car for the day out, not the nights around it — a rental parked at a hotel overnight pays a day for nothing.

For the battleship, don’t book one at all.