Mobile Cruise Port Rental Car Guide (Alabama Cruise Terminal)

Alabama Cruise Terminal (the City calls it the Mobile Alabama Cruise Terminal), 201 S. Water Street, Mobile, AL 36602; Visit Mobile also gives One South Water Street.

The City of Mobile runs a two-story terminal with a 500-space parking deck and six covered pick-up and drop-off lanes, half a mile from I-10.

Carnival Spirit sails from Mobile for the season from October 2026 to April 2027, and Carnival Valor takes over year-round from May 15, 2027, per Carnival’s Mobile page and a cruise-news report.

Avis and Budget list only Mobile Regional Airport; National lists only MOB; Hertz’s city page shows no branch list and Sixt’s and Alamo’s Mobile pages returned errors. Enterprise lists seven neighborhood branches and a truck branch, none downtown or near Water Street.

Unless the car sits in the deck all week, a Mobile rental leaves one leg it can’t cover — the cab between the desk and the ship.

Price that cab first, not last — it’s in every plan that hands the car back.

Try Sunday at 12:30. Mertz is open with two and a half hours to go, and every other Enterprise branch in town is shut.

Saturday gives you a morning, not a day. Five branches open at 9 and all five close at noon, and Tillmans Corner and Saraland don’t open at all.

Weekdays are easier — 8 to 6 at most branches, 8 to 5 at those two.

Outside those hours the only counters on our list are at Mobile Regional — about 18.1 road miles from the ship by our routing. Avis and Budget run to midnight (11 PM on Saturdays), Enterprise and Hertz to 11:30 PM.

Picking up the morning you dock? The after-cruise page sets these hours against the ship’s 8 AM arrival.

Enterprise is the only brand we found with branches in town — seven of them, none downtown.

Look at Mertz first. It’s the closest — about 5.4 road miles from the terminal and 12 minutes without traffic by our routing, and it’s the only one that opens on Sunday.

“Pick-Up Service Available” shows on five of the seven pages. That’s a branch service, not a cruise shuttle — none of the five says it reaches Water Street, so call before you count on a ride.

Mertz and the Daphne branch on US 98 offer pick-up only to private-aviation flyers at an FBO, which does nothing for a cruise passenger.

The two Daphne branches sit across the bay, about 12.9 road miles out — and we didn’t confirm the local rate on that side, so the 7% below may not fit them.

At the airport the counters sit by baggage claim and the cars wait outside; the airport page has the counter-by-counter detail.

No toll on I-10 through Mobile today. The Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project says construction starts in 2026 and no tolls will be collected until the new bridge opens, about 2031; then it’s $3 a trip with an ALGO Pass, $7.70 with other transponders, or billed by plate. The Wallace and Bankhead tunnels, the Causeway and the Africatown Bridge stay free.

For a rental that means no toll line on the routes we priced, as we’d drive them: the airport, the branches, Dauphin Island and the beaches.

Neither Avis e-Toll nor Enterprise’s TollPass lists Alabama among its areas, so you can’t count on a rental-company toll program on the Beach Express; pay in the lane by card, or take Highway 59.

With nothing to bill, a toll package is money for no road at all — say no at the counter.

The one toll you might meet is the Foley Beach Express toward Orange Beach, and the beach drive has the free way round it.

Alabama’s state rental tax on automobiles is 1.5%, and the City of Mobile adds a 5.5% motor vehicle rental tax (2.75% in its police jurisdiction): 7% together, our arithmetic.

We couldn’t confirm two things: whether Mobile County adds a rental tax of its own, and whether the city’s general 5% lease tax applies on top of the car tax. Your quote shows the real total.

We also couldn’t confirm that Mobile Regional sits inside city limits; we apply the city rate there too.

Treat 7% as a floor, not the bill — the total on your quote is the one to trust.

Cross a state line and the rate moves with you: Pensacola adds 7.5% and $2 a day, Gulfport 11%, New Orleans about 14.75% and a facility charge. Pensacola and New Orleans are worked through on their own pages.

The terminal deck’s price depends on whose page you read: Visit Mobile says covered spots are $23 a day, CruiseHive says $21 with oversized vehicles at $42 or $63; the terminal sells prepaid parking through Premium Parking, and that price page wouldn’t load for us.

At $23 a day, Visit Mobile’s figure, a 7-night cruise is $161 in the terminal deck, or $184 if all eight calendar days are billed, our arithmetic; a rental returned before the cruise costs nothing while you sail.

At CruiseHive’s $21 the same week is $147 to $168, our arithmetic. Plan on the higher figure until the prepaid page loads for you.

Keep a rental through the cruise and you pay twice — its daily rate while it sits in that deck, and the deck itself. Hand it back.

Driving your own car to the ship is a deck question, not a rental one — our Mobile parking page covers the deck and the two hotels that will hold a car while you sail.

Choose the desk by its hours, then by the rate. There’s no Saturday-afternoon pick-up in town — so a cheaper branch rate on a Saturday buys you nothing.