Renting a Car After a Mobile Cruise

At 10 on a Sunday nothing in town is open — Mertz waits until noon, and the other six branches don’t open that day.

That leaves two plans. Wait for Mertz, with a three-hour window that starts four hours after the ship is due, or ride out to Mobile Regional, where the counters open at 7 AM every day.

Saturday is a little kinder, with three morning hours at five branches.

On a weekday the branches open at 8, as the ship comes in, so the desk is waiting by the time you’ve cleared the terminal. The hub’s desk cards have every address and phone number.

Carnival Spirit is due back in Mobile at 8:00 AM and sails at 3:30 PM, per Carnival’s itinerary pages.

Your own walk-off time comes with the cruise documents, not from us — build the car around that hour.

There’s no desk to walk to. On the third-party meter rate, the cab to Mertz is about $14 and to West Mobile about $36, our arithmetic before tip — and nobody publishes a flat fare.

Carnival’s airport-transfer page doesn’t name a Mobile price, so don’t expect a ship’s shuttle to a rental counter.

Carnival Valor takes over year-round from May 15, 2027, per a cruise-news report. We haven’t read its return times, so check them before you book a car for a Valor sailing.

No toll on I-10 through Mobile until about 2031, and the tunnels and Causeway stay free after. East toward Pensacola or west toward New Orleans, I-10 costs nothing in tolls today.

North toward Montgomery and Birmingham you’re on I-65. We didn’t price that drive, so we won’t put a number on it.

Move out of the lane next to police, emergency vehicles, wreckers, utility, road-work and garbage trucks showing lights, or slow to 15 mph under the limit; fines run $200, $250 and $300.

We couldn’t read Alabama’s handheld-phone rule on an official page; keep the phone in a mount and hands-free.

Alabama law: rear-facing seats until at least age 1 or 20 pounds, forward-facing until at least 5 or 40 pounds, a booster until 6, and a seat belt to 15; the fine is $25. A rental seat for a week hits Avis’s $84 cap, and three days is $42, at $14 a day — bringing your own may beat both, so check your airline’s car-seat rule.

Regular was $3.911 a gallon in Mobile on Oct 3, 2026, AAA’s average, and Pensacola’s a touch higher at $3.932 — fill up before the state line if Florida is next.

Every Enterprise branch in town closes by 6 PM on weekdays and by noon on Saturdays (Tillmans Corner and Saraland don’t open Saturdays); only Mertz opens on Sunday, noon to 3, and none takes after-hours returns.

Late cars go to Mobile Regional, not to the branch you rented from. Book the drop there if the day might run long — an unbooked drop elsewhere can cost you, and Budget’s minimum for one is $45.

The terminal to Mobile Regional is about 14.8 road miles and 32 minutes, by our routing.

A branch car handed back at the airport comes to about $85, and the cab to Mertz takes it near $99, our arithmetic — against a single cab fare that CruiseHive puts at $25 to $35.

Rent for the day only if it holds a stop worth making. Bellingrath opens at 8 and fits before an evening flight.

If there’s no stop, take the cab — on a Sunday morning you may not have a choice.

Book the pick-up for an hour or two after the ship is due, not the minute it docks, and check that hour against the branch.

On a Sunday, Mobile Regional is the safer pick-up — its counters open at 7, five hours before Mertz.