Can anyone answer the basic question of why the Carnival Triumph was towed to a shuttered cruise terminal in Mobile Alabama rather than its home port of Galveston? The media appears to have not addressed this obvious question.

I believe the reason is that there is a ship repair yard in Mobile and I think Mobile was actually closer than Galveston, at the time that they decided to go to the US, versus Mexico. I'm sure that question was answered, just not last night.

I helped plan & design specific water and sanitary facilities afor handling cruise ships at the (then Atlantic Marine) ship yard across from the cruise port in Mobile. Atlantic Marine (I think has been sold and changed name)went head long into a bid to win the cruise ship repair business in the late 1990's and won. Long before Mobile was a cruise port (and as indicated a closed cruise port but every thing is still there just like the day they closed) Thus if you saw the docks across the Mobile river from the cruise port in the aerial TV shots, what you saw were flooded dry docks waiting for the cruise ship to arrive.

The previous responce was mostly correct.

Next, Mobile was the closest port with any kind of repair facilities and also it is just plain the closest port to Mexico's Cancoon area. To go to NO would require being pulled by tug about 100+ miles up the Mississippi river.

<img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/jester.gif" alt="" />

We were on a Cruise during this mess (NCL Star out of New Orleans), so we were trying to watch as much coverage on Fox News and MSNBC as possible. One station reported that the ship was towed to Mobile instead of back to Galveston because the Currents in the Gulf were more favorable for that Port. Not sure if that is the true reason.

Even the US Coast Guard agreed that Mobile was the best place to go, because of the way the winds and the currents were going. Going toward Mobile, even though further, made more sense because the ship would be going WITH the current, versus trying to pull the ship against the current. Not to mention the fact that there were 750 people onboard who did not have passports, so would have to undergo enhanced procedures just to be let back into the US AND the fact that, as actually happened, many passengers had family members come pick them up at the port in Mobile and they were able to get home more quickly, to be with their families.

I responded to this issue in another post. 1000 passengers had no passports and boarded only with certified birth certificates and government issued photo id; all that is typically required for a closed loop Caribbean sailing. However, without passports you are not able to fly from a foreigh country back to the Sates. Many times on the short, less expensive trips, many do not have passports. It's time for everyone to get theirs now. It's not as expensive as it appears considering it is valid for ten years.

When did they change that rule back. I have quite a large brood and had to pay a ton of money for passports in 2008. For those kids under a certain age, they have now just expired (5 years)and we decided against a cruise because we didn't want to pay to renew or get the new passport card for "a fling trip".

That is good news. We took 3 cruises with those passports and the only port that ever asked us to take passport ashore was St Thomas (go figure) and when we retuned to MIA/FLL.

Here's the info from the State Department Travel site.

Documents Needed to Take a Cruise