Background: Our party consisted of my wife and I with 2 childern(6yr old girl and 9yr old boy). It was our 3rd cruise. Also traveling with us was my wife's mother, her sister and a grandson (16yr old).
We had a roughly 600mi. drive, so we drove down the day before. We stayed at an Econolodge in Saraland,Al., which is about 10 mi. from the cruise port. Nothing fancy about the hotel, just a place to rest a bit before we boarded the next day.
The Cruise terminal in Mobile was easy to find, we arrived at around 12:30 and had dropped off our luggage with the porters and parked in about 15 mins. As for the embarkation, the lines were pretty long. They did move rather quickly and we were on the ship around 1:30.
Clean but dated. The TV was not flat screen and the bathroom was old looking.