MOBILE, Ala. -- A group of Mississippi evacuees moved out of Red Cross shelters Sunday and stepped aboard a Carnival Cruise Lines ship in neighboring Mobile - a temporary home in their frantic recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency leased the 1,452-passenger Holiday and two other vessels from Miami-based cruise line for six months for $192 million.

The Holiday is expected to relocate to Pascagoula, Miss., once port repairs are completed in several weeks, FEMA says.

FEMA spokeswoman Lynne Keating said the new Katrina passengers volunteered to leave the shelters in the Pascagoula area. About 150 arrived Sunday, but it's unclear how many more will come.

Keating said the goal is to empty the Red Cross shelters in Jackson County. From Mobile, transportation will be provided for those who still have jobs in coastal Mississippi, she said.

David Mason, 20, who lost his home to the storm in Bay St. Louis, Miss., said his family - like thousands of Katrina victims - is homeless.

While most of the evacuees arrived in 28-passenger buses, Mason arrived at the cruise ship terminal in a car with his wife, Dara Hinden-Mason, their 2-year-old baby, and Mason's brother, George Gordon.

The couple said they had their own room back at the shelter, but were ready to move on.

"Our house is standing, but it's totally destroyed," Hinden-Mason said. "We're homeless."

Mason, who was about to start a nursing home job when Katrina hit, said in a few months the family will relocate to Arizona.

"We don't want to be nowhere near a hurricane," Mason said. "I'm not coming back."

And not everyone who arrived at the cruise ship was immediately taken aboard.

Don Murray, 50, and his girlfriend, Jan Mitchell, 41, arrived by car from Bay St. Louis, but they had not completed the FEMA paperwork to get on the ship.

"I lost my house in Waveland," Murray said.

Mitchell said she was living in a motel flooded by the Aug. 29 storm.

"We can't get electricity back," she said.

FEMA officials would not allow reporters to board the Holiday to interview the passengers arriving by bus, saying the agency was protecting the privacy rights of the evacuees.

Keating said the Katrina passengers will be provided a cabin and allowed to roam the ship's open spaces, but there will be no casino activity. She said coastal Mississippi evacuees qualified for cabins on the ship because of the lack of temporary housing in that state.

"The people will given three meals a day. Also, we are having transportation available back and forth to Pascagoula where many are employed," she said. Other local transportation will be provided.

Carnival, the world's largest cruise line, began service from Mobile in October 2004.