Kenai Fjords, Portage and Denali Before or After an Alaska Cruise

Read the table down a single column — your dock picks the short list for you.

From Seward, Exit Glacier is the only stop under an hour, about 23 min by our routing. Everything else on this page is an hour and a half or more up the highway.

From Whittier it’s the reverse — Portage Valley is minutes away once you’re through the tunnel, and Exit Glacier is a 2 hr 12 min drive the other way.

Anchorage is the hinge between the docks and everything north.

A night there turns Girdwood, Hatcher Pass or the Matanuska into a day trip; it’s the drive from the docks that makes them long.

Kenai Fjords National Park charges no entrance fee — so the only cost of the visit is getting there.

Exit Glacier is up an 8.6-mile paved road off mile 3 of the Seward Highway; it closes to cars once snow comes, usually mid-November, and often stays shut into early May. Taxis and shuttles run from Seward in summer, and the Nature Center has flush toilets Memorial Day to Labor Day.

That puts the round trip at about 23 miles from the terminal, our arithmetic — a morning, if the road is open.

So a rental isn’t the only way up the road, though we didn’t find the taxi or shuttle fares to compare.

Rent for it only if you’re already holding a car.

The one Seward desk shuts on Sundays, which rules out a Sunday pick-up for a quick glacier run.

Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, mile 79 of the Seward Highway at Portage: daily 8:30 to 7 May to Sept 15 (last entry 6), daily 10 to 6 Sept 16 through October, Friday to Monday only November to February; $30 for 13 and up, $26 for ages 4 to 12, 3 and under free.

Read the season lines closely. From Sept 16 the gates open at 10, not 8:30, and from November only Friday to Monday.

Begich, Boggs Visitor Center in Portage Valley: open Thursday to Sunday 9 to 5, Memorial Day to Labor Day; $5 a person a day, 15 and under free, interagency passes honored.

The interagency pass counts here; we saw no pass discount on the wildlife center’s price list.

Two adults and two kids pay $112 at the wildlife center’s gate, our arithmetic on its prices.

Two of you, a $65 town car and two adult tickets: about $152 for the day on our numbers. At four adults it’s about $212.

For Whittier passengers the drive is the short part.

The center is about 23 min from the terminal, but the tunnel’s hourly opening sets the real start time — the hub explains the schedule.

Alyeska’s Aerial Tram in Girdwood: $55 an adult at the window, $50 online; youth $40 ($35 online); 6 and under free. Summer hours 10 to 7, May 22 to Oct 4, 2026, then maintenance and a final close Oct 12; 2026 tickets include two round trips.

Two adults buying online pay $100; add two youth tickets and it’s $170, our arithmetic. Buying at the window costs $5 more a head.

Watch the dates: the 2026 summer season closes Oct 4, two days after we read the page.

A late-season sailing may find the tram shut for maintenance — the final close is Oct 12.

From downtown Anchorage, there and back is about 84 miles by our routing.

Folded into a drive you’re already making, it adds only about 9 miles on the way to Seward and 8 on the way to Whittier, our arithmetic. Budget time for the tram, not a separate day.

Denali’s entrance fee is $15 a person 16 and over, good for 7 days.

Private cars may drive only the first 15 miles of the Park Road, to Savage River, roughly late May to early September; parking there is “extremely limited” and fills almost daily, and the road is closed to everyone at mile 43 (the Pretty Rocks landslide).

So a rental gets you to the park and a short way in. Past Savage River you’re on a bus.

2026 bus tours: Natural History Tour $116.75 an adult and $51 a child (May 13 to Sept 15); Tundra Wilderness Tour $144.75 and $65 (May 20 to Sept 17); adult fares include the entrance fee.

The bus is the Denali experience, and the car is how you reach the bus.

That makes the rental the transport for a multi-day trip — the sightseeing happens through a bus window.

The drive north is long enough to need its own plan. The after-cruise page covers the distances, the roads your contract forbids and fuel.

The road over Hatcher Pass summit opens only about July 1 to Sept 15, depending on snow; a daily parking fee applies, which we couldn’t read.

That’s about eleven weeks in a good year. An early-June or late-September sailing will likely find the summit road closed — check the state parks page before you plan around it.

Matanuska Glacier sits on private land at Glacier View, about 2.5 hours east of Anchorage per its operator; we found no published access fee, and one guide company’s 6-hour trek starts at $225.

We couldn’t confirm what walking onto the ice costs without a guide. Plan on the guided rate.

Both trips start in Anchorage. From either dock, add the drive to town first — the distance table at the top has it.

Luggage decides more of this than distance. Every stop before boarding means a car full of suitcases parked at a trailhead.

After the cruise the bags are the same, but there’s no ship to make — which desk is open when you dock becomes the question.

Book the rental for the side-trip days, not the nights in town. A car parked outside an Anchorage hotel costs you its daily rate and the hotel’s parking.

If the trip runs from Anchorage to a port, the one-way is the hard part — who takes the car back is worked out there.