Seward and Whittier Cruise Port Rental Car Guide

Seward’s cruise terminal is the Alaska Railroad’s new building on the railroad dock (913 Port Avenue, per Cruise Critic), right beside the train station; Royal Caribbean addresses it as the Seward Passenger Ship Terminal. It officially opened June 10, 2026, per trade news, after a May delay that moved some sailings to Whittier.

Holland America gives the Whittier Cruise Terminal on W. Camp Road, and says there is no public parking at the pier. That last clause matters more than it looks — a car you drive in has nowhere to wait at the ship.

The Norwegian-owned Chugach Glacier Gateway dock in Whittier burned on Sept 14, 2026 and was declared a total loss two days later; the owners aim to reopen for 2027, per trade news. Ships booked there for 2027 may be moved; your line will say where you board, not us.

Trade news lists Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Silversea, Princess, Viking, Windstar and American Cruise Lines at Seward in 2026; the lines’ own port pages didn’t give us a ship list, and two secondary lists disagree on which Celebrity ship.

Park Connection calls Whittier the primary Alaska port for Princess and Holland America.

Find your terminal in your booking first — it decides the desk, the tunnel and the parking question below.

The Seward Chamber says there’s a rental car kiosk in the terminal and to reserve ahead, but it names no company, and the page may predate the June 2026 building; no rental company’s page puts a desk inside it.

Until a company puts its name on that kiosk, plan around Hertz on Port Avenue.

Avis, Budget, Enterprise, National and Alamo list no office in Seward; of the big brands we checked, only Hertz does.

Whittier is thinner still — Avis was the only rental company we could find there.

The four Anchorage town desks keep office hours. Avis Midtown closes at 4 every day, and the two Enterprise branches shut at 4 on Saturdays and Sundays — early for anyone landing on an afternoon flight.

The airport is the long-hours option — Avis there runs past 2 AM. The ANC page covers the Rental Car Center and its daily charges.

Run Sunday at 11 and the Seward card goes dark.

Hertz there lists Monday to Saturday only — and its page says nothing about an after-hours return, so a Sunday drop is a phone call, not an assumption.

One limit of the checker — it reads the weekly hours, not the calendar. After Oct 5 it still shows Avis Whittier open from 8 to 5, and it won’t be until next season, whose dates we couldn’t find.

If your hour leaves only the airport, that’s a two-hour-plus drive from Seward. The after-cruise page lines these hours up against the morning you walk off.

We found no toll on the drive to Seward. Whittier has the Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, the only road into Whittier and, per the state, the longest combined vehicle-railroad tunnel in North America.

One lane, alternating in 15-minute openings: in summer toward Whittier at half past the hour and out of Whittier on the hour, the last one out 11 to 11:15 PM. Extra trains can add 15 to 30 minutes.

Summer (May 1 to Sept 30): daily 5:30 AM to 11:15 PM. Winter (Oct 1 to April 30): daily 7 AM to 10:45 PM.

Winter hours started Oct 1, so a late-season sailing runs on the shorter clock and the first car comes out of Whittier at 7.

Be in the staging area 10 minutes before your opening; in winter, at 32°F or colder, the tunnel opens only for the last 5 minutes of a slot. About 6 minutes through at 25 mph; buses go first, then trucks, cars and trailers.

A car is $13, a car with a trailer $22, and every toll is round trip; cash, checks, Visa or MasterCard, or buy ahead online.

You pay once, not each way. We couldn’t confirm on the state’s pages which side collects the toll.

Holland America’s Whittier page says the ship docks at 12:30 AM and the first guest transfer leaves at 7 PM, and that the tunnel is shut 11 PM to 7 AM; the state’s summer tunnel hours are 5:30 AM to 11:15 PM, so we read that page as one itinerary’s timing. Check your own line’s documents against the state’s schedule, not the other way round.

Miss your opening and the next one in your direction is about an hour away — longer if a train takes the slot. Budget for that wait, not just the drive time.

Royal Caribbean says long-term parking is not available at the Seward port. The Seward Chamber says the City of Seward offers long-term parking for people sailing from Seward, without naming a lot or a rate. Those two sentences can’t both be the whole story.

The city’s parking page: $10 a space, good until midnight, paid at kiosks by card; the Center Lot is free for 2 hours. It publishes no multi-day or cruise rate.

Major Marine Tours says harbor-lot parking is $15 for the day, and calls the lots across 4th Avenue from Harbor 360 72-hour lots; the city says $10, so check the kiosk.

Seven days at the city’s $10 is $70, at Major Marine’s figure $105 — our arithmetic, and neither source says a cruise week is allowed.

Ask the city before you leave a car there.

The city charges a $5 fee on each passenger entering or leaving by commercial ground transport, which is built into bus fares.

If you live in Alaska and would rather leave your own car in Anchorage, ANC’s long-term lot caps at $78 a week (read Sept 26, 2026) — you ride down from there.

A rental parked at either port runs up its daily rate while you sail — hand it back to a desk before you board.

Our Seward and Whittier parking pages track the lots for drivers bringing their own car.

Many third-party pages still say the state tax is 10%; the law cut it to 9% from July 1, 2025, so a quote or calculator showing 10% is out of date.

Anchorage’s 8% is the odd one — a percentage with a lid. It stops at $120 a rental, which only bites once taxable charges pass about $1,500.

Take a week at the airport on Discover Cars’ $61 “from” rate. The base and the $10.15 daily airport charges come to $498, so the state takes about $45 and the city about $40, our arithmetic.

At the old 10% the state line would have been $50 — a small cut, though one many quotes online haven’t caught up with.

Seward’s 7% comes from the Chamber, not a rental contract.

Read your quote’s tax lines before you trust ours — a contract outranks a chamber page.

Most ports let you shop on rate alone.

Here the counter’s season and its Sunday hours narrow the field first — price only matters among the desks that will actually be open.

Search Anchorage for anything that starts or ends at the airport. For a Seward or Whittier return, confirm with Hertz or Avis directly that the desk takes your car on your day.