car rental seward to kenai?
Jul 10th, 2009, 04:35 PM
#2
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Assuming you are entering Seward on a cruise and flying out of ANC it might be easier and cheaper to take the train or shuttle from Seward to Anchorage and pick up the rental car there. This will give you many more rental car options and also avoid excessive one-way dropoff fees that you might face if you were picking up in Seward and dropping off in Anchorage.
The rental car taxes are very high in Anchorage, including a stiff additional tax for picking up at the airport, so you might compare prices for airport vs non-airport pickup. As one example Budget has cars at the airport but also has a large rental facility on Spenard about 1/2 mile from the airport, allowing you to avoid the airport tax if you pickup on Spenard.
The rental car taxes are very high in Anchorage, including a stiff additional tax for picking up at the airport, so you might compare prices for airport vs non-airport pickup. As one example Budget has cars at the airport but also has a large rental facility on Spenard about 1/2 mile from the airport, allowing you to avoid the airport tax if you pickup on Spenard.
Jul 10th, 2009, 06:13 PM
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The train is by far the best way to go in my opinion. We rented a car (hertz is the only one in Seward) one way and returned via the train. We arrived in Anchorage and stopped for a night at Alyeska in route to Seward. We enjoyed dog sledding and hiking in that area. Check out Winner Creek Trail or maybe a Glacier Hike with a guide. Dog sledding can't be beat but is super expensive.
Jul 10th, 2009, 06:29 PM
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Is there a shuttle from the airport to the budget pick up on Spenard?
What we've always done is spend our first night at one of the hotels on Spenard near the Budget lot, then walk over and pick up the car the next day (assuming the off-airport Budget was actually the cheapest deal ... sometimes it wasn't). There are 8-10 hotels on Spenard within walking distance of the Budget lot ... Marriott is right beside it, Millenium across the street, then another couple hundred yards up were a Holiday Inn Express, two Puffin Inns, what used to be a Best Western (something else last year), and some budget places. All of these had free shuttle pickup to/from the airport, even the budget hotels.
If you are taking a shuttle from Seward then the driver will probably drop you off at one of these hotels (or at the Budget lot) since it's (almost) on the way to the airport. If taking the train you may need to take a taxi instead, not sure (the train was too slow and too expensive for us to use).
What we've always done is spend our first night at one of the hotels on Spenard near the Budget lot, then walk over and pick up the car the next day (assuming the off-airport Budget was actually the cheapest deal ... sometimes it wasn't). There are 8-10 hotels on Spenard within walking distance of the Budget lot ... Marriott is right beside it, Millenium across the street, then another couple hundred yards up were a Holiday Inn Express, two Puffin Inns, what used to be a Best Western (something else last year), and some budget places. All of these had free shuttle pickup to/from the airport, even the budget hotels.
If you are taking a shuttle from Seward then the driver will probably drop you off at one of these hotels (or at the Budget lot) since it's (almost) on the way to the airport. If taking the train you may need to take a taxi instead, not sure (the train was too slow and too expensive for us to use).
