Yakutat

Typically 0.5 to 1 mile from the face. Ice in the bay often pushes the safe stopping distance further out — sometimes 2+ miles in heavy-ice years. The face itself is about 400 feet tall above the waterline (with another ~250 feet hidden below), and roughly 6 miles wide where it meets the water, so even from a mile out it fills your field of view. Bring a zoom lens if you want close-up calving shots; the ship's distance is real distance.

Modest but real. The risk is highest at the shoulders of the season — May through early June, and September — when bay ice can block safe approach. In those cases the captain may hold further out, do a distant view, or cancel the inner-bay approach entirely and substitute another scenic route. Cruise lines don't typically refund missed scenic-cruising stops because the call was technically completed, even if you only saw ice from 5 miles. July and August have the highest hit rate.

Advancing — and it has been since at least 1895, which makes it weird among Alaskan glaciers. Most are retreating; Hubbard has been thickening and pushing forward for over a century at roughly 80 feet per year, and twice in living memory (1986 and 2002) it surged far enough to seal off Russell Fiord and create the largest glacier-dammed lake on the continent before the dam burst. On cruise-day timescales the glacier is still active, calving, and worth showing up on deck for.

The bow, if your ship lets passengers up there for the approach (some do, some don't — check the daily). Otherwise the highest open deck forward, or your own balcony if the ship rotates. Most captains rotate the ship 180 degrees during the stop so both sides get a face-on view; if yours does, your balcony is the best seat in the house. Bundle up regardless — wind off the glacier is sharp and the air sits 10–15°F colder than the rest of the bay.

Harbor seals on the ice floes — they haul out on bergy bits in Disenchantment Bay in serious numbers and are the most reliable sighting. Bald eagles overhead. Sea otters in the outer bay. Less reliably: humpback whales, orcas, Steller sea lions, and the occasional brown bear on the distant shoreline. Bring binoculars; the seals look like commas on the ice from a deck height of 100+ feet.

On a few lines, yes. Holland America in particular runs a small-catamaran transfer that pulls up to your cruise ship in the bay; you climb down, the catamaran shuttles you to within about a quarter-mile of the ice, you watch calving up close, then you climb back aboard the ship. It's expensive (typically $200–300+ per person), capacity-limited, and entirely dependent on ice and weather conditions on the day. Other lines mostly don't offer it. If you want close-up Hubbard, check before booking the cruise — not every Hubbard sailing includes the option.