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Need some suggestions/advice on post-cruise Seattle visit


blackwing
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We are a party of 6... me, wife, two kids (10 and 8), and inlaws (60s). We are planning on staying in Seattle for three days after our Celebrity Solstice cruise. Would like to get some advice on things to do. I feel very unprepared for this cruise, we leave in a week and I haven't made any plans, which is unusual for me.

 

So far, my general idea is:

 

Friday

Space Needle

Chihully Glass

 

Saturday

Aquarium

Pike Place Market

Woodland Zoo

 

Sunday

?? Maybe Mt Rainier

 

Questions. I have a car booked through National. My understanding is that they will shuttle us to their downtown location, which is right across from the Space Needle. Can I go to the counter, check out the car, start the clock running on my rental, put luggage in the trunk... and then walk across to the Space Needle and get the car out later in the afternoon when we are done? It would be free parking! :D

 

Is it too ambitious to put the aquarium and zoo together in the same day? My understanding is that neither are that large and could probably be done in two or three hours each.

 

If it's too ambitious, we will push one of them to Sunday. Otherwise on Sunday, I am open to suggestions. I would like to go to a winery but wife says that the kids will be bored, so that has unfortunately already been vetoed by her.

 

Lastly... do I need to buy tickets to any of these attractions in advance? I know the Space Needle has timed tickets but I'm not sure if I want to be beholden to a set time on Friday morning, especially considering I don't know how long it will take to get the car.

 

Thanks for any feedback!

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We are a party of 6... me, wife, two kids (10 and 8), and inlaws (60s). We are planning on staying in Seattle for three days after our Celebrity Solstice cruise. Would like to get some advice on things to do. I feel very unprepared for this cruise, we leave in a week and I haven't made any plans, which is unusual for me.

 

So far, my general idea is:

 

Friday

Space Needle

Chihully Glass

 

Saturday

Aquarium

Pike Place Market

Woodland Zoo

 

Sunday

?? Maybe Mt Rainier

 

Questions. I have a car booked through National. My understanding is that they will shuttle us to their downtown location, which is right across from the Space Needle. Can I go to the counter, check out the car, start the clock running on my rental, put luggage in the trunk... and then walk across to the Space Needle and get the car out later in the afternoon when we are done? It would be free parking! :D

 

Is it too ambitious to put the aquarium and zoo together in the same day? My understanding is that neither are that large and could probably be done in two or three hours each.

 

If it's too ambitious, we will push one of them to Sunday. Otherwise on Sunday, I am open to suggestions. I would like to go to a winery but wife says that the kids will be bored, so that has unfortunately already been vetoed by her.

 

Lastly... do I need to buy tickets to any of these attractions in advance? I know the Space Needle has timed tickets but I'm not sure if I want to be beholden to a set time on Friday morning, especially considering I don't know how long it will take to get the car.

 

Thanks for any feedback!

 

As far as I know, National's downtown office (shared with Alamo and Enterprise - same company) is not across from the Space Needle, it's in a big garage across the street from Macy's. I don't see any reason you couldn't stow the bags then walk two blocks to Westlake Center and catch the monorail to the Space Needle and Chihuly - they're basically next to the monorail station. Or frankly, with six and with the monorail costing $2.50 per person each way, you're looking at $30 for the monorail round trip, which is lots more than it would cost to park the car somewhere near Seattle Center for a few hours.

 

Where are you staying? It would help knowing in order to make suggestions for how to order things. You need to know that the Pike Place market, for example, is horrendously crowded after around 10 or 10:30 in the mornings, particularly on weekends, so if you're staying someplace downtown I'd strongly recommend visiting the market for breakfast, watch the merchants set up for the day, then be gone before the mob hits.

 

The aquarium is indeed fairly small. It's a good facility, but it's located on the central waterfront and parking can be a tremendous hassle. You can park near the Pike Place market and walk down the stairs (or use an elevator) from the bluff the market sits on. The Woodland Park Zoo is also a quality zoo, but it's not all that small. But yes, you could do all three in a day - market early, down the hill to the aquarium, back up the hill to the car, out to the zoo, done.

 

As for a day trip on Sunday, Mt. Rainier is certainly an option. Be aware, however, that it's at least 2 1/2 hours each way from Seattle, and not an especially scenic 2 1/2 hours at that. Plus the visitor centers (Paradise and Sunrise) are VERY crowded on weekends, and you might find that you'll need to park a great distance from the visitor centers, and it will be anything but empty.

 

I'd suggest you research a couple of alternative activities just to see what your family might enjoy; you know them better than we do.

 

- Harbor and Locks boat tour. Google Argosy Cruises - this is a tour that runs around Elliott Bay, then up to and through the Ballard Locks and Lake Washington Ship Canal, and into Lake Union, past the houseboats including the "Sleepless" boat.

 

- Ballard Locks and Fishermen's Terminal. The locks are great to visit on their own; they're surrounded by beautiful gardens, and you can see migrating salmon heading up the fish ladder through underwater windows. From there it's a short drive to Fishermen's Terminal, home of the North Pacific fishing fleet. There are a couple of very fun restaurants looking out on the boats, you can walk down the jetties and piers...

 

- Boeing factory, Mukilteo and Whidbey Island. Drive north from Seattle to the Boeing Everett factory, home of the 777s, 747s and 787s, and the biggest building in the world. You can tour the plant - very interesting. Then drive 10 minutes farther to the little town of Mukilteo (cute lighthouse) and take a short ferry ride to Whidbey Island. Whidbey is beautiful, there are a couple of very cute towns (Langley and Coupeville) and the kids might enjoy Fort Casey State Park, with its lighthouse and cool coastal defense gun batteries facing the Olympic Mountains.

 

- Bainbridge Island. The ferry from downtown Seattle to Bainbridge Island is a very scenic ride; once there you can visit the fun little downtown area (including pretty Eagle Harbor) or you can drive up to the gorgeous Bloedel Reserve, wonderful gardens. Or continue over the Agate Pass bridge to the Suquamish Indian reservation and visit the grave of Chief Seattle (for whom the city was named) in the cemetery at Suquamish village. Visit the Victorian village of Port Gamble before returning to the mainland on a ferry from Kingston to the pretty suburban town of Edmonds.

 

- Alki and Vashon Island. Drive to Alki Beach, with great views of the city skyline, passing ferries and mountains along the way. See the little Statue of Liberty on the beach, then continue south along the water to the Fauntleroy ferry terminal, from which you take a ferry to Vashon Island. Vashon is a big, very rural island with some lovely beaches, a farmers market, etc. You can drive down Vashon to the south end, where another ferry will take you to the Ruston neighborhood of Tacoma. You can return to Seattle (or to the airport, if that's where you're headed) via Tacoma's "old town" or maybe via downtown Tacoma, perhaps with a stop at the Museum of Glass and the Chihuly Bridge of Glass.

 

Google these places to see what appeals.

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- Boeing factory, Mukilteo and Whidbey Island. Drive north from Seattle to the Boeing Everett factory, home of the 777s, 747s and 787s, and the biggest building in the world. You can tour the plant - very interesting.

Another vote for the Boeing Factory Tour. It's about $20pp (I don't pay much attention to the price, but if you see it for $60pp that's a package deal with a bus - skip it and save money!), lasts 90 minutes, and is a fantastic glimpse into three massively different assembly methods. 747s are built from a lot closer to scratch onsite. 767s are built in the back of the 747 area, but I hear they're somewhat sharing the 747 line these days. 777s are built on a moving/pulsing line: the first half of the build is a moving line at 2" per minute, then the fuselage halves are mated up and it pulses forward. 787s are very modular, arriving as subassemblies and get mated up onsite. Before/after the tour, there's a great observation deck where you can see the main runway and flightline, and there's a "micro" museum where the tour begins/ends (not a lot there, but I do recommend a neat little exhibit that shows rods of different materials used to build planes (steel, aluminum, titanium, carbon fiber, wood, and there might be a couple others) - very cool to touch them and feel the difference in weight, then push down on them and see the difference in stiffness.

 

Note that there's also the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field, a totally different location in the opposite direction. It's not a Boeing museum, but there are lots of Boeing planes there: the first 737, the first 747, an early 727, a 707, an early 787, plus a Concorde, a Space Shuttle trainer, and tons more.

 

Sadly, they don't offer tours at the other Boeing plant at Renton Field (yes, another totally different location). Six days a week, this factory opens up its doors and pushes out two new 737s. 42 a month, with upgrades planned to 47/month then 52/month and perhaps 60/month in a few years. Even so, it would take 6.5 years to build all of the 737s they've sold.

 

OK, enough for my soap box. ;)

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Also close to the Boeing Factory in Everett is Paul Allen's Flying Heritage Collection and Combat Armor Museum. Kids might get a kick out of the V2 rocket they have. The WW II era tanks are pretty cool too.

 

The Chittenden Locks at Ballard are a great place with kids and on summer weekends lots of boats to watch pass through the locks as well as see if Salmon are doing the fish ladder. The underwater viewing windows are fun for seeing what's passing by as well as watching for hungry seals below the dam. If you visit then on the north side, next to the parking lot, the Lockspot Cafe incorporates (the two story section) one of the oldest houses in Seattle built by Johan Brygger in 1882 (finished in 1886).

brygger-home-locks-web1.jpg?w=500&h=337

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We are a party of 6... me, wife, two kids (10 and 8), and inlaws (60s). We are planning on staying in Seattle for three days after our Celebrity Solstice cruise. Would like to get some advice on things to do.

Thanks for any feedback!

 

Are you or anyone in your group a big sports fan? Maybe reserve an insider's tour of either Safeco and/or Century Link stadiums? We booked the Safeco tour to see the Mariners stadium for our upcoming trip, but sadly were unable to reserve the tour to check out the Seahawks stadium due to a private event being held there.

 

There's also the Bill Speidel's underground tour if you think that might be of interest to check out the history of Seattle...http://www.undergroundtour.com/

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Thanks for all the replies so far. Will definitely consider the Boeing Factory and those Chittenden Locks sound fun! Thanks also for the suggestion to do the Pike Place Market early in the day, that sounds like a good idea.

 

We aren't staying in the city, I think we're in what I would call a southern suburb but I can't remember the exact name. Air BnB.

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Can I go to the counter, check out the car, start the clock running on my rental, put luggage in the trunk... and then walk across to the Space Needle and get the car out later in the afternoon when we are done? It would be free parking! :D!

 

I would think that the correct answer to your question would be to call national and ask them.:)

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The Boeing tour at Everett is the bomb, we did this last year and saw the B747 and 787 lines with aircraft being built. Lots of walking on that tour its about 90 mins total. Highly recommend you do this tour if you can. The Boeing museum in Seattle is fun too, the red barn has the early days of flight. I could have easily spent the whole day here but since we had a flight out only got about 2.5 hours in.

 

The locks as well is a great place to visit, across the street is a really good fish place to eat. Might even catch a glimpse of one of the Deadliest Catch boats if you get lucky. We missed the Northwestern about about an hour going them.

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Another vote for the Future of Flight Boeing Factory tour.

 

Warning... the tours are extremely popular and it's not surprising their afternoon tours are SOLD OUT by noon.

 

Pay attention to the restrictions with electronics.

 

Book your tour in the morning on your way to the factory in the morning!

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Highly recommend the Underground Tour, but do it early in your visit to understand some of Seattle's history. It is touristy, but fun.

 

We did the Flight Museum (not the Boeing Factory) and really enjoyed it. You can walk through Air Force One, the Dreamliner, and several others. They currently have a great Apollo space exhibit and plenty of WWI & WWII crafts. Kids and parents should like this one.

 

For better views than the Space Needle, on a clear day, go to the Columbia Tower, even though the Space Needle is a must as an icon.

 

Chihuly was a highlight of our whole Seattle trip. Don't miss the films at the end.

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Thanks again to all of you for your responses. I'm going to get the CityPass since we want to do four of the five activities included (Space Needle, Chihuly Garden, Aquarium, Zoo) and the Harbor Cruise will be a bonus. Then will probably do Boeing factory tour on our last day.

 

We leave tomorrow, looking forward to it!

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If your family group likes zoos, I highly recommend Woodland Park Zoo. We love visiting zoos and Woodland Park is the best one we have ever visited. It is not small. It took us most of a day to take it all in.

Another vote for Boeing. A fair amount of walking but well worth it.

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