Alaska Summer Solstice Cruise - Seattle

Seattle Day 1

Friday, June 7, 2024

After a good night’s sleep, we woke up feeling rested and ready to go.  It was a beautiful sunny day outside with clear blue skies.  We took our time getting ready and by mid-morning we were ready to get out and see Seattle.

This is the view of the bay from our room.  You can see Pike Place Market below us.  Since it was a corner room we also had a view of the Seattle downtown and the bay looking south.

Since our hotel is right next to Pike Place Market, that was the first place we went.  Pike Place Market was opened in 1907 and is one of the oldest continuing operating farmers' markets in the country and has an interesting history.  Today it is a large sprawling market still selling fish and fruits and vegetables but is also a big tourist destination selling all sorts of things.  The market has been made famous by the iconic throwing of the fish that is often seen on TV shows.  There are also lots of restaurants and food stalls.

Pike Place Market was a short walk from the hotel.

Later in the day we bought some delicious apple cider from the vendor under the red awning.

Today the market was full of tourists and quite crowded.  We walked around for a while and then decided to find a place to eat lunch.  Every place in the market we thought looked good for lunch was very crowded, so we decided to look around the surrounding area.  We found the Pike Place Bar and Grill in a nearby building and had a good lunch there.

Before leaving home, we had booked a Seattle harbor cruise scheduled for 2:30.  Rather than go back to the hotel we decided that it was such a nice day we would just walk down to the pier where the cruise started and wait around there.  It’s an easy half mile walk except that it is a steep drop and we had to walk down many flights of stairs to get there.  It’s not too bad going down, but we weren’t looking forward to going back up.

After getting down the stairs, we had a pleasant walk along the waterfront passing the aquarium and the large Ferris Wheel.  We found pier 54 and a nice bench to relax on until our tour started.

The time passed by pretty quickly until it was time to check in for our cruise.  The cruise company is Argosy Cruises and they run several types of harbor tours all day.  We spent a few dollars extra and bought “First Board” tickets that guarantee that you are in the first group to board.  Since the boat holds up to 500 people, that seemed pretty important to us.  When we checked in, they led us to an area with comfortable seating to wait until boarding time.  It really didn’t cost that much more to get the “First Board” ticket, but there were only about twenty of us there, while there was a very long line of people waiting to get on so I can’t understand why more people didn’t opt to pay to board early.

When we boarded, we headed up to the top deck and found some great seats at the rear of the boat.  The cruise was great, and we sailed along the waterfront, over towards nearby Bainbridge Island and through the industrial part of the port before returning to where we started.  The tour lasted an hour and was very enjoyable as it was warm and sunny on the boat with very little wind.  If you are visiting Seattle and want to take a harbor cruise, check out Argosy Cruises.

Boarding the boat for our cruise.

The Bainbridge Island ferry terminal was right next to the Argosy Cruise pier.

The Seattle Aquarium

There was a cruise terminal right downtown, but unfortunately, it was not the one we would be leaving from.

The iconic Seattle Space Needle.

These are the cruise terminals we will be leaving from, quite a ways from downtown.  Our ship will be docked on the left side.  In looking at the Seattle port schedule, it looks like almost every day in the summer there are three ships in port.

Mount Rainier towering over the city in the background.  The white curved structure to the left is Lumen Field, the home of the Seattle Seahawks football team.  To the right of that is T-Mobile Park, home of the Seattle Mariners baseball team.

After the cruise, we decided it was time to return to the hotel, but we sure weren’t looking forward to climbing those stairs to get back to the top.  We thought that surely there must be an elevator somewhere so we kept walking past the stairs and came to the four-story parking structure for Pike’s Place Market and figured there must be an elevator there and sure enough there was.  Several other people had the same idea, and the elevator took us right up to the main floor of the market.  We walked through the market and right across the street was our hotel.

Before returning to the hotel, we noticed people lined up at a stand selling apple cider with various flavors.  We decided to try it, and the way it worked was you paid for a cup and then it was self-serve where you could sample each different type and choose the one you wanted.  Val chose peach apple cider, and I chose strawberry.  The difference in the flavors was subtle and they were both very good.

Val noticed a Beecher’s Cheese shop across the street and had the idea of buying some cheese and crackers and having that for dinner tonight.  That seemed like a great idea to me, so we got our cheese and crackers and added some salami and made our way back to the hotel.

By this time it is early evening so we spent our evening sitting in front of our window, watching the sun go down, boats and ferries coming and going, and enjoying our cheese, salami and crackers while drinking our delicious apple juice.  It had been a long, but very nice day.

Seattle Day 2

Saturday, June 8, 2024

This is our last day in Seattle before embarking on our cruise tomorrow.  Yesterday we noticed the Café Campagne, located just outside the hotel, and decided to have brunch there.  They were quite busy but we were able to get reservations for 10:30.  Once again, it was a beautiful sunny day in Seattle and we were lucky enough to be seated outside where we could watch the world go by as we ate our very delicious brunch.

After eating we decided to go to the Seattle Center where, among other things, the Seattle Space Needle is located.  We asked at the hotel about the best way to get there and they said there was a monorail station just a few blocks away, so we decided to do that.  The Seattle Center and the Space Needle were built for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, and the monorail was built at the same time.  The monorail has only two stations; one downtown where we got on and the other end is the Seattle Center.

It was very easy to buy tickets and catch the monorail and we were soon at the Seattle Center.  Our main point of interest there was the Chihuly Garden and Glass Center and when we went to buy tickets for that, they offered a combination ticket for the Space Needle and Chihuly Garden, so we opted for that.

Chihuly Garden and Glass is a museum in the Seattle Center showcasing the studio glass of Dale Chihuly.  Dale Chihuly is an American glass artist and entrepreneur. He is well known in the field of blown glass.  Although Val knew of him, I had never heard of him and didn’t know what to expect.  These were only a small part of his  works, but they were truly beautiful pieces of art.  It was truly and amazing exhibit and it was hard to believe that all the glass was blown by hand.

After the Chihuly exhibit we had some time before our scheduled Space Needle visit, so we got some drinks, found a place to sit, and relaxed for a while.  The Seattle Center is a big park with many different things to do as well as many places to get food and drink.  There was a group of Ecuadorian musicians playing music from the Andes that Val and I both really like, so we spent some time listening to them.

It was finally time for our 2:00 visit to the Space Needle and we found a long line waiting to get to the top.  It was well organized, and kept moving, but we did spend a long time in line waiting to get to the elevators.  The views from the top are amazing, but unfortunately it had clouded up in the afternoon and was a bit hazy so it wasn’t nearly as spectacular as it would have been this morning or yesterday.

You can see a cruise ship docked in the distance.  That is very close to our hotel.

Here's where we will be starting our cruise, quite a bit further away.

 

Although the views were great, Val and I both thought if we had known how long the wait was, we wouldn’t have done it.  After leaving the Space Needle, we got back on the monorail and returned to downtown and walked back to the hotel.  We had been on our feet for a long time, so it felt good on these old legs and feet to get back to the hotel and relax for a while.

Around six we started to feel hungry and decided to go out and get something to eat.  Val had read about a place called the Pike Fish Bar that is nearby and got good reviews, so we decided to give it a try.  We started out with a shared cup of crab chowder and then we both had fish and chips and they were both quite good.  The fish had a panko breading that I wasn’t used to, but I ended up liking it.  It was a little crisper than I cared for, but it tasted good.

There was a bakery near the Pike Fish Bar so we stopped by there after dinner to get some pastries to eat in the morning before leaving, and we couldn’t resist getting a brownie to share for dessert when we got back to the hotel.

We spent the rest of our evening getting things ready and packed for tomorrow and then relaxed until it was time for bed.  Tomorrow is the big day and get on the ship and leave for Alaska.