sesjazz01

I'm still working on transportation. I have hotels all booked. We are going to take a taxi in Seattle to our hotel. I'm thinking we will take the Victoria Clipper to Victoria. How do we get there from our hotel in Seattle to the ferry. We are staying at the Edgewater (great deal on Priceline!) Is there a place on the ferry to stow our luggage? We are staying one night at the Fairmont Empress Hotel in Victoria. Can we walk it with our luggage or how do we get there? I called the concierge at the hotel in Vancouver and they recommended taking the bus (pacific coach) from the depot at Victoria to the depot in Vancouver. I believe the depot in Victoria is behind the Empress Hotel. Would you recommend this or a train and if so, where do we take the train? I'm guessing we can take a taxi from the depot in Vancouver to our hotel. We might then rent a car at the hotel for a day or two. Thoughts, please. Thanks

sesjazz01

Only 3 weeks away and now I'm trying to narrow down activities. I'd like to go to the Chihuly Glass & Garden Sat. evening. I'm not sure if we need to return on Sunday. I want to go to The Needle, Pike Place Market and maybe do the Underground tour at Pioneer Square. I will see what time permits to see if we want to do the free walking tour called Seattle 101 or if we want to take the ferry to Bainbridge Island and back. We have Sat. afternoon and evening and all day Sunday. Any thoughts on the order of what to do so I don't have to backtrack since we'll be mostly walking. (no car).

We're taking the 8am Victoria Clipper to Victoria on Monday and we'll walk with luggage to the Empress Hotel for the night. We have all day and most of the day on Tues. I booked with the Pacific Coach Bus from Victoria to Vancouver hotels which leaves 5:45PM on Tues. We'll walk around the village and see the gardens in Victoria. I can book the bus that takes us to the Butchart Gardens from our hotel for either day.

I have a car reserved to drive to Whistler's Mt on Weds.

For Thurs-Sat., I can't start excursions until after 1PM. Thurs. I'll go to Stanley Park.

Lastly, I need help in making a decision about Vancouver. The conference offers excursions on Fri. and Sat. afternoons. I can't decide if I should let someone else be my guide or do it myself. They have an excursion to the north shore that includes a walk across the Capilano Suspension Bridge, stroll through the rain forest, take Cliffwalk cliff-side walkways in park, and board a gondola up to Grouse Mt. Another excursion in called Canyon Crawl in Lynn Valley which includes hiking trails with views of waterfalls from suspension bridges.

Thanks for your help.

voyager61

You might want to post again with a separate heading for your Vancouver and Victoria questions, because you will get more BC responses that way. With a Seattle heading, mostly Washington residents will reply, and they have probably been to both places but might not be experts.

As mentioned earlier by someone else, taking the Bainbridge ferry might not be your highest priority, since you are doing the Victoria Clipper. If one day or the other looks like better weather, you might want to use that one for the Space Needle because it will impact your view.

Get a map of the downtown and Seattle Center from your hotel, so you can see how far apart everything is. Seattle also has hills to factor in. The Space Needle and the Chihuly Museum are in Seattle Center (which was the 1962 World's Fair grounds), so do those two on the same day. They are quite a distance from Pike Market and Pioneer Square, so maybe do the market and the underground tour on the other day, although you could easily do the market and the Seattle Center stuff all in one day, as long as you don't mind a lot of walking and get started relatively early.

Don't think anyone answered your previous post about getting to the Victoria Clipper from your hotel, but you can probably walk from the Edgewater, as long as you don't have too much luggage to haul. Otherwise, you can take a very short taxi ride from the hotel. You should be able to get the information about luggage handling on the boat from the Victoria Clipper website or other info they might have sent you after your reservation.

You don't mention this at all, but you might want to take part of your second day and do some walking around in one of the more far-flung Seattle neighborhoods like Ballard or Fremont...will give you a different flavor than the downtown. Some of the best restaurants are in these outlying areas, so you could take a taxi or bus to Ballard for lunch and walk around a bit afterwards before returning downtown. Just a thought.

Since you are walking a lot, bringing lightweight rain jackets or ponchos to layer would probably be a good idea...it will be October and fall seems to be starting with a bang this year...

sesjazz01

Thanks for your advice. I also just posted under Vancouver.

suze

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Not really, it's barely a few miles. Maybe a bit too long to walk practically, but easy by bus or taxi.

Using the main entrance of the Pike Place Market as the mid-point: 1.5 miles to Seattle Center heading north. And 0.8 miles to Pioneer Square heading south.

5alive

You could also just take the Monorail from Seattle Center to Westlake Center and walk from there to Pike Place Market. I think it's maybe a four block walk. And the Monorail has that George Jetson retro coolness going for it.

sesjazz01

That sounds great!