GoodThingsinLife

This is my first post to this wonderful website.

We are expecting a baby later this year, and our friends strongly recommended that we take a leisurely vacation, because it probably would be the last in the next few years to come

So we are planning a trip to Seattle in late July for 3 days (4 nights). This would be our first time to Seattle and we have a few questions.

1. Where to stay - Inn at Langley or Grand Hyatt? or maybe we split a couple of days at both places. Suggestions??

2. Should we rent a car or does Seattle have a good public conveyance system? We would love to take the tram/ subway/ bus within the city.

3. What is the easiest way for us to get from the airport to 1. Grand Hyatt (downtown)? 2. Inn at Langley?

Thanks in advance.. We are hoping to have a wonderful time.

sgorces

The Hyatt is a nice convention hotel but it's kind of an odd comparison to the Inn at Langley as they're sort of opposite ends of a wide spectrum. For a lesurely vacation the Inn at Langley wins hands down. However, Downtown Seattle has hundreds of things to do, so this is a very big tradeoff.

Inn at Langley is on Whidbey Island and you would need a rental car. Hyatt is right downtown next to the convention center and can be reached by city bus from the SeaTac terminal to the Convention Place station of the Downtown Seattle Bus tunnel. There is no subway in Seattle but the buses go under the city to keep them out of traffic.

Inn at Langley is a very restful place, big comfortable rooms with decks and Puget Sound views. They serve a very special dinner to guests only and I think only on certain days. The town of Langley has a small collection of cute shops.

Downtown Seattle has hundreds of wonderful restaurants and shops, theaters, clubs, farmers market, waterfront, space needle... You may want to consider one of the more romantic hotels like the Alexis or Inn at the Market.

Definitely split your time between Downtown and Whidbey, or even the San Juan Islands. You can get a rental car downtown when you plan to leave or return to the city. I guess the good news in making a decision is that you can't really miss in the Puget Sound area in late July. In fact it's about 75 and so pleasant here today. Your friends recommendation for a leisurely vacation is on the money.

GoodThingsinLife

Thanks so much for your advice.

We made our reservations today. We'll be staying at Monaco downtown (got a great deal at Expedia) for the first couple of days, and then at the Inn at Langley for the remaining two days.

Can't wait to go...

John71cove

We stayed at the Grand Hyatt last July. Not impressed. Returned from an evening out about ten and the message light on the phone was on. The desk clerk ordered us to the desk immediately. A problem with Mastercard.
We went to the desk promptly and found the hotel had asked mastercard to approve our card and Mastercard had balked until the hotel informed them of our bill. The hotel couldn't do that because we were to be there for a few days and the final bill had been tallied.
After a discussion and getting the manager out of bed at his home, the hotel apologized for the incident. It should never have happened.
In my 50+ years of travleing, I never encountered this problem. Turned us sour on Hyatt.
John

gplimpton

The last post reminds me of the one from last week wherein the woman warned everyone to stay away from Boston at all costs because a subway operator was rude to her there, thus making Boston an evil city.

Another classic is when people have a bad experience on a flight so they summarily proclaim the entire airline a disaster.

Sure the Hyatt desk could have handled this better. But late at night what do you think the odds are that a minimum wage kid working the night shift while going to college was the one at a loss for how to handle the situation? Regardless, every business has a few unexemplary employees. Doesn't ruin the entire corporation.