Seattle B & B or Hotel Plus To Do's
 

Hello! We're looking for a centrally located hotel or B & B in Seattle to celebrate a major anniversary. We don't plan to rent a car, except to visit Burchart Gardens--taking the ferry to Vancouver and renting there. Any other recommendations for places to go/eat stay? We do not need luxury, but not Motel Six either! This is for the third week of September. Thanks!

We stayed at the Best western Pioneer square close to the waterfront and the oldest of town. We had several wonderful seafood dinners at Mc cormick and smiccls on First ave. Enjoy.PAul

The Inn At The Market is not a B&B but it is wonderful, best location and you can order breakfast. You can walk to Pike Market, waterfront and is on the free bus line to take you to Space Needle, museums, or Pioneer Square.

Check out The Inn at Harbor Steps.
We often stay at The Gaslight in the Capital Hill area but you will not be "centrally located" as you will be at the Harbor Steps location.

I second the Inn at the Market. We stayed there last year and it was wonderful. Conde Nast Traveler just listed it as having one of the 4 best terrace/patios. And it made their 2007 top hotels -- I found this out because CNT emailed me recently wanting to ask me some questions about my stay for their story on 2007 choices. {I had answered a survey about hotels that they had and mentioned Inn at the Market}.

I also highly recommend The Alexis. It is just a few blocks from Inn at the Market and is in the heart of everything. The free bus is easy to catch and we took the bus everywhere while in Seattle. We even took it out to the Boeing Flight Museum!! Or we walked from hotels.

We didn't even get a car in Vancouver. We walked or took bus there too. We took train to Vancouver.

Hope this helps...
Debi

We just stayed at the Inn at Harbor Steps (I'd call it a small hotel with decent breakfast). It was a great place to stay (see my Seattle Trip Report for details).

If you are interested mainly in Buchart Gardens, why not take a passenger ferry directly from Seattle to Victoria and then opt for some reasonable way to get to the gardens (only about 15 miles north of Victoria)? Taxi, bus, shuttle--or rent a car in Victoria just for that day? You might have to do a little research, but the drive from Seattle to Vancouver is NOT scenic, and we found the traffic on I-5 awful at times (coming and going, and on different days at different times, so I doubt it's a fluke).

the Mayflower Park Hotel
Hotel Max
Hotel Andra

The B&B's I know of are up on Capitol Hill, a residential neighborhood about 2-3 miles east of downtown (which is very nice BTW but would not be considered "centrally located" in reference to downtown).

My suggested To-Do's are:
the waterfront
Pioneer Square Historic District
Pike Place Market
& time allowing add:
Chinatown/International District
Seattle Center/Space Needle