We're checking out the various city tours (3 hours) offered by the various Seattle tour operators. There's Shutter, who offers a combo Snoqualmie Falls/City Tour, and also Tours Northwest and Customized Tours, who both offer the standard 3 hour city tour.

Do any of you have experience with these operators, and is there a clear cut favorite that you can recommend? (doesn't have to be limited to these three)

Hopefully someone can chime in and help. I live here, and unfortunately don't have any idea about the tour operators. None of those names ring a bell (that I've seen their busses or vans around).

Ditto. Living in Seattle I'm not familiar with these companies either.

The most conspicuous tour here is the Duck Tour; I often observe the party atmosphere on their open-air vehicles as I wait for a bus at 4th Avenue and Pike Street. The guides on these tours are said to explain what Nordstrom is and where to buy a hamburger.

Shutter Tours is highly rated on TripAdvisor (147 of 152 rate it Excellent), and the others have mostly favorable ratings too.

Discounts from popular tour operators are often available here:
http://www.goldstar.com/events/brows...nfinite&page=5

HTtY

We did a tour recently with http://www.seattlefreewalkingtours.org/

We did the Pike Market Tour. The owner is very personable, and the tour was fun and I can easily recommend this tour guide and his business.

If I were to do any organized tour, I would do the tour to Blake Island for the Native American fish bake and story telling, complete with amazing handcarved, decorated masks.

It was a highlight of a longer trip to Seattle we took several years ago.

I took all three of jakes free walking tours in august and was very pleased with them.

We thought Jake did a great job too. [see my link above]