Seattle/Victoria Itinerary
 

Hi - I need help with this itinerary before I book our flight. We want to go to Seattle Fri. July 11 (would arrive Seattle at 10:30 a.m.) and would spend Fri and Sat in Seattle (have room at Hotel Vintage Park) and would take Victoria Clipper to Victoria on Sun, July 13 for an overnight trip. Would return to Seattle late Mon (7/14) nite and would spend all day Tues (7/15) in Seattle flying out at 7 p.m. Would like to know if this is enough time in Seattle. We want to go to Pikes Market on Sat, do underground tour and Chinatown. Thanks for any help.

Three full days is a lovely amount of time for a visit to Seattle. Do spend some time in Pioneer Square area before or after the underground tour (which we've done twice, many years apart, and thought was a hoot)

So is my itinerary ok then? You say three full days but right now I am looking at 1/2 day Fri, full day Sat and 1/2 day Tues (would need to get to airport early for 7 p.m. flight). Otherwise I would have to add on a day. Thanks for the info about Pioneer Square - we will definitely do that.

I've only been a tourist in Seattle -- been there 5 times, I think. It's a compact city, you can cover a lot in 1/2 day. So I still think it's doable, and since I love Victoria, I wouldn't skip that part!

okay, thanks for the info. Also, we are going to do an overnite trip to Victoria - have you ever done that and if so is it worth it to book the package which includes hotel stay?

I would compare the price you can get for the package with the cost of booking the hotel directly plus the Clipper ticket--sometimes they are able to save you money, sometimes not.

I looked for Clipper hotel packages for the night you'd be there and the cheapest I saw was something like $610 for 2.

By comparison, the round trip price on a Kenmore Air floatplane from Lake Union in Seattle to the Inner Harbour at Victoria is around $250 per person, so if you wanted you could fly up early on the morning of the 13th, spend the full day in Victoria, and return to Seattle that evening. You'd have just about as much daylight time "on the ground" in Victoria as you would with the Clipper, since the plane takes around 45 min. vs. around 3 hours (and they can be bumpy hours too) on the boat. You could do a day trip to Butchart Gardens, have time for tea at the Empress, poke around the (overpriced) shops in the downtown area, and in general see most of touristy sights of Victoria in a long day, and save the hassle of packing bags and schlepping them to and from the Clipper.

Plus, frankly, the plane is a blast - incredibly scenic and if you haven't been on a floatplane before it's a great experience.

www.kenmoreair.com

Thanks for the info - I will check into Kenmore Air and check out their price - looks interesting.