Our WONDERful first trip "home" to Alaska- A Trip Report -Finished 1/8!!!

[Chilly]

We went to Palo on the last night, so I missed the beef wellington which I love!

Looking forward to seeing what you did in Seattle.

 

[happenin2you]

Just checking in to let you know that I haven't forgotten about you all! It's the end of the semester and I have finals this week. I should be able to get in some awesome Seattle updates later this week!

 

[happenin2you]

It's Kismet! You're just wrapping up the day before I leave on my cruise! Some of the items you had for your last two dinners look really good. I found menus online Thanksgiving Day. It looks like they are serving a lot of the same food still. That seafood linguine looks really good, so did the crusted chicken.

Can't wait until tomorrow!

I hope you had an amazing time on your cruise! Will you be doing a TR?

I'm sailing on the Wonder to Alaska next year so am loving your TR!

Thanks! You're going to have an amazing time! I wish I could do it again every week

We went to Palo on the last night, so I missed the beef wellington which I love!

Looking forward to seeing what you did in Seattle.

Oh no! I bet Palo was amazing though. We'll have to do that next time since this time we did the brunch. Seattle is coming up!

 

[happenin2you]

So let me start by saying, I was so excited to be in Seattle! Aside from the actual cruise, that was the part that I was most looking forward to the whole vacation. We got some skyline pics while we were still on the ship.

Notice the flag was at half mast in observance of Memorial Day.

We got a taxi over to our hotel, The Hyatt at Olive 8! I was so excited for the hotel. It's LEED certified and new and modern. Unfortunately, the pics I took didn't turn out the best.
Shower

Efficient toilet

Me, haha!

The lights wouldn't work if the key wasn't in the holder, that way the lights couldn't be left on while you weren't in the room and electricity couldn't be wasted.

Bed

Husband and tv/ office area

The view looking straight down from our window was the rooftop garden of the lower floors.

And this sign on the roof explained it.

We were super excited to start exploring, so we got all our things situated and started walking towards all the excitement. We found Pike Place first.

It was really cool in there. It was just a ton of vendors all selling fresh things like food items and flowers. We also got to see the guys tossing the fish. I didn't try to catch any though. Of course we had to get some Starbucks.

And I think this may be the first one, but I might be wrong.

And me with my drink in front of the city Target which I was excited to explore because I am a Target lover, but it wasn't open yet...

And in front of the Hard Rock, because I've been to a bunch of them =)

Then we started wandering towards the Seattle Underground Tour, which we were planning to take. We found this place, because you never know when you're going to need one:

And we wanted to document the rare perfect weather we were experiencing =)

Next up: The Underground Tour!

 

[franandaj]

Ooooooh, a bonus land portion! I love the market where they throw the fish!

I hope you had an amazing time on your cruise! Will you be doing a TR?

We had an aweseom relaxing time!

I've continued my PTR into a TR, the link is in my signature, I think the TR starts around page 12 or so. I can't figure out how to get the mods to move it over to the TR part. I've PM'd a couple of them but it's still in the PTR section.

 

[Chilly]

I'm still looking for myself in your photos but no luck. We did the underground tour as well but the next day, it was brill wasn't it.

 

[Leshaface]

Omgosh how I would LOVE to go to Seattle!

I worked for Starbucks for over 7 years so i'm a Starbucks fanatic and it would be amazing to go to the first one!

Also, i've read about the best donut place up there - Voodoo Donuts. I first saw it on the Travel Channel years ago, and ever since I just knew I had to get to Seattle someday. Plus, DH wants to visit there too.

 

[SarahandPaul]

Omgosh how I would LOVE to go to Seattle!

I worked for Starbucks for over 7 years so i'm a Starbucks fanatic and it would be amazing to go to the first one!

Also, i've read about the best donut place up there - Voodoo Donuts. I first saw it on the Travel Channel years ago, and ever since I just knew I had to get to Seattle someday. Plus, DH wants to visit there too.

Seattle is a great place to visit. The first Starbucks is just like the rest but they do sell merchandize that can only be found there (first Starbucks, original Starbucks...etc). As for Voodoo Donuts, I'm going to have to burst your bubble because that is in Portland, Oregon.

 

[Leshaface]

Seattle is a great place to visit. The first Starbucks is just like the rest but they do sell merchandize that can only be found there (first Starbucks, original Starbucks...etc). As for Voodoo Donuts, I'm going to have to burst your bubble because that is in Portland, Oregon.

You know what, after I posted this I was like, "Wait! I think it's in Oregon!" and completely forgot to come back and edit it! Thanks for setting it straight! Seattle has Top Pot right? Those donuts are stinkin' delicious too!

 

[happenin2you]

Ooooooh, a bonus land portion! I love the market where they throw the fish!



We had an aweseom relaxing time!

I've continued my PTR into a TR, the link is in my signature, I think the TR starts around page 12 or so. I can't figure out how to get the mods to move it over to the TR part. I've PM'd a couple of them but it's still in the PTR section.

I'm glad you had so much time for relaxation. We don't do much of that on vacation. I'll be right over to check out your report!

I'm still looking for myself in your photos but no luck. We did the underground tour as well but the next day, it was brill wasn't it.

Maybe you'll spot yourself in the tour pics I did love the tour. I thought it was hilarious!

Omgosh how I would LOVE to go to Seattle!

I worked for Starbucks for over 7 years so i'm a Starbucks fanatic and it would be amazing to go to the first one!

Also, i've read about the best donut place up there - Voodoo Donuts. I first saw it on the Travel Channel years ago, and ever since I just knew I had to get to Seattle someday. Plus, DH wants to visit there too.

I'm not sure I was at the right Starbucks. I remember someone saying it was near Pike Place, but I think there were two, and we just went to the one near the main entrance. It was pretty big though. And super busy.

Seattle is a great place to visit. The first Starbucks is just like the rest but they do sell merchandize that can only be found there (first Starbucks, original Starbucks...etc). As for Voodoo Donuts, I'm going to have to burst your bubble because that is in Portland, Oregon.

I don't remember seeing any special products, but I was just trying to figure out the line... people were lined up in all the wrong places...

You know what, after I posted this I was like, "Wait! I think it's in Oregon!" and completely forgot to come back and edit it! Thanks for setting it straight! Seattle has Top Pot right? Those donuts are stinkin' delicious too!

I didn't think Voodoo sounded like something I'd heard about before my trip, but we do make a stop at Top Pot later

 

[happenin2you]

Finally! I'm back and ready to finish this report! I was hoping to get it done soon after the semester ended, but with the holidays, and my bright idea to paint two rooms in our house on our days off, this is the first free time I've had. And I'm on call today, so I may have to leave this off again at some point. I had a lovely Christmas with friends and family, and last night, my husband and I went to bed around 10 pm pacific time, so we saw the New Year get rang in in New Orleans and Nashville and called it a night. I think it was the first time I didn't stay up until midnight since I was a child. My husband is an accountant at a major hotel on the strip and there is absolutely no time off given in January because they have end of month, end of quarter, end of year, and they get audited all in January. Since we knew he was going to have a long, busy day ahead of him, we went to sleep early so he could be well-rested. A few other exciting things happened during the semester: we saw Rock of Ages and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's Soul 2 Soul show at my husband's hotel, and my husband surprised my with tickets to Aerosmith back in early December for no good reason other than he knows I love them. I have pictures and video from the Aerosmith show I'll share with you later. Now, on to the Undergroud Tour!

I don't know why I don't have a picture of the front of the building, but it was right next to the Utilikilts place. They started the tour inside their building with some background information about Seattle. In a nutshell, the whole city was built from wood, like most old west cities, one day it burned, but they also had problems with sewer drainage and the tide, so they decided to build again above the old city. When they figured out how long that would take, they just decided to raise up the roadway. That created a problem for when horse-drawn carriages went off the road they crashed below on the sidewalk, and when people were drunk, they fell off the ladders that took you up to the road to cross the street and such. They eventually built up the buildings more and paved sidewalks at the street level and the original sidewalks became a sort of tunnel system. The original fronts of the buildings are still down there and most business just use them for storage and that sort of thing. Then we were divided into groups and sent off with our guides. These cool purple glass tiles in the cement are actually skylights so you could see underground.

Underground

Seattle before the fire.

The skylight from below. You can't really tell from the photo, but the light that comes in is very bright and not at all purple like you would think from the purple tiles.

Tunnel

We came back up and went down again across the street from this parking garage. The tour guide told us it was called something like the sinking ship garage.

After the tour, we wandered down by the water and decided it was time for lunch. We stopped at a place on the pier that had pretty good reviews. I can't remember what it was called, but I was kinda bummed when I figured out it was a chain. They have locations in CA, Long Beach and Huntington I think. It was good, we were just hoping to try something unique to Seattle.

Bloody Mary

We must have been pretty hungry, because I don't have pics of the food. After lunch, I wanted to walk towards the Edgewater Hotel. My husband loves the Beatles and they had stayed there many moons ago. We saw some interesting things on our way over there.

This kinda amazed me. I know there are many people that are dissatisfied with the president, but to compare him to Hitler?

I had to take a picture of this manhole cover because it had my high school logo on it, silly, but I was pretty spirited

I remember passing the cruise terminal where the Princess ship was and thinking if that were ours, we could have walked to our hotel...
The best thing about Seattle was that we could walk everywhere. We decided we wanted to walk towards the Space Needle and check out the museum that had the King Tut exhibit.
The needle from the bottom.

The King Tut exhibit was sold out, so we skipped it, and we had been told not to go up the tower unless the sky was clear because you couldn't really see anything. Some clouds had rolled in, and the tower seemed much smaller than the one's I've been up before (the CN tower in Toronto and the Stratosphere here in Las Vegas) and much more expensive, so we skipped it. This guy seems to be making eye contact with me... creepy... I just wanted a pic of the front of the building.

By this time it was getting a little chilly so we headed back to the hotel. It was a really cool building so I wanted to take some pictures of it before we went in.

We put on some warmer clothes and headed out to dinner at something like Lucky 7 Diner? Again, I failed on the photo front... After that we decided we wanted to call it an early night since we would be flying home the next evening and would want to get up early so we could be packed and leave our bags at the front desk. But first, we wanted to find some wine to take back to the room and enjoy. On our search, we spotted this:

I work for Walgreen's pharmacy, so I always take pictures of them in other places. Some are very unique, some are cookie cutter, like this one. Only you'd never see it in brick in Vegas.

Up next: The Duck!

 

[happenin2you]

The one thing I knew I wanted to do in Seattle was ride the Ducks, so the next morning we got all our stuff packed and ready to go, and we headed right over to the ducks. We got there a little early, so we explored the grounds of the EMP museum.

We were going to be on the middle duck.

And we're off! Backside of the EMP.

Front of EMP.

The duck plays music and tries to get people to dance, it's pretty funny.

Park with art sculptures.

Sculpture in the background.

There's the Edgewater Hotel. You can fish from the room balconies.

Balconies you can fish from.

Where the Seahawks play.

They make the best soda here!

Where the Mariners play.

The duck driver made a joke about this art sculpture saying the Mariners can't win because there's a hole in it where they should be catching the ball. Then right after we got home, they had that no-hitter. Guess you don't need to worry about catching if no one can get a hit off your pitcher.

The Occupy Seattle protesters were among these cool blue trees. The duck played them some music and asked them to dance and they yelled expletives at us. Good to see well-rounded, mature people speaking out for the cause...

A really cool-looking firehouse.

Me!

Next we went over this bridge so we could take the duck down into the water.

Up next: The Duck Swims!

 

[franandaj]

What a fun update, the underground city sounds really cool! My sister lives near Seattle and we keep saying that we will go visit her (in warm weather) but haven't made it up there. Hopefully we can get there and add that tour to our list!

After the tour, we wandered down by the water and decided it was time for lunch. We stopped at a place on the pier that had pretty good reviews. I can't remember what it was called, but I was kinda bummed when I figured out it was a chain. They have locations in CA, Long Beach and Huntington I think. It was good, we were just hoping to try something unique to Seattle.

Bloody Mary

We must have been pretty hungry, because I don't have pics of the food. After lunch, I wanted to walk towards the Edgewater Hotel. My husband loves the Beatles and they had stayed there many moons ago. We saw some interesting things on our way over there.

I'm going to guess from the table cloths and the locations you mentioned that you guys ate at the Crab Pot! We love the one in Long Beach and I always thought that it was weird that they had two So Cal locations and one in Washington! Did you guys for for the whole bib and they dump your food out on the table and you eat with your hands?

Looking forward to hearing the rest!

 

[jedijill]

I'm so glad you are back. I am definitely planning a long weekend in Seattle some of these days...seems like such a cool city!

Jill in CO

 

[SarahandPaul]

I'm glad you had so much time for relaxation. We don't do much of that on vacation. I'll be right over to check out your report!


Maybe you'll spot yourself in the tour pics I did love the tour. I thought it was hilarious!


I'm not sure I was at the right Starbucks. I remember someone saying it was near Pike Place, but I think there were two, and we just went to the one near the main entrance. It was pretty big though. And super busy.


I don't remember seeing any special products, but I was just trying to figure out the line... people were lined up in all the wrong places...

I didn't think Voodoo sounded like something I'd heard about before my trip, but we do make a stop at Top Pot later

I didn't want to say anything but from the picture you looks went to larger (not original one) and not the first one.

 

[happenin2you]

What a fun update, the underground city sounds really cool! My sister lives near Seattle and we keep saying that we will go visit her (in warm weather) but haven't made it up there. Hopefully we can get there and add that tour to our list!



I'm going to guess from the table cloths and the locations you mentioned that you guys ate at the Crab Pot! We love the one in Long Beach and I always thought that it was weird that they had two So Cal locations and one in Washington! Did you guys for for the whole bib and they dump your food out on the table and you eat with your hands?

Looking forward to hearing the rest!

It was a really great place. We loved that we could walk everywhere. There were some hills though, so it did get a little tiring.

The Crab Pot sounds right. We didn't get the feast thing. I'm only recently trying seafoods, and I surely am not a fan of cold food, so it may be a while before I try some cold seafoods. The feast looked to me like chilled things, but I could be wrong. I think I was looking specifically for shrimp, so I had some shrimp tacos. I have no idea what Chris ate. I just remember the table next to ours had the feast and when they brought it out I was like HOLY CRAP! What is all that?!? My bloody mary was good and spicy, the way I like it, and Chris really enjoyed his chowder. We were seated in this wierd outdoor area that was completely covered with yellow tarp, so that's why we look so jaundiced in the pictures... Anyway, I really enjoyed that place and specifically remember thinking if we take another cruise out of Long Beach with Chris' parents (we did Mex. Riv. last Jan. with his family), we should eat there before or after because his dad would love that feast. I also have this weird aversion to eating with my hands. Call me prissy, . I'm from the Buffalo area and I rarely will touch a chicken wing, I'll have chicken fingers with a fork instead

I'm so glad you are back. I am definitely planning a long weekend in Seattle some of these days...seems like such a cool city!

Jill in CO

I'm glad to be back! Thanks for waiting patiently for me to finish. It's been driving me crazy. Seattle is definitely a super cool place, the vibe really reminds me of Denver. Very laid back and good food and friendly people all over. I'll take any opportunity to go back.

I didn't want to say anything but from the picture you looks went to larger (not original one) and not the first one.

Yeah, I was pretty sure I wasn't at the right one. Was it inside the Pike Place?

 

[happenin2you]

Sorry guys, I was really planning on getting this done today, but Photobucket is just so uncooperative with me. I don't know why. I had to completely close out of it twice and in the process deleted all the pictures off of my computer. Luckily, they are all backed up on DVD and the inaccessible photobucket Hopefully this weekend. Have a great week and a great new year!

 

[Leshaface]

Alison beat me to it! Yep I think it's the Crab Pot!

What a cool underground tour!

And love the joke about the Mariners no-hitter!

You got a really cool shot of a rainbow when you're looking up at the hotel. Very pretty and artistic!

 

[Chilly]

We went to the Crab Pot as well for lunch! I've lost track of what day we're on now but I think it was the same day. I'm going to see if you in my photo! Nope your not.

 

[Momma2Jax]

Yeah, I was pretty sure I wasn't at the right one. Was it inside the Pike Place?

Yes the original Starbucks (which is only technically the original.....long story...haha) is in the strip at pike place. But let me tell you, I have been down to the market a lot, and have never felt the need to stand in that horrible line to get in! Haha! You found a better one.

Btw we went to crab pot this summer! We loved it!