Seattle Downtown/Waterfront parking recommendations

Hello everyone,

While we are in Seattle we planned to visit Space Needle, Chihuly Garden, Pike Market, doing things around water front (taking boat tour). I'm looking for a reasonable rate parking place/garage where we don't have to worry about the 3hrs parking time limits such as the parking meter along the streets. We don't mind taking the monorail if we have to.

For our post cruise, we get off the ship on a Friday and we are going to stay in Seattle for 4 nights (leaving on Tuesday). If we get a better parking rate on the weekend, we may plan to visit the downtown and waterfront area on the weekend, the rest of the other days we planned to visit Boeing factory and Mt. Rainier.

Any recommendations on a reasonable rate parking place/garage will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Are you driving your own car, or renting? If renting, don't rent until you need the car, or the end of your stay. That will save you a bundle on parking, as it is NOT cheap in Seattle.

Where are you staying in Seattle? And I second what CruiserBruce said.

Knowing the car situation will help.

I think weekend would be best for downtown. If you google Pacific Place parking, Sat. Max charge is $12 and Sunday max is $10....that is a decent price for all day, and it is right in center of downtown core. So it's a starting point. Walkable to Pike Place Market and monorail to Seattle Center.

We will be renting a car and staying at Renton. The Pacific Place sounds like a reasonable rate place to park, I look on Google Map and see the walking direction from Pacific Place to the water front and Pike Market, can you tell me from Pacific Place parking how do we take the monorail to the Space Needle ?

I saw from this below link where you can park your car and ride the monorail train. It doesn't say anything about the parking fee, therefore is it free to park there all day and take the monorail train to the water front and space needle ?

https://www.soundtransit.org/Rider-Guide/Tukwila-Int-Blvd-Station

Thanks

Thank you

Actually the monorail just goes from Westlake Center to Seattle Center.

Your link is for the Light Rail, which I was also going to suggest, and makes even more sense since you are staying in Renton. It's about a 40 min ride (maybe less on weekends), and your last stop in Seattle is Westlake. That puts you right across the street from the monorail to Seattle Center. I believe the parking lots are free for the Light Rail, but the Light Rail costs.

If you choose to drive downtown, Pacific Place parking is only a couple of blocks from Westlake. You should be able to see it on google maps.

Hope this helps

Debbie

Use this:

http://mobile.bestparking.com/?name=seattle

Put in how long you want to park and when, and it will display a map with the cheapest garage options.

Thank you everyone for your help.

Another question, on Sunday parking is free along the street where the meters are, does the 3 hours parking limit also applies on Sunday ?

Thank you everyone for your help.

 

Another question, on Sunday parking is free along the street where the meters are, does the 3 hours parking limit also applies on Sunday ?

Most metered parking in the downtown area is now 7-day-pay; in other parts of the city Sundays are still free.

Given your points of interest, parking somewhere near a light rail station might make the most sense. If your hotel has shuttle service to the airport, just use the airport light rail station.

This would let you do a walking/train/monorail route something like this: https://goo.gl/maps/U82PWLEuTzM2

Take the light rail to Westlake. Go upstairs in the Westlake Building (right over the light rail station) to the monorail station. Take the monorail to Seattle Center. The monorail station at Seattle Center is basically next to the Space Needle and Chihuly entrances; it's a short walk to other activities in the center like the Pacific Science Center and MoPop.

Then take the monorail back to Westlake and walk to the Pike Place market, around 5-10 minutes. Visit the market, then take the stairs (or elevator) down to the central waterfront. Walk south on the waterfront past the Ferris wheel to the Argosy cruise dock or to the ferry terminal if you want to take a ride on the ferry to Bainbridge Island or Bremerton, or the water taxi across Elliott Bay to West Seattle. Then back.

From there, walk through the Pioneer Square historic district, maybe to the Smith Tower, an iconic Seattle landmark with a terrific outdoor view deck. Then continue south a couple of blocks to the fabulous Uwajimaya grocery/department store, with a wonderful collection of Asian foods and gifts, a branch of Japan's biggest bookstore, and a fun food court featuring all sorts of Asian food - Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Hawaiian...

Then it's two blocks to the International District/Chinatown light rail station and back south.

You could do this route in reverse or in any order what you want. It's a full day of touring, depending on your pace.

If mass transit is suitable, consider just buying an ORCA card ($5) and loading it with money. All of the transit systems (King County Metro, Sound Transit buses and light rail, Sounder commuter trains, Seattle Streetcar) accept it, and there's usually free transfers between buses within 90 minutes. For example, my daily commute is the Sound Transit 542 bus and the King County Metro 75, which would be $2.75 per bus, but by using an ORCA card, it's $2.75. If I were to go downtown via Link light rail, I tap the ORCA card before going into the station and again on leaving, and as the fare for that is $3, it'd only charge me another $0.25.

To make it easier, get the "Trip Planner" app from King County Metro and the "OneBusAway" app. Trip planner will plan trips for you, while the OneBusAway app will show you nearly-accurate real-time info on bus arrivals at any given stop, and once you look at a particular bus, you can then see ALL of the stops, unlike the website and Trip Planner which only show major stops.