Jump to content

Seattle - Limited Excursion Offerings for Ovation - Any Ideas?


Recommended Posts

In May we will be stopping in Seattle for the day on our way to Victoria and Vancouver (from Hawaii).  Royal is only offering 5 excursions in Seattle, and they all really suck.  Any thoughts or ideas for this stop?  Any idea how far the port is from downtown (Pikes Market, Space Needle, etc).  We thought about taking Uber into town - but not really sure if this is practical.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  They do have a 4 hour "self guided" tour for around $100 - or a deluxe tour for $180.  I guess the $100 tour is for transportation and a very hefty profit margin, but not really sure how they arrive at $100 per person for a bus trip to downtown.....seems grossly overpriced and underwhelming.....thoughts?  Many thanks in advance.....

Edited by Ramjet1997
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Uber from the dock to downtown is under $10, taxi is only $10-11. Totally practical.

 

There are many discussion here and on the West Coast Departures board on what to do in Seattle...it does depend a lot on what interests you. Pik Market and Space Needle are great. So is the Boeing factories, but they are further away.

 

Haven't sailed RCI in a long time, and don't know how they load their excursions. Could more be added?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Agree that it's trivially easy to get into downtown - if it's Pier 66 then you're already downtown, with much of the harbour area renovations complete you can walk to quite a few attractions if you can handle even a mile on foot. Pier 91 - last I recall we paid more like $15 for a cab (Seattle traffic can easily see the meter climb) but that's still a tiny fraction of the cost of the 'self guided tour' you're being offered.

 

I also second Bruce's suggestion to go browse West Coast Departures board - without knowing anything about what YOU like most, it's hard to give suggestions for a very short time, as you really need to figure out the very small number of things that will be the best possible spend of your time... try TripAdvisor rankings for what Joe Q Public thinks are the best things in Seattle and take it from there.

 

Single best thing you can do right now though is fire up Google Maps, or your preferred other provider, and look for yourself into where the big sites are relative to the two piers. I like Google because when you ask directions on foot it shows elevation gain/loss - and that can be VERY different between routes in Seattle! Personally I enjoy walking around in any city, but with limited time as a first-time visitor you may instead want to just hop in Ubers/cabs between sites to save some time - so getting an idea of how far places you might want to see are from each other will help you get a handle on transportation needs. e.g. Space Needle/Chihuly/MoPop are easily walked between.

 

FWIW we had a port stop this summer too, and we did our usual Seattle short visit stuff (ate & drank, shopped a little) plus a free walking tour - even though it didn't take us anywhere we'd never been, every guide has some new tidbits of info about something so we get a different perspective even as folks who have visited dozens of times.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I would Uber to Pike Place Market from Pier 91 and explore there.  Then (assuming that walking is okay for you), I would walk to the Monorail Station at WestLake and ride the monorail to Seattle Center where the Space Needle, Chihuly Gardens & Glass Gallery, and the Museum of pop Culture (MOPOP) are all located.  Finally, take an Uber back to Pier 91.

 

This would fill your day.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...