Four days between the Sound and the mountains: glass domes and blown glass, a festival under the Needle, salmon at the locks, the market at opening, and the ferry across the Sound before the flight home.
Scroll downDelta up on Saturday morning and back on Tuesday evening. Arizona doesn't observe daylight saving, so the clocks read the same in both cities this week: no time change to think about.
Both hotels include breakfast for everyone and will hold bags before check-in and after check-out. The Sunday-evening move is deliberate: it puts us four minutes from Pike Place Market for the last two days.
Sat 5 · 1 nightA short walk from Denny Park, the Spheres and Seattle Center, which is exactly where Saturday happens. We drop bags on arrival, sleep here Saturday, breakfast here Sunday, and leave the luggage at the desk until noon, when the 62 bus takes it, and us, down to the Charter.
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Sun 6 – Tue 8 · 2 nightsOn 2nd Avenue at Pine: four minutes to the market, three to Westlake light-rail station, and the Fog Room rooftop lounge upstairs on the 16th floor for Sunday's nightcap. Breakfast here on Monday and Tuesday.
Open in Maps →In the order they happen. Two are reserved already; the rest need tickets bought ahead or just showing up. The day-by-day plan below has the times and how we get between them.
Three glass domes holding a four-storey rainforest of 40,000 plants. Public visits happen only on select Saturdays, and ours is booked.
Seattle's Labor Day arts and music festival across Seattle Center. Saturday is Lucy Dacus, Blood Orange and Bikini Kill with Turnstile closing; Sunday is Death Cab for Cutie and De La Soul.
Seattle's own story in the 1942 naval armory on the water, six minutes' walk from the hotel: the fire, the Klondike, Boeing, grunge, Amazon.
Eight galleries, a glasshouse and a garden where glass grows among the plants.
Glass benches, the revolving glass floor, Rainier to the south-east, and a 7:36 PM sunset if we linger.
Boats lifted between the Sound and the lakes, coho climbing the fish ladder past underwater windows, then old Ballard and the Troll under the Aurora Bridge, with the 40 and 44 buses doing the distance. Free, and all of it open on Labor Day.
Fish throwing and piroshky as the stalls open, then a walk-on ticket for the 9:35 boat: the whole skyline off the stern, a free art museum and a bakery in Winslow, the 12:20 boat back with the city filling the bow windows, and fish and chips at Ivar's on the pier where it lands. $11.35 a head, the best view of the trip, and back at the bags by one.
Flights, hotels and the two timed entries are fixed. Everything else is the intended order, with the walk, cab or train that connects each stop and what it costs for three. Weather is the National Weather Service forecast issued on Friday 4 September: dry and partly sunny all four days, highs of 70–72°F.
We land at 10:05, take the train into town and the 62 bus up Dexter Avenue to leave the bags at the Holiday Inn Express: four minutes of walking with luggage, not seventeen. Brunch at Tilikum Place Cafe, ten minutes away, then nine minutes on through the Amazon blocks to the Spheres for the 2:30 slot. From the domes it's eight minutes to Westlake Center and the 1962 Monorail, two minutes in the air to Seattle Center and Bumbershoot for the evening sets, with dinner from the festival's stalls. The festival has no re-entry, so we go in once, and the hotel is six minutes from the gate when we've had enough.
Late sun through the west glass of the Spheres is the photo.
Breakfast at the hotel, check out, bags at the desk, and a six-minute walk to Lake Union Park for MOHAI, the Seattle story from the Great Fire to Boeing to Amazon, in the old naval armory on the water. Back for the bags and the 62 bus from the corner of Dexter and Denny straight down 3rd Avenue to the Charter's block: four minutes with luggage on the pavement, not twenty. Clam chowder in Post Alley at the market, then the Monorail from Westlake Center to Seattle Center, two minutes, for Chihuly at 2:30 and the Space Needle at 5:00. Bumbershoot has the rest of Seattle Center fenced off today, so the Armory food hall and the fountain are out; the Needle and Chihuly keep their own doors. Dinner is Dick's Drive-In on Queen Anne Avenue, two bus stops from the Needle, the 13 down to the Charter, check in, and the 16th-floor terrace at Fog Room. No cab all day, and nothing longer than six minutes on foot.
Rainier is the big cone to the south-east, behind downtown.
The one day we leave the centre, and the buses do the distance: the 40 to Ballard and the 44 to the locks gate, where boats lift and drop and salmon climb the ladder past underwater windows, fish and chips at the Lockspot by the gate, the 44 back to Ballard Avenue for a slow look at the brick blocks of old Ballard, and the 40 to Fremont for the Troll under the Aurora Bridge, six minutes up from the stop. The same bus comes back over the drawbridge and down Westlake for two hours off at the hotel, then the 13 up Queen Anne Hill to the door of How to Cook a Wolf, Kerry Park for sunset, ice cream, and the 13 back down. No walk longer than six minutes except the ones that are the point, and every stop keeps its normal hours on the holiday; the ones that don't, Sushi Kashiba, Canlis, the Japanese Garden and the art museum, are why this is the plan.
Into the market as the fish counters open, then twelve minutes down 1st Avenue to Colman Dock for the 9:35 ferry to Bainbridge Island: thirty-five minutes on the open stern deck with the whole skyline, the Needle and Rainier lined up behind the wake. Winslow is a five-minute walk from the dock, with a free art museum, a bookshop street and a bakery. The 12:20 boat brings us back into the city with the towers filling the bow windows, fish and chips and a cup of chowder at Ivar's on the pier where we land, the Overlook Walk lifts up to the market so nobody climbs the hill, bags at a quarter to two, and the train to the airport at 2:15 with a booked slot in the security line.
Stern going out, bow coming back. Gulls follow the boat; don't feed them.
The original itinerary has the bones. These are the details that change what we do: the holiday closures, the fares, which bus goes where, and what to order.
The local plates, on purpose: the festival stalls on Saturday, chowder in the alley and Dick's on Sunday, the Lockspot's fish and chips at the locks Monday, Ivar's on the pier Tuesday. How to Cook a Wolf is the one booked dinner, and Serious Pie is pizza on a stool. For the coffee people: Victrola (310 E Pike) and Espresso Vivace on Broadway are the real Seattle coffee, a 15-minute climb from the hotel, if anyone would rather trade the ferry for Capitol Hill on Tuesday. Sushi Kashiba in the market, Shiro Kashiba's counter, is closed on Labor Day and Tuesdays; its Sunday 7 PM seating on OpenTable is the only way it fits. The Reserve Roastery on Pike closed in 2025. Skip the original Starbucks queue.
For three people, at the $3 Link fare, the $3 Metro fare and $4 on the Monorail. Attraction tickets aren't included; the checklist below lists which to buy ahead.
| Day | Legs | Low | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sat 5 | Link from the airport, the 62 to the hotel, the Monorail into the festival$3 on the train, $3 on the bus and $4 on the Monorail a head; the high figure is a cab from the airport instead | $30 | $77 |
| Sun 6 | The 62 with the bags, the Monorail up, the 8 and the 13 back$3, $4, $3 and $3 a head; the high figure is a cab for the bags at noon instead of the 62 | $39 | $45 |
| Mon 7 | Metro 40 and 44 to the locks, 44 and 40 to Fremont, 40 back, 13 up the hill and down$3 a head a ticket, five tickets with the two-hour transfers; the high figure takes a cab up the hill if the 13 is late | $45 | $51 |
| Tue 8 | Ferry to Bainbridge and back, Link to Sea-Tac$11.35 a head on the boat, $3 on the train; the high figure is a cab to the airport instead | $43 | $99 |
| Four days | $157 | $272 |
Ticks are saved on this device only. Two entries are already reserved; the rest are quick to buy but sell out on holiday weekends.
Two flights, two hotels, two reserved entries and four days mapped stop by stop, with no blank hours left. Everything on this page comes from the family's itinerary, expanded with opening hours, fares and the things worth knowing before each door.