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 we walk it 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, the Troll and the skyline from Gas Works, on foot and the 40 bus. 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 walk the last stretch to the Holiday Inn Express to leave the bags. Instead of waiting around for rooms, a downhill walk to the Olympic Sculpture Park, Calder's red Eagle on the bluff over the Sound, then brunch at Tilikum Place Cafe and the walk up through the Amazon blocks to the Spheres. At 2:30 we're inside the domes, then twelve minutes west to Bumbershoot for the afternoon sets, a Dick's Deluxe and a shake at the drive-in across the street from the festival, and either the headliner or an early night.
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, twenty minutes downhill with them to the Charter's desk, clam chowder in Post Alley at the market, then the waterfront up to Chihuly at 2:30 and across Broad Street to the Space Needle for the 5:00 reservation. 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. Walk down to the Charter, check in, pizza at Serious Pie four minutes away, and finish on the 16th-floor terrace at Fog Room. No cab all day.
Rainier is the big cone to the south-east, behind downtown.
The one day we leave the centre, and we do it on the 40 bus and our feet. North to the Ballard Locks to watch boats lift and drop and salmon climb the ladder past underwater windows, fish and chips at the Lockspot at the gate, a walk through the brick blocks of old Ballard to the bus, and thirteen minutes to Fremont for the Troll under the bridge, the drawbridge over the ship canal, and the skyline from Kite Hill at Gas Works Park. Two hours off at the hotel, the 13 up Queen Anne Hill for an early dinner at How to Cook a Wolf, Kerry Park for sunset, ice cream, and the walk back down. Every stop is a park or a place that 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 a fifteen-minute walk down 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, 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: Dick's on Saturday, chowder in the alley 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 and the $2.75 Metro fare. Attraction tickets aren't included; the checklist below lists which to buy ahead.
| Day | Legs | Low | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sat 5 | Link from the airport to Westlake, then on foot$3 a head on the train; the high figure is a cab from the airport instead | $9 | $65 |
| Sun 6 | NothingLake Union, the market, Seattle Center and the Charter are all within a mile of each other; the high figure is a cab for the bags at noon | $0 | $15 |
| Mon 7 | Metro 40 to Ballard, 40 to Fremont, 40 back down Westlake, 13 up Queen Anne Hill$2.75 a head a ride, four rides; the high figure rides the 13 back down too and takes a cab up the hill if the bus is late | $33 | $56 |
| 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 | $85 | $235 |
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.