Seattle; Friday, 29 April, 2022

I woke up at 06:30, which wasn’t bad considering that would be about the normal time for a Friday, and I did feel a lot more refreshed than I had done the previous day. Though this did mean that by the time I got down for breakfast it was considerably busier than it had been on Thursday and it took quite a bit of time to get seated, get my order taken and delivered and then get the check. By the time I finished breakfast it was almost 8:30

Not that that really mattered as I’d had a relatively late start to the day planned with the first booked attraction being a boat tour in the early afternoon, so I had a relaxed start to the day with some coffee in my room before heading out to wander down to the waterfront mid-morning.

Pier 58 is historically the location where the steamship Portland arrived from Alaska with a ton of Gold, kicking off the Klondike Gold Rush. Pier 58 was demolished in 2020 (in fact a part of it collapsed into the bay during demolition due to the poor condition it was in), and isn’t due to be rebuilt until 2024, so at present is an empty space. But not to worry as the neighbouring Pier 57 had long been jumping on the bandwagon as an attraction called Miners Landing, housing a number of themed rides and attractions. The most visible is the Great Seattle Wheel, but for the morning I’d decided to pay a visit to a different attraction – Wings over Washington.

The attraction bills itself as a 5D experience, which suggests a slight misunderstanding of Physics and space, but in effect it’s an Imax style cinema where you sit is simulator style seats that move whilst jets of air or mists of water are directed at you during relevant parts of the film. The film itself is a promotion of the natural highlights of the State, so you do at least get to see more of the State.

After taking in Wings over Washington I walked the short distance along the waterfront to Pier 54 where I checked in for the first of two cruises of the day. This cruise was a 2-hour tour up through the Bay and then down the Lake Washington Ship Canal, through the lock gates that divide the Salty Sea of Puget Sound from the Fresh Water of Lake Washington and into Lake Union. The cruise almost completes a full circuit, but the final mile or so is blocked by land so at the end of the tour in Lake Union you have to get your own transport back into the city centre.

From Lake Union the bus should run every 15 minutes back into the centre of town, which would then only be a couple of minutes walk back down to the waterfront, and I made it to the bus stop with a good couple of minutes to spare, until I checked on the transit company app only to find that the bus had gone through 11 minutes early, and the next one was running several minutes late. Rather than a very long wait, and possibly being late for the next cruise I instead grabbed an Uber and made it back to the Waterfront.

The harbour cruise I’d booked left from the neighbouring pier – 55 – from the one I’d left three hours earlier. This cruise did a circuit around Elliott Bay, so I only had a small amount of repetition before we turned and headed south down the Bay. I clearly had my timing perfect as the weather was spectacularly clear and we were able to get really good views of Mount Rainier in the distance.

With the second cruise completed, I rounded off the afternoon by popping back to Miners Landing and taking a spin on The Seattle Great Wheel – a 175 foot high Ferris wheel that sits on the end of the pier.

After taking in the views from the wheel I wandered a bit further along the waterfront, mostly so that I could be lazy and pick up a bus that was going back up the hill to the hotel rather than having to hike up the pretty steep hill from the Waterfront to pretty much the highest point in the centre of town where the hotel was.

I popped back into the hotel to freshen up before heading out into town in search of dinner, conscious that I’d completely forgotten to stop for lunch at any point and I was now quite hungry. After a very pleasant dinner I headed back to the hotel, had a quick drink in the bar and then turned in for the night.