Seattle Trip 2010 - Day 3

As much as I love to sleep in, I had to get up at 7 am because of 2 reasons.  One, we had a solid plan to cover all 4 attractions in Seattle downtown if we left home on time and two, I had to make the sandwiches for lunch :).  Made the sandwiches, all 3 of us got ready, and headed to catch the bus to downtown.  My friend was working that day so it was going to be me, my brother, and my friend's brother.  Now before going to Seattle, I had decided to take the Seattle CityPass which covers 6 attractions for 1 low price of $59!  I think it's a great deal if you want to enjoy the hot spots of Seattle.  Since my brother was going to be in the city for only 4 days, we got the CityPass, but there is even a better deal called "Go Seattle Card" which covers about 35 attractions for around $130 which you can use over 7 days.  We didn't have that much time, so we decided to go with CityPass.  The 6 attractions were Argosy 1 hour harbor cruise, 2 visits to space needle, admission to Seattle aquarium, admission to Pacific science center with one 2D/3D imax movie, admission to Woodland park zoo, and admission to Museum of flight.  Now that's one good deal!

Our first stop was argosy 1 hour harbor cruise.  Now we got there an hour earlier than the cruise was scheduled, so we just waited around the shore.  It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, so we waited until 10:30 and then got first in the line for 11 o'clock cruise.  Now here is a tip for all of you....take the first cruise of the day because it'll be less crowded and you can get the seats on the top deck for the best view.  The tour started at 11 am and we had a great view of the Seattle skyline/downtown, mountain ranges, and the best view of the Mount Rainer.  Here is one of the good shots of Mount Rainer.  Our tour guide was also nice and knowledgeable, so it made the tour more interesting.  We came back from the tour in an hour and had our lunch. 

Next stop on the agenda was Seattle aquarium.  Argosy cruises and the aquarium are so close to each other, we had less than 5 minute walk to get there.  We spent about 35-40 minutes tops at the aquarium and saw big octopus, sea otters, jelly fish, etc.  Overall the aquarium was ok...if you don't have kids and going by yourself, you can cover the aquarium in 45 minutes max, not more than that.

After the aquarium, we started heading to Pacific science center which was about 1.2 miles from the aquarium.  The weather was great and we were not tired so we decided to walk.  Plus the walk is right by the waterfront so you have a great view as well.  It took us approx. 25-30 mins to get to pacific science center.  Since we had citypass, it included an imax ticket (40 min movie) for one of their discovery movies, so we got the tickets for "The Living Sea".  Overall was a good experience and fun time that we were there for almost 3 hours.

The final stop of the day was the Space needle visit.  Space needle was extremely close to the pacific science center with less than 5 minute walk.  With CityPass, you get 2 visits to the observation deck, and once you go on the top,  you can stay there until they close.  We went to the top, took pics, and chilled for a while.  I could spend hours there just overlooking the downtown and beautiful sunshine from a big height.  I wanted to also see the night view from space needle, but since the sunset was pretty much late around 10 pm, we left the needle to go to dinner.  We met up with my friend, had some great and spicy indian food at Kabab house and then went to Kerry Park for night view of the space needle and downtown from some distance.  It was gorgeous!

It was already night and I wanted to go back to space needle for a night view of the city, so went back and enjoyed the breathtaking view.  Here is a snap of night view, but let me be honest that my camera does not do the justice to the view that I saw and what was captured.

We got back around 11:30 and we were dead tired.  I don't know about others but I was already falling asleep but somehow managed to get up and change and then go back to sleep :D.  End of Day 3.  More fun to come in the zoo and Museum of flight on Day 4.  Oh and also my brother and my friend's brother leaving the next day in the evening flight, so got a tight schedule.