TIP: Our advice is to arrive in your embarkation city one or two days before your cruise. This helps to reduce stress of trying to get to the ship on time and gives you the opportunity to explore the embarkation port. It also helps with any time zone adjustments you might need.
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Seattle Aquarium (More Photos)
Opened in 1977, the Seattle Aquarium was owned and operated by the City of Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation until 2010, when the nonprofit Seattle Aquarium Society assumed its management. The region’s premier resource for hands-on marine experiences and conservation education, the Seattle Aquarium offers fun, exciting ways to discover more about the amazing Puget Sound and our world’s one big ocean.
Currently, the Aquarium’s animal collection is housed within six major exhibits: Window on Washington Waters, Life on the Edge, Pacific Coral Reef, Birds & Shores, the Underwater Dome and Marine Mammals.
With timed ticketing and plan-ahead pricing, you choose the best fit for your budget and schedule! (About plan-ahead pricing)
The Aquarium is located on Pier 59 on the Elliott Bay waterfront. We purchased our tickets online ahead of time (on the same day) and parked across the street. Due to construction, the parking lot wasn't collecting parking fees.
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Chihuly Garden and Glass is an exhibit in the Seattle Center directly next to the Space Needle, showcasing the studio glass of Dale Chihuly. It opened in May 2012 at the former site of the defunct Fun Forest amusement park.
The eight galleries and three Drawing Walls offer a comprehensive collection of Dale Chihuly’s significant series of work. The artworks demonstrate how he pushed the boundaries of glass as an art medium in concept, execution and presentation.
The centerpiece of Chihuly Garden and Glass is the Glasshouse. A 40-foot tall, glass and steel structure covering 4,500 square feet of light-filled space. The Glasshouse contains a 100-foot long sculpture in a color palette of reds, oranges, yellows and amber. It is one of Chihuly’s largest suspended sculptures.
Chihuly has shown his artwork in botanical gardens all over the world, but this was his first time working with a landscape designer to create a space unlike that of any garden or exhibition elsewhere.
The Theater presents short videos on Chihuly’s working process — interviews, glassblowing, working onsite doing installations and exhibitions.
The amount of time you spend in the galleries depends upon you, as the visit is self-paced, however the average amount of time most visitors spend viewing the artwork in the Galleries, Garden and Glasshouse is 1-2 hours.
Space Needle (More Photos)
If you see one thing in Seattle, see everything. From 520’ the Observation Deck provides a 360° view of Seattle and beyond that commands your attention. See the snow-capped Cascade Mountains to the east and the majestic Olympic mountain range to the west with breathtaking indoor and outdoor viewing. The Space Needle is an observation tower in Seattle, built in the Seattle Center for the 1962 World's Fair, which drew over 2.3 million visitors. Once you step inside the elevators, it takes only 41 seconds to ascend to the top.
We arrived at the Space Needle ticketing counter and purchased combination tickets for entry to Chihuly and the Space Needle. We opted a timed entry of 5:30 PM which would allowed us sufficient time to explore Chihuly first and then to spend early evening through dusk at the Space Needle.
We spent the whole time on the Observation Deck level although we could have gone downstairs to the revolving restaurant. Instead of a large meal, we had a snack consisting of hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies. The descent from the top was awesome as we were just inside the elevator doors and were able to take a video all the way down. Once on ground level we bought some souvenirs and then headed back to our hotel completely content with our full day's adventures in Seattle.
Note: You may be wondering why we didn't include Pike Place Market in our 3 things to do list. You may be aware that one of the big draws of the market is the throwing fish. Due to Covid-19, they are no longer throwing fish, so we decided not to mention that in this article. We have seen that previously.
We had a late lunch on the waterfront between the Aquarium and Chihuly and weren't hungry otherwise there are plenty of restaurants in the area to satisfy one's appetitive.
Hopefully you agree it would be worth adding a day or more to your cruise vacation to visit some of Seattle's attractions. If you have more time than we did, there are plenty of discount combination deals on the internet to maximize your savings and exploration.
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