Rocky Mountaineer and Victoria - Seattle

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

I have also posted this in the Canada forum. I included it here as part of the trip includes Seattle. I am particularly interested in Hotels close to the Amtrak Station and also and city tours available.

We just booked our Rocky Mountaineer Train tour for August 10th. We are taking the 6 night 7 day circle tour that goes from Vancouver - Whistler - Quesnel - Jasper - Kamloops - Vancouver. By booking early we got the Vancouver city tour and one extra night in Vancouver as a free add on. We booked the Gold Leaf service with deluxe hotels option. We are staying at the Fairmont Waterfront hotel in Vancouver our first two nights before the train tour and the last night there after the tour. We will also be staying at the Fairmont Château at Whistler and the Fairmont in Jasper. We will be traveling from Los Angeles to Seattle and return on the Amtrak Coast Starlight. We will spend one night in Seattle before proceeding on to Vancouver. The above itinerary is already fixed.

Now comes the questions.

1. Has anybody taken this tour and if so do you have any info of interest?
2. Can anybody suggest a good hotel in Seattle that is close to the Amtrak station?
3. Can anybody suggest the best way for us to get from Seattle to Vancouver. Please do not suggest a rental car as I have no intentions to do any driving on this trip. I suspect that the bus is probably our only option as it doesn't make any sense to fly. We would like to arrive no later than the early afternoon.
4. On the return, We plan to go from Vancouver to Victoria spending 2 nights in Victoria and then take the Seattle Clipper from Victoria to Seattle and spend a couple nights in Seattle. That part is still open so I welcome any suggestions regarding hotels in Victoria or anything else of interest. We plan to book a tour of Victoria and Butchart's Gardens etc. I am also interested in any Seattle city tours.

Any advice, suggestions, etc. on our above trip would be welcomed.

[Nancy Platinum Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close Nancy]

Clipper Vacations

We booked the Clipper Tours that included a night before and a night after in Seattle staying at the Edgewater which is next to the Clipper terminal. We took Amtrak from Seattle to Vancouver (all included in Clipper package.) Clipper also provided taxi fares to Amtrak terminal and from Amtrak to hotel in Vancouver.

The Amtrak station in Seattle doesn't seem to be in a very good neighborhood, so I think you would want to taxi to and from it.

Since you plan to Clipper from Victoria, you might want to contact them and see what all they can plan for you.

Nancy

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

We booked the Clipper Tours that included a night before and a night after in Seattle staying at the Edgewater which is next to the Clipper terminal. We took Amtrak from Seattle to Vancouver (all included in Clipper package.) Clipper also provided taxi fares to Amtrak terminal and from Amtrak to hotel in Vancouver.

The Amtrak station in Seattle doesn't seem to be in a very good neighborhood, so I think you would want to taxi to and from it.

Since you plan to Clipper from Victoria, you might want to contact them and see what all they can plan for you.

Nancy

Thanks for the info. Did you take the train from Seattle to Vancouver or was it on an Amtrak bus? I can book the Amtrak through to Vancouver but the Seattle to Vancouver route is by Amtrak bus and it doesn't arrive into Vancouver until around 1:00 am which is not too good. I will check if they have a separate train to Vancouver.

[Nancy Platinum Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close Nancy]

Train

We took the train from Seattle to Vancouver. It left in morning and was supposed to arrive in Vancouver around noon, but think it ran late and we got there around 1 or 2 pm. Very enjoyable train trip. We opted for business class which was privater. Only about 3 others in our entire car. This was May 2006.

Nancy

[Fletcher921 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Fletcher921]

We did this trip years ago from Calgary to Kamloops and then on to Vancouver. We stayed at the Best Western on Robson Street in Vancouver for a few days at the end of our trip and really enjoyed the location. Bring clothes for a variety of weather.
Babs

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

We did this trip years ago from Calgary to Kamloops and then on to Vancouver. We stayed at the Best Western on Robson Street in Vancouver for a few days at the end of our trip and really enjoyed the location. Bring clothes for a variety of weather.
Babs

The weather is the one thing we are a little worried about. We lived in Vancouver and are familiar with the climate. Hopefully it will be better than our trip to Alberta in August 2005 where it rained 11 days out of the 14 that we were there.
We are doing the Rocky Mountaineer 6 night circle route.

[Fletcher921 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Fletcher921]

The trip we did was in September. We left California, connected at LAX and flew to Calgary. We saw our luggage on the tarmac in LAX - it missed the flight. My buddy who was travelling with me was dressed as a typical southern Californian and she had NO carry-on. We landed in Calgary with SNOW on the ground. She was miserable until the luggage caught up with us in Kamloops at like 2:30 in the morning. Lesson learned...
Babs

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

Thank you for all of the info.

I have decided that we will stay the 3 nights in Seattle at the Grand Hyatt and the 2 nights in Victoria at the Marriott Inner Harbour.

[hope54 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close hope54]

Grand Hyatt in Seattle is a great choice! Love that hotel. Nice digs and centrally located. Research restaurants before you come so you don't end up going to the big chains - Ruth Chris, Cheescake Factory, etc. There are too many fabulous choices in Seattle. The downtown scene has gotten very busy in the past 8 years so book tables before you come.

Hope

[barefootsun.com Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close barefootsun.com]

Grand Hyatt in Seattle is a great choice! Love that hotel. Nice digs and centrally located. Research restaurants before you come so you don't end up going to the big chains - Ruth Chris, Cheescake Factory, etc. There are too many fabulous choices in Seattle. The downtown scene has gotten very busy in the past 8 years so book tables before you come.

Hope

Hey you might look in our database for a timeshare in that area. Just a thought...

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

The only timeshare in Seattle that I know of is Worldmark Camlin.

The Amtrak station (King Street Station) is located in Pioneer Square on the south edge of downtown. The station is immediately to the NE of Qwest field - if you follow King Street east from First Avenue, King Street puts you right at the entrance to the station.

If you want to stay close to the station, the Pioneer Square Hotel is a good choice. It's not luxury accommodations, but a nice facility with some funky charm. The Pioneer Square hotel is on Yesler, just west of First Avenue. It's probably about six blocks from there to King Street station.

There are many very nice eateries in a wide variety of price ranges.

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

Hey you might look in our database for a timeshare in that area. Just a thought...

We are not interested in a timeshare as we want to be right downtown and prefer to stay in a luxury hotel.

[JimP Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JimP]

We are not interested in a timeshare as we want to be right downtown and prefer to stay in a luxury hotel.

The Camlin is indeed right downtown, and it is a historic old hotel. When we go, we reserve the penthouse units. The old "cloud room" was a fixture in Seattle, and a key place for live intertainment of top talent. Worldmark converted the entire cloud room into four condos, three of which are Penthouse units. The rest of the Camlin is composed primarily of 1BR and studio units.

/Jim