Where in Seattle?

Jay -

I just stayed at the Homewood Suites in Downtown Seattle. A very nice
property and a great staff. A few block drive gets you onto the
Alaskan viaduct, an older but very interesting "over - under" limited
access road that will take you almost straight down to East Marginal
where the Museum is. It provided tremendous views of the harbor.

As you approach Boeing Field, stop the car and let someone else drive.
The rubbernecking opportunities come too fast to have to be concerned
with defensive driving. About 1/2 mile from the museum, I caught a
quick glimpse of a B-47 Stratojet. It was the quickest of glances, but
it looks as if it just rolled out of production. The Museum is very
good (to me one of the better ones).

Impressions: Air Force One was not as "swanky" as I would expected,
functional yes, and with room to spread out, but not nearly as nice as
the interiors of some exec 727's

The Concorde cabin looked and felt a lot like a Regional Jet cabin, the
only difference being in leg room. Otherwise the cabin and the seats
looked narrow.

Enjoy

Blue Skies

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:1GQWd.100666$tl3.74238@attbi_s02...

*sigh* Embassy Suites has about as much character and ambience as a
sticky
door knob, but at least I know we'll get some space.


Breakfast there is pretty good, though.

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:1GQWd.100666$tl3.74238@attbi_s02...

*sigh* Embassy Suites has about as much character and ambience as a
sticky
door knob, but at least I know we'll get some space.


Breakfast there is pretty good, though.

Besides, it is built on the former site of the old Bellevue Municipal
Airport.

Drop me an email a few days before your arrival. I work near
downtown. Maybe we can hook up. Are you a cigar smoker, per chance?

The last thing I put in my mouth that was on fire was in 1986. Since then,
I stick to liquids.

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ups.com...
Okay, so we're stuck flying the executive mailing tube to Seattle in
May, to attend my nephew's wedding. I just don't have time to fly
Atlas all the way, and I can't risk being held up by weather.

For all you Washingtonians, where is the best "suites-type" of hotel to
stay?

Addressing a variety of topics in this thread in a single post...

It's "Bellevue", not "Belleview", in case you're wondering why you're having
trouble looking that city up. Bellevue is the next largest city near
Seattle, but as with Tacoma and (especially) Everett (other major cities in
the area), not very conveniently located for Boeing Field. Though, you
don't say where the wedding is and it might be convenient for that.

Of course, you don't define what "sneak over" means either. You're not
going to walk to the Museum of Flight from pretty much anywhere worth
staying. Even from Bellevue or Renton, it's only going to be about a 20
minute drive (maybe only 15 minutes from Renton), since you're so close to
the major highways in the area.

In the Eastside area (includes Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Renton, and
others) all the lodging I know of is the big chain variety. There's the
Marriott Residence Inn, Doubletree Suites, and Extended Stay Suites, to name
a few. Unless the wedding is on the Eastside, you probably won't be
interested in any of those.

In Seattle itself, you've already gotten some good recommendations. Don't
confuse the Marriott Courtyard (which is on Lake Union) with the Seattle
Marriott Waterfront (which is near Pike Place Market and the Seattle
waterfront). The Courtyard is nowhere near Pike Place Market or the Seattle
waterfront (though, being on Lake Union, does have prime viewing location
for the VERY busy Kenmore Air Harbor seaplane traffic).

I can vouch for the Edgewater (having stayed there myself) as well as the
Fairmont (referred to in another post by its previous name, the Four
Seasons...friends of ours from Hawaii only stay there when they visit). The
W is okay, but a little too artificially trendy for my tastes. The Westin
is more of a classic high end hotel, but IMHO they can be a bit snooty if
you don't fit their expectation of the ideal clientele. None of those are
"suites specialty" places, but of course all offer suites.

One note about the Edgewater: try to avoid getting a room along the east end
of the south side of the building. I'd be surprised if they had any suites
there anyway, but those rooms all face out to the adjacent pier, with very
bright lights on all night. Not the best view, and being forced to keep the
drapes closed all night isn't very fun when you're right on the water with
great views nearby.

I suspect of all the potential places to stay, the Edgewater might provide
the most unique and distinctive experience.

Of course, the above only grazes the surface with respect to available
lodging. As a large(ish) city, Seattle has plenty of high quality hotels to
choose from. A resource like AAA or the Seattle Chamber of Commerce would
give you a much more comprehensive listing, though of course without the
personal "word of mouth" aspect.

As far as the Hawthorne at SeaTac being "not anywhere near" Boeing Field,
I'd have to disagree. SeaTac airport itself is VERY close to Boeing Field,
and anything within the SeaTac city limits is not a heck of a lot farther
from Boeing Field than anything in Seattle. That said, staying under the
shadow of SeaTac airport is probably not what you had in mind.

For all the words, I guess there's not much information in this post.
Feel free to ask for elaboration or provide more details if we as a group
haven't answered your question.

Pete

Jay

Get a car and stay almost anyplace in/near Seattle.

Good meuseum to visit (lots of heavy Iron) is about 20 miles +/- north
of Seattle. Ask some of the locals for location.

I enjoyed it better than the meuseum near SeaTac.

Big John
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On 5 Mar 2005 15:01:00 -0800, "Jay Honeck" wrote:

Okay, so we're stuck flying the executive mailing tube to Seattle in
May, to attend my nephew's wedding. I just don't have time to fly
Atlas all the way, and I can't risk being held up by weather.

For all you Washingtonians, where is the best "suites-type" of hotel to
stay? I won't have a lot of free time, but I'd like to stay somewhere
near the Museum of Flight so I can sneak over there when the family
stuff becomes too stifling.

Any recommendations?

"Big John" wrote in message
...
[...]
Good meuseum to visit (lots of heavy Iron) is about 20 miles +/- north
of Seattle. Ask some of the locals for location.

Good luck with that Jay. I'm not aware of any museum "20 miles +/- north of
Seattle". The (Boeing Field) Museum of Flight's restoration center is at
Paine Field (Snohomish County Airport) in Everett, and while there are a few
"heavy Iron" planes up there, I wouldn't call the numbers "lots".
http://www.museumofflight.org/visit/ (scroll to the bottom for info about
the restoration center)

A little further north from that is Paul Allen's Flying Heritage collection
at Arlington Airport. Tours by appointment only, and very expensive
relative to the number of planes there (though I did enjoy my visit
there...just not everyone's cup of tea). http://www.flyingheritage.com/

Doesn't sound like to me you'd wind up heading that far north of Seattle
anyway, but I've got no idea what the person posting as "Big John" is
referring to, and I doubt any of the other locals would either. There
aren't any actual museums per se in that general vicinity (even if there are
several good places to visit planes )

Pete

I have stayed in the Marriott Courtyard in Tukwila for business and
found it was easy to get to the museum and there is a mall acroos the
street to give the family something to occupy themselves while you are
having fun.

There is a good place nearby called Claim Jumpers that isn't too bad
either. Just go hungry.

http://www.claimjumper.com/

The Motherlode chocolate cake is huge and you almost need a ladder to
climb up to the top to eat it.


Tom

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ups.com...
Okay, so we're stuck flying the executive mailing tube to Seattle in
May, to attend my nephew's wedding. I just don't have time to fly
Atlas all the way, and I can't risk being held up by weather.


Well Jay it looks like you got some good ideas as to were to stay! My
friends in Bellevue couldn't offer up any better ideas than what you got
from the group...sorry!

Hope the wedding and all goes well. I wish all the best to your nephew and
his new wife!

Gary