Is is hard when driving to find Pier 30? (Seattle, Republic: real estate, hotels)

[Tom Tom]

Driving to Seattle to take cruise. Plan to stay in Seattle a night or two before and after the cruise. Will be parking at the Garage at Pier 30 but how hard is it to find the Pier when driving? Hope to find a nice motel nearby. Any help!

[FoxyKnox]

Shouldn't be too hard, but pier 30 may be a bit of a walk to the cruise ship terminal. Is that where your cruise company suggests to stay?

The "main" piers...ie, the ones with activities are labeled pretty well. I believe Bell Harbor Marina/Cruise Terminal/Meritime Museum are all at about Pier 56 ish? Red Robin and Argosy cruises are around Pier 52 I think. Pier 30 is likely to be down by Safeco Field/the ferry terminal.

If you stay at the Edgewater (Pier 67), they may have deals to house your car while on your cruise...

[allforcats]

If you go to this site, you'll find a map to the Port of Seattle cruise ship Pier 30: Port of Seattle: Cruise Lines and Schedules

Hi. I took a cruise last year from Seattle. The Holland America and Princess cruise ships dock at Pier 30. Pier 30 is just south of downtown, south of Royal Brougham. That is a commercial and light industrial area. There are no motels or hotels there. You can park your car in the open-air lot at Pier 30. However, it is a place you should think hard and long about leaving a car you either own or rent, for a week. It is not a place to leave a car that is obviously unattended.

If you are going to stay overnight in downtown Seattle the night before your cruise, as far as I can remember after 15 years of working downtown, I believe there are no motels in downtown Seattle, since real estate prices prohibit the construction of two- or three-story buildings. There are high-rise hotels. To find a place that suits you, you'd do well to Google and look up TripAdvisor.com

You have a couple of options. If you are saddled with a car, then you can park it underground at your hotel. If you are going to stay in that hotel again when the cruise ship returns to Seattle, you can probably make a deal with the hotel to keep your car in their underground parking while you're on your cruise. I'm sure many, many others before you have done so. In fact, when you phone them to make your reservations, you can discuss this and get it settled at that time. Advantages: it's not likely to be broken into, stripped, or stolen, and it will stay protected from the weather.

You mentioned a "garage" at Pier 30. Last time I looked, there was no garage at Pier 30. Perhaps you have been told about the garage that is actually at Pier 66, a dock for local cruises and Royal Caribbean. That pier is quite far from Pier 30, your pier. That garage is a commercial garage run by a company called Republic which has garages all over town. They charge a daily fee for parking. You could park in the garage at Pier 66 and either hike the miles down to Pier 30 with your luggage, or take a taxi which shouldn't cost more than about $5 or $7.

If you are not saddled with a car, take a taxi from your hotel to Pier 30. A taxi from any downtown hotel to Pier 30 should cost you less than $10. All downtown hotels always have excellent taxis available pretty much all the time.

If you prefer to walk from your downtown hotel, plan on anywhere from a half-hour to an hour's walk dragging luggage; you can get ideas from your Front Desk persons. Your actual check-in location at the dock is itself close to a 10-minute walk from East Marginal Way, the closest street.

[FoxyKnox]

I totally forget about the ships leaving from Pier 30...whoops! You can ignore my rec's unless you are leaving from 66 for some odd reason... Sorry!

[allforcats]

Tom Tom, I looked up your posts. You will be driving from North Carolina to Seattle! Holy worries, Batman!!

You need to both give your car a break and give your peace of mind a break while you're on your cruise -- and let your hearts be open and happy as you look at the glaciers and the rain forest. Therefore, I STRONGLY recommend that you park in your hotel's underground parking garage and take a taxi to the ship. OR park in the Republic garage at Pier 66 and take a taxi to the ship.

If you'd like to get back in your own car to drive back east, is that worth money to you? Garage-parking it will give you the assurance that it is out of harm's way. Yes.

Thought of something else. Taxi drivers in downtown Seattle are knowledgeable, to a point. They don't get a whole lot of traffic to Pier 30, and Pier 30 is way out of anyone's normal travel area, so there's a good chance the driver you get might not know how to get there. At that Port of Seattle link I gave you, you'll find the actual street address of Pier 30 -- 2431 East Marginal Way South Seattle WA 98134. I recommend that you enter that in Mapquest and print out both the detailed map AND the step-by-step directions from your hotel to the pier, just to be sure you get there smoothly and quickly. Judging from your posts, you're just like me: being prepared is not only smart, it's also just fun, right? :-) Similar idea holds true coming back: have both the name and the street address of your hotel available for your taxi driver.