We were a group of 7 adults consisting of family and friends. We decided to fly into Seattle on Sunday, visit Pikes Market on Monday and board the Spirit Tuesday. We stayed at Sleep Inn Sea-Tac located near the airport as it offered affordable prices, airport transfers and free limited shuttle service. We were not disappointed. I had pre-booked the rooms in advance online for the best price. We paid abt $60 per room which included a refrigerator and microwave. They have a IHOP in the parking lot, and we used their shuttle for our transportation to the light rail which takes you directly to downtown to the Pikes Market for about $3 pp. We also used the hotel shuttle to pick up a few things for the cruise ( bottles of water, soda, etc. )and to take us to local restaurants. You must sign up in advance for a time frame to use their shuttle, they will take you, drop you off and then you call for them to pick you back up. This worked very well for us and we never had any problems.

I had also pre-reserved our pier transfers with Seattle Express. http://www.seattleexpress.com/ This can be down via email and you do receive a confirmation. Check their website for a list of hotels they service, they only offer certain times to pick up and the earlier ones are usually chosen first. The cost was $12pp one way, you pay at the time of service. Reservations are not required, however we saw others who had to wait until the later pick up times because they did not have reservations. I had researched numerous types of transportation and this was by far the best price and again, we we're not disappointed. Matt is the contact and he organizes all the transfers.

At Pikes Market we booked a food sampling tour with Savor Seattle. The price was $39 pp and you get a food sampling at abt 10 food vendors. All the food was wonderful, and having the tour provided a background and history. This was a great choice for us, the market on our own would have been very overwhelming. Read more