PNW Trip: Seattle Day 2 (Part I)

We started off Monday with breakfast at the hotel.  I always look for a hotel that includes breakfast because $$$ and this hotel breakfast situation blew us all away.  TONS of options, fruits, pastries, hot food, etc. AND an omelette bar.  PRAISE HANDS.

Between the breakfast, the pool, workout facility and size of the room that accommodated five people easily I felt like this was a PERFECT option for families.

It was CHILLY out so we bundled up a bit...

... and hopped in an Uber to head to the Space Needle.  I tried to plan our "farthest" activity first so then we could make our way back to the hotel by the end of the night with activities along the way.  This was the only Uber we used and it worked out perfectly!  (Yes.... we had a rental car... but we were paying to park it at the hotel and it didn't make sense to drive it over to the space needle area and then have to come back and move it later)

There were so many cute areas I wish we'd had time to explore! (common theme - ugh!)

I bought Seattle CityPASSes for us and had reserved the 9:00 am time since I wasn't sure how busy it was going to be.  In hindsight, nothing we went to was super busy and we could have redeemed them in person when we got there (reserving ahead of time locks in your reservation... and I like having a bit of structure and an idea of where our day is going to take us.  If you're a little more flexible or don't love a structured schedule I think you could easily scan your passes and get a walk up time.

We made our way to the elevators...

... and were immediately blown away by the view.  The elevator has glass doors so you can see yourself going up and it's crazy fast.

About as close as the boys would get at first ;)

The floor on the top observation deck is concrete, but they have slanted plexiglass sides and benches.

After making it all the way around we were about to go back in when Mason decided he could do the bench pose we'd been seeing everyone do...

None of my kids like heights so this was a big deal!

And apparently this was all the encouragement Luke needed ;)

SHOCKED because he's my most heights-adverse.

We made our way down one floor where they have a glass floor and my earlier-afraid kids quickly became dare devils.

There's a section where you can lay/stand and a camera takes your photo and texts it to you.  You get one photo per ticket so we had a few to use ;)

We were up in the Space Needle for about an hour and a half and then stopped by the gift shop...

... and walked (maybe 5 minutes) to the Pacific Science Center.

This was part of our CityPASS as well, but we didn't reserve tickets ahead of time.  We walked up to the ticket booth and they scanned our passes and we got tickets into the museum.  

We're a bit spoiled by The Perot so our standards are pretty high and all three of my kids REALLY enjoyed this.  It was VERY hands-on and had a lot to see. 

The other thing we all commented on is how un-crowded it was.  We never felt rushed or like we had to wait for an exhibit and it was QUIET in there as well.

The physics lab portion was their favorite...

... and G and I really loved the butterfly house.

They had a logic puzzle section right outside the butterfly house that Luke was not about to leave until he figured them all out ;)

We ended our visit at the Tinker Tank Makerspace and I had to drag all three of them away.  I hadn't planned a ton of time for this stop since the reviews said it was small and wouldn't take long - but we were there for two hours and could have stayed longer.

Okay - I took way more photos than I thought so I'm going to continue with this post on Thursday!  See you back here then!