Seattle & Alaska Cruise
Seattle, Washington
Description & Accessibility
We stayed at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront hotel, that hotel was picked because it was only a block or less to the cruise terminal. There are 2 cruise terminals in Seattle, pier 66 which was extremely close to our hotel and downtown area, and pier 91 which was more out of the downtown core. Our cruise departed from pier 66.
The hotel bell porters transported on a luggage dolly our luggage to the cruise terminal on the day the cruise started and the porters at the cruise terminal brought tour luggage to the hotel after the cruise. No taxi’s was required and we just walked to and from the terminal.
One of the biggest must see attractions was the Pike Market only a few blocks from the hotel, it was easy to get around in a wheelchair, however certain streets are steep between the lower and upper part of Pike Market but other streets are not quite as steep so pick the street that is best suited for the wheelchair / scooter you are using, now within the market area you can find elevators that will take you up where you can exit onto 1st street in the event you cannot find a suitable street that you mobility device can handle the incline, however the Pike market closes around 6 pm along with some of the elevator access in that area.
Now at pier 66 there is an overpass with elevators that will take you up a street that will lead you to the lower section of pike market.
There are lots of shopping areas between 1st and 5th avenue, besides the stores on the streets; around pine avenue in the areas of 4th and 5th there is pacific place and Westlake center, both indoor shopping malls. Pacific place has multiple floors, Westlake is 2 floors. At Westlake center on the second floor there is a monorail (wheelchair accessible) that can take you to the space needle – city center (tall tower that is a landmark in Seattle), bellow the 1st floor is bus and train service to different areas in the Seattle area. Although from our hotel I think it would have been just as easy and perhaps even closer just to walk to the space needle then going up to Westlake center and taking the monorail.
If you go up the space needle to the observation level there is an inside and outside viewing area, the inside viewing area is wheelchair accessible, but there is a short set of stairs to the outside viewing area.
In the space needle / city center area there is some gift shops, and the is a Chihuly garden / glass museum which you can go through (you have to buy tickets)
We also made a visit to the international district / Chinatown. We took the light rail on the lower level of Westlake center. Outside of the usual Chinese archway, I was not overly impressed with the area compared to Chinatown areas in certain other cities. However there was one indoor supermarket that is worth a visit – Uwajimaya Asian Food & Gift Market – located in the International District 600 5th Ave S Seattle, fast food and grocery store.
Seattle for the most part (outside of some streets going up from the waterfront being steep), was accessible and with a power wheelchair you could find a less steep street to get up on, travel type scooters may struggle on certain streets, but take the elevator in the pike market area if needed up to 1st street.
Also on the waterfront near pier 66 was the ‘Victoria Clipper’ a high speed ferry boat that travels between Seattle and Victoria, Canada, I never went on it but I asked at the ticket booth and they indicated it was wheelchair accessible.
Now the only issue as far as wheelchair accessibility goes was the small prop air Canada plane that we flew on between Vancouver and Seattle, now in Seattle they did not come up to a jet way with the small commuter plane and it stopped outside near the terminal building.
Normally you would walk down the very short set of stairs from the plane, now they do have a portable ramp that they can bring up to the plane, and you can walk up or down but it would be difficult to take a regular wheelchair up it and would likely need to transfer to the narrow airplane aisle type wheelchair if you needed to, but the regular powered wheelchair (if not grossly oversized) will fit into the cargo hold of the plane. But it can take forever for them to put the ramp in place so if you are able to with a little help to just use the short set of stairs and get the wheelchair at the bottom it may be faster.
By: Donald Kerr