Gardyloo

Lots of questions, the responses to which are all over the place on this board, but for what it's worth... Note these are personal opinions from a former Alaska resident. When: No one answer. Many people feel the weather in SE Alaska (where the cruises go) is better earlier in the season than later, but basing a cruise - or any Alaska activity for that matter - on the weather is something of a fool's gambit. If the cruise is glacier-intensive, e.g. one that includes both Glacier Bay and a Hubbard Glacier drive-by, then later in the season is often better because there's less chance of sea ice or big icebergs keeping the ships at too great a distance from the glacier face, which can occur earlier in the season. One way or round trip. It comes down to time and money. The one-way cruises, which depart or arrive in Vancouver, not Seattle (due to US maritime law) really are suited for travelers who can spend some time (I'd say a week minimum) in Southcentral Alaska (Anchorage, Kenai Peninsula, Denali etc.) These days could be spent on a tour arranged by the cruise line (which IMO tend to be very poor value) or on a do-it-yourself basis with a rented car, but in any case they will add a fair amount of cost - land arrangements plus additional airfare to return from Anchorage or Fairbanks. If one doesn't have the extra days, then (again, IMO) the round trips out of Vancouver are superior to those from Seattle as the Seattle vessels sail on open ocean west of Vancouver Island, where the seas are rougher and the views are nonexistent. The Vancouver departures (in the vast majority of cases) stay on protected waters east of Vancouver Island - more scenic and calmer seas. I will also say that doing a round trip doesn't mean an inferior experience. Vancouver (and Seattle if that's the choice) are superb places to visit, each with a huge range of activities and experiences, including many that can't be had in Alaska. A few extra days in either city before or after a round trip cruise can be very rewarding. Choice of cruise line. Most regular cruisers will tell you that it's all about the ports of call - which ones, how long in port, how many other ships present - that makes the biggest difference. Of course people have their favorites, and there are lots of anecdotal stories about which line is more kid-friendly, or which one tends to attract an older crowd, blah blah. The fact is that Alaska cruises are very port-intensive, and many cruisers really use the ship as a comfortable hotel and that's about it. The only way to know what suits you is comparative shopping. Other ships in port. In my view this is one of the most important criteria to use in deciding on a cruise. Skagway, population 800 counting dogs, is a very different experience when 4 or 5 ships, each carrying 2000 - 3000 passengers and 1000+ crew, are in port the same day, vs. when there's only one or two. You can imagine the scene. This is a valuable site to see who else will be there - 2023 Schedules | Cruise Line Agencies of Alaska (claalaska.com) I'll stop here. There's no substitute for doing your own homework on a possible Alaska cruise, and fortunately there are many, many resources to help. Look at trip reports, Youtube videos (a great way to see what parts of a cruise might be like) and so many other resources your head will be spinning. It's all good. Happy planning!

Well, how about an instant immersion into the Pacific Rim? Take the light rail from the airport to the Westlake station ($3 and 40 minutes.) Go upstairs to the street and walk around the corner to the entrance to Asean StrEAT. This is a fairly new SE Asian food court modeled on the hawker food centers in Singapore (or other SE Asian cities) where there are stalls selling dishes from Thailand, Singapore, Burma, Vietnam... and so on. (Some sell "adult beverages" too, if that's of interest. 😉 )

Does this mean you've already purchased the ticket?

Personally, I'd opt for a round trip cruise out of Vancouver in early May, since it likely will avoid the bumpy open ocean passage west of Vancouver Island that ships departing Seattle take, vs. sheltered "inside passage" waters east of the island that the Vancouver departures take. Different strokes, of course I just checked Budget car rental's site and it looks like a one-day rental with pickup at Vancouver airport and drop off in downtown Seattle (May 3 - May 4) will cost C$220 or so, currently US$167. What I would do in that case would be to take a cab or shuttle from Canada Place to YVR, collect the car (all probably by mid-morning) and hustle across the border. I'd be surprised if the delay was any longer than 20 or 30 minutes at the border; I'd pay attention to the signs along BC 99 that give wait times for the Peace Arch (BC 99/I-5) crossing vs. the "Pacific Highway" crossing (aka "truck crossing") which is a mile or two east of the Peace Arch. But if you don't have to turn back the car until the following morning, assuming your Seattle departure is in the afternoon (most go out between 3 and 5 PM) I'd take a scenic non-freeway route south, one that would also possibly avoid the high hotel prices then prevailing in Seattle as the cruise season gets underway. Here's a map showing this route: https://goo.gl/maps/CFsYU88fqnBRRy9W7 After the border, you'd drive south on I-5 to the historic Fairhaven district of Bellingham, WA. Maybe stop for a coffee at one of the numerous cafes or galleries in the old neighborhood. Then continue south along Chuckanut Drive, aka WA Hwy 11, which runs above the coastline and offers some excellent views out over Puget Sound. Stick to the coast past Bayview State Park (look for some of the resident eagles) then head west on WA 20 onto Fidalgo Island (bridge) and south to Deception Pass. Deception Pass is the narrow channel between Fidalgo and Whidbey Islands, and at tide change the rip through the gap can be downright scary. It's a beautiful park, well worth an hour of your time. Continue south on Whidbey Island, past Oak Harbor (US Navy town due to a big naval air station nearby) to the very picturesque waterfront town of Coupeville. Explore the town, maybe have lunch someplace (try the local Penn Cove mussels - fab) then continue down the island. If time allows, stop at Fort Casey State Park a few miles south of Coupeville - pretty lighthouse and very cool coastal defense gun batteries - then on south. Stop at Langley, another (even cuter) waterfront village, then finally take the Washington State Ferry across to Mukilteo on the mainland. My recommendation would be to spend the night at the Silver Cloud Hotel, built on piers over the water, two doors down from the Mukilteo ferry terminal. Silver Cloud is a very well-regarded regional chain, and you'll undoubtedly pay far less for a quality room than you would in most decent hotels in downtown Seattle. They have free parking onsite. The savings on the hotel might well negate some of the additional cost of the car vs. buses or trains + taxis and nuisance at both ends. Have dinner next door at the Mukilteo branch of Ivar's, an iconic regional seafood restaurant group, then maybe walk a couple hundred yards to Mukilteo's adorable little lighthouse. Sit on one of the driftwood logs at the adjacent beach and watch the sun set behind the Olympic mountains. The next morning, have the (included) breakfast at the hotel, then into the car and into Seattle. As you leave Mukilteo, take WA 526, the "Boeing freeway" past the Boeing Everett Assembly plant, home of the big jets and the biggest building in the world. It's around 30 minutes into downtown Seattle. Drop the car, cab or Uber to Pier 91 for the cruise, badda bing. Home - Mukilteo Waterfront (silvercloud.com) Mukilteo Landing — Ivar's (ivars.com) Deception Pass Mukilteo lighthouse

Look here for good deals in the pointy end. https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/premium-fare-deals-740/

The Canadian portion east of Vancouver Island? Unusual but it happens.

Ships departing from Seattle (and SF) travel on open ocean west of Vancouver Island. This is more bumpy and far less scenic than the "Inside Passage" route on protected inland waters used by ships sailing from Vancouver BC.

It's a 24h dive bar, a local landmark. Fine dining it ain't, but it can be quite fun. If you come for breakfast, bring your own defibrillator.

This is not aimed at the OP, but it never ceases to amaze me that people will put WAY more research into a decision about what vacuum cleaner or microwave oven to purchase compared to a plane ticket costing five or ten times as much. Of course caveat emptor and all that, but one CAN be a smart consumer of air travel, making for more pleasant journeys, if one is prepared to invest the hours (and maybe a few dollars) needed to know what you're getting. Example. From time to time (typically a couple or three times a year) most airlines have "sales" on frequent flyer miles that you can buy for money. Sometimes with various discounts and bonuses, you can buy miles for around (US) 2 cents per mile or a little less, sometimes even as little as 1.5 cents per mile if you buy a bunch. Let's say you spring for 100,000 miles, at an out-of-pocket cost of $1500. Maybe you've already gotten a credit card that awards miles in the same airline program, and you got a signup bonus of, say, 40,000 miles when you did. You go online and see that you can redeem 130,000 miles for a round trip in business class to Europe, using that airline or any of its partners. You then look at some online booking service (or the airline itself) to see what it would take to purchase a business class round trip, and you discover that it's somewhere between $2500 and $3000 (or more) for the same dates. For summer travel to Europe, the price in ordinary economy is probably in the $1000+ range, even $1200 - $1500 for "premium economy." Book the flights using miles, ride on a flat bed with plenty of personal space, not to mention higher complimentary baggage allowance, use of the airport lounges at both ends, expedited boarding, better food and booze aloft, all that. All that has cost about what an ordinary cattle class seat would have cost. All it took was some research; not a heavy lift at all. See what I mean?

Remember that most current digital cameras have sensors capable of delivering high-resolution images pretty much throughout the zoom range of whatever lens you choose. All that's needed afterward, depending on what you plan to do with the image, is the ability to crop and enlarge the captured image, which most editing software (including built-in software in many smartphones) will let you do to get the result you want. For me, I think that closeups of glaciers can be very interesting as well as wide shots. Here are a couple of images I took of Hubbard Glacier some years ago, illustrating this. I was working with a 28-270mm zoom; the images were taken at the lower and upper ends of the range; I suppose the EXIF data will show the actual focal lengths used, but it doesn't matter once I cropped and enlarged them. Here's a wide shot; I thought the sky was as interesting as the land. Mid-range shot showing another ship to give some sense of the massive scale of the glacier face - ...and a closeup showing the chaos of the ice - And don't forget the glacier/land interface, which can also be very dramatic. These were all taken with the same lens; none of them were at extreme ends of the wide/zoom range available. Unless you plan to print your pictures for a roadside billboard, you probably have the ability to use most focal lengths to get an acceptable image; maybe the same picture can serve both as wide and closeup.

AA doesn't fly nonstop from CLT to Barcelona; you'll have to change planes someplace, probably Miami. You won't get premium economy on the domestic flight (CLT-MIA) as it isn't offered on those planes; you'll probably get "main cabin extra," which is an ordinary economy seat with a couple of inches more for legroom. This will also add several hours to the trip. AA does fly nonstop (at least this year) from Rome to CLT (old US Airways route) using a 777. The premium economy seats on the 777s are slightly different from the ones on the 787s, but still will be a couple of inches wider and offer around six inches more legroom. You also probably won't get complaints from the person behind you if you recline your seat, something that will almost certainly happen in regular economy. To repeat, the mileage redemption levels - how many miles under X circumstances that you might see online should be taken as minimums. Actual redemption rates are allocated "dynamically," which translated into human speak means "whatever the hell we want." And it's important - very important - to remember that upgrade and award seats are NOT offered on every flight, but only when the airline's robots tell it that they're not going to sell those seats for megabucks at the last minute. Award seats are released into inventory throughout the 330-day booking period, but seldom at the opening gun. If you can stand the uncertainty, fine, but in the meantime find out how much it would cost to purchase the desired seats - premium economy, whatever - and lock in your comfort, rather than playing roulette with the miles. Knowledge isn't a bad thing.

Let me suggest something in the meantime. Frequent flyers regard miles and points as a form of currency, just like cash but less useful. But they still have value, right? So try this: multiply the number of miles needed for an upgrade by 2c each, or 1.5c if you want to be conservative and add the total to the cost of the basic ticket that you'd need to purchase in order to qualify for the upgrade. Then find the cost of purchasing a premium economy or business class ticket (whichever you're going for) in the first place. Then figure out how many FF miles/points you'd earn with that ticket, multiply those miles by the same 1.5c or 2c and subtract them from the purchase price. How do the numbers compare? Now it's likely that the purchase option is higher than the upgrade one, all in, but what you're getting with the purchase option is a guarantee that you'll fly in the cabin you want, vs. playing the odds that you'll score an upgrade seat. Make no mistake, getting upgrades in mid-summer on popular transatlantic flights is no easy task. The airlines would much prefer to sell those seats for big bucks rather than allocate them for award redemption. It happens, but often only one seat comes up, and it might not be on a day that works for you. Cruisers have a hard time being flexible on dates if it means missing the boat. It may also seem counterintuitive, but midsummer is also often when business class fares to Europe from North America are at their cheapest. The reason is in the name - business class. Actual business-related purchases fall off sharply in the summer (lots of vacation time on the parts of European workers) so the airlines release cheaper business class buckets in the summer when their real bread and butter travelers are hanging out on a beach somewhere. It's worth checking out. Go look at the "premium fare deals" board on Flyertalk. Brush up on your airport and airline codes before you do. Premium Fare Deals - FlyerTalk Forums

July 8, 2023 is a Saturday and four ships are scheduled to be in port that day. Was that a typo? In any event 11:30 ought to be doable.

Let me ask a couple of questions. I'm not trying to be confrontational, but what do you plan to do with the pictures you take on this trip? Post them on FB or some other social media? Or on the web in a blog? Printing and framing some to put on the wall? Snapshots for an album? Roadside billboard? The reason for asking is that most of the $1000+ cameras you'll see on the "best of" sites or some photo enthusiast sites - or with online merchants, et al - are capable of such incredible performance that overkill becomes the general rule. Often the differences between a $600 camera and a $1600 one are so subtle, or so specialized, that the extra grand is - dare I say it? - a waste of money for all but the most enthusiastic or dedicated user. Is that you? Do you plan to take videos with your new camera? Most "bridge" (aka "point and shoot") cameras offer very advanced video/movie production capacity - pin-sharp autofocus, vibration and camera-movement correction, very quick exposure adjustment, all that. They have both 1080p and 4K resolution in most cases, and if you're not familiar with that jargon, then you're probably not looking at video as an important feature. Now I'm biased. I started with high end film cameras (Nikons, mostly) years ago, and got caught up in the "more is better" camp when it came to long lenses and all that. When I went digital I HAD to have a Nikon DSLR, because, well, I did. But when my wife and I started going on African safaris, where you just don't have the time to switch lenses while the elephant or rhino is bearing down on you, and we bought a couple of bridge "superzoom" cameras (Panasonic Lumixes in our case) which had decent autofocus, okay low-light performance (important on morning and evening game drives) and a long zoom range. It was eye-opening. You could do "grab" shots as we used to say, and because the sensors (even puny 8mp ones) had enough detail that later I could edit the images - crop them, etc. - and still have a printable (or sharable) picture. My current rig, which I got a couple of years ago, is the Panasonic DMC FZ1000, with a one inch sensor, rated at 20mp, 4K video, a long, long zoom range, even better low-light and autofocus performance, and several idiot-proof automatic settings, for true set-it-and-forget-it performance. It's terrific. It's discontinued now but cost around $600 when I got it. It's successor, the DMC FZ1000-II is even more capable and costs around $850 from Amazon. That would leave something like $700 in your pocket. If you're that keen on photography, use a fraction of that to purchase some decent photo processing software so you can turn all those images into award-winning billboards. (Just kidding.) With Alaska (I used to live there and traveled back and forth a lot) I think what you need is versatility more than anything. You need a long zoom to frame the beasts, quick autofocus, but also a good wide-angle setting to show the immensity of the land. Almost any point-and-shoot/"bridge" camera on the market now will give you that, mostly well below the $1500 level. My two cents, worth what you paid for them.

I would choose the shorter route because it includes Sitka and won't subject you to all the commercialization of two port calls in both Ketchikan and Juneau. Have you thought about not doing the B2B Sapphire itinerary and instead just flying up to Anchorage and joining the ship for a one-way southbound cruise? Maybe you could afford the balcony on the SB cruise, and have some time to do a little exploring of Southcentral Alaska in the process.

I'd go with the White Swan Public House, located on the Lake Union waterfront. You can ride the streetcar from Westlake to the Fairview & Campus Drive (final) stop, from which it's a short walk to the restaurant (or else it's a cheap cab or Uber ride from downtown.) Great food and atmosphere. The White Swan Public House Map - https://goo.gl/maps/xLw7yGV3kWabLK9e9

I would think he will, but a quick call to AS customer service will clarify things.

If the weather's okay, consider keeping the car and after dinner drive down to the Potter Marsh parking area. Walk along the boardwalk and see if you can spot any moose out in the marsh. The sunset views from there are also excellent. Map - https://goo.gl/maps/dCsF3FthEcUUqzuS7

Looks like the quickest time (in Jan/Feb, don't know when you're flying) is on American via Miami. It's around 40 min. shorter overall than other options like JetBlue via JFK. If it's during the winter, Miami might be safer from a weather/delay perspective.

Question - is it the May 4 departure (from Vancouver) that calls at Sitka, Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan, before ending in Seattle? That was the only 8-day itinerary on Royal Caribbean I could find. If so, a couple of things: That's very early in the season, so you aren't going to have a lot of competition from other vessels in the ports of call compared to later in the summer, when things can get pretty crowded. Looking at port times, it appears that that they're quite long in most of the towns visited. That means that you'll be moving between ports at night, when temperatures outdoors will be at their coolest, but it won't matter on the ship. And because it's early in the season, the ship won't call or do drive-bys of the most heavily visited tidewater glaciers, like Glacier Bay, the Hubbard Glacier in Yakutat Bay, or Tracy Arm; often access to these in the early spring can be limited by sea ice. So the very chilly temperatures outdoors on the decks near those glaciers will be lessened. The ship DOES call at Endicott Arm, where there are a couple of easily viewed tidewater glaciers, so bringing a suitable jacket (or using layers, which everybody does anyway) will be necessary. For port calls, of course you can pass on the expensive excursions mounted by the cruise lines. In Sitka (my favorite town in SE Alaska) you can wander around the picturesque town center, duck in for coffee or something stronger at any number of places, but if the weather is okay and you've done the "layer" thing, visits to the Alaska Raptor Center and the Fortress of the Bear (both places dedicated to rehabilitating orphaned or injured birds and bears) are very worthwhile. Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan will all have other ships present most likely. You can certainly walk around the towns, or in the case of Ketchikan, ride the city bus for two bucks up to Totem Bight State Park, where you can experience the rain forest and learn about the indigenous Tlingit culture, both well worth your time and sacrifice in bundling up. But look at it this way - out of 8 days you'd have 4 where some king of weather-appropriate clothing would be needed, and 4 where you can stay on the boat in the warm if you choose. I don't think that's a bad tradeoff given the glory you'll see from the decks or out the windows.

Assuming you're taking a cab or Uber to the cruise terminal (Pier 91, aka Smith Cove) just have the driver stop at the Whole Foods supermarket just north of the turnoff to the terminal. You can run in and pick up a couple of bottles and be back in the car in minutes. Map (starting at Pike Place; don't know where you're staying.) https://goo.gl/maps/nZvib2LvE5dHXTYr6

Along the same lines, here's a very enjoyable way to combine some terrific scenery, fresh air, and breakfast. This is good on weekends only due to the cafe's opening hours. If your body clocks are still on eastern time, head down to Pier 50, next to the state ferry terminal, and take the West Seattle Water Taxi across Elliott Bay to the dock at Seacrest Park, on the shore of West Seattle facing the downtown skyline. The water taxi costs $5 - $6 depending on if you have an Orca transit card or not, and takes around 10 - 15 minutes to cross the bay. On weekend mornings, the Marination Ma Kai cafe right on the pier opens at 9 AM. This is a terrific Hawaiian/Korean cafe featuring various "fusion" dishes like Spam musubi, Kalbi sliders, Loco Moco (Hawaiian beef/rice/egg dish) and other quite yummy offerings. The cafe has a huge outdoor deck with incredible views over the water to the city, and they make a terrific Bloody Mary if you're in the mood for an "adult beverage," as they say. You can walk off the carbs (or the alcohol) along the West Seattle waterfront. For the ambitious, there's a roughly 2-mile level path around Duwamish Head to Alki Beach, with our own wee Statue of Liberty and terrific views. You can rent bikes from the dock (or kayaks) or there's a free shuttle bus that generally meets the water taxi. Here's a map - https://goo.gl/maps/cJqAdibqBaoDtSdL9 This is a low-cost, high value way to spend a fun morning.

I really am a broken record on this (as in, get a life) but out of curiosity I had a look at the OP's other posts and it appears that they're going on a Mediterranean/Middle East cruise sometime later this year, I assume prior to the Australia trip. (To the OP, I'm not trying to be intrusive, but maybe this could help you or others down the road.) On several occasions I've posted to this board on the possible use of "round the world" (abbreviated "RTW") tickets for cruisers who take multiple trips over the course of a year. These aren't widely known in the cruising community but they can offer some good value, provided one is prepared to sit down and think in advance about a year's or two years' travel plans, either linked with cruises or other travel, basically a travel "master plan." Take what little I know about the OP's plans for the next year or so (and again, I'm trying to be general here, not specific, and not trying to pry.) Item one, they're traveling to the Mediterranean for a cruise - in October I think. Item two, they're planning a trip - presumably for a cruise - in or around Australia at some time in the near future. I don't know when that is but I'm going to assume it's in the southern summer or thereabouts, i.e. the northern winter. Maybe January or February of 2024? Just guessing. And item three, they're based somewhere near Atlanta. So imagine this: they fly to someplace in Europe in advance of the October cruise, but they do it with a one-way ticket rather than a round trip. Sometimes one-way tickets to Europe can be affordable (often they're pricier than round trips, for reasons only known to the airlines) but one can always use frequent flyer miles for one-way trips. Anyway, they do their Med cruise, but then instead of flying straight home, they do a short hop to one of the European or Middle Eastern countries where RTW tickets are more favorably priced (WAY more favorably) than in the US, especially those for business class travel. At present, these countries include Norway, Sweden and Egypt. More about this later. After a couple of hours' flight to, say, Oslo, they check in at the airport (maybe they've spent a day touring the city or countryside) and take the first flight using the RTW tickets they've purchased before leaving home. They fly - in business class - to London, then change planes and fly in business class over the Atlantic to Atlanta. Then it's back to work or "normal" life. RTW tickets allow up to 16 flights (takeoffs and landings) and are good for a year. You have to cross both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in the same direction, and you have to use the airlines in the alliance through which the ticket was purchased. Depending on the specific ticket type, you're limited either by the total miles flown, or by the number of continents you touch in the course of the ticket - more of each costs more, duh. But within those parameters, you have huge flexibility. If they get back to Atlanta but want to travel someplace else in North America (including the Caribbean and Central America) before Australia, they can do so using that same ticket, and always in the pointy end. Then when the time comes to head off to Oz, the same ticket takes them there in business class, with flat beds, lounge access, lots of baggage allowances, all that. They won't get to Sydney any faster, but they'll sure as hell arrive less destroyed by 20+ hours in the back of the bus. Cruise over, it's time to head home, but this time heading west from Australia. They have to end the ticket in the country where they started using it, but they still might have a portion of a year left, so maybe they don't go back to Norway, they stop short in someplace like Spain, and "suspend" the RTW ticket, flying home on an award ticket (they'll have earned a ton of points in the course of the RTW) then sometime before the ticket expires, return to Europe and take another cruise, or head off on some land-based trip, Paris in the spring, whatever. End up in Norway before the ticket's year is up, then come home. Or maybe buy another RTW for the next year's "master plan" travels. See how that works? Numbers. A Oneworld (American, British, Japan, Qantas, Cathay Pacific et al) business class 4-continent RTW ticket with travel starting in Norway has a base price of US$5291. The same ticket, but starting and ending in the USA, costs $11,071. Yes, more than double. Can you get to Norway and back for something like $6K? Again, duh. Have a look at a post I contributed to another thread last month, which goes a bit deeper into the weeds on these products, Here's the link: Food for thought, maybe.

Seattle is a city full of tremendous views, most of which don't require you to pay the $$$ needed for the likes of the Space Needle or Skyview Observatory or their ilk. With the cash needed for just one person to go up in the Space Needle, you could hire an Uber to take you to several spots where the views are great (they even include the Space Needle!) Google these destinations, all reachable on foot, by public transportation, or of course by cab or Uber (or rental car.) - Kerry Park, for the "Frasier" view of the Space Needle and downtown skyline. - Seacrest Park in West Seattle (where the West Seattle Water Taxi docks) for the skyline, Space Needle, passing ferries and ships. - Alki Beach ("al-Kai") for views of downtown, passing ferries and ships, the Olympic mountains, and maybe seals or the occasional orca. - Gasworks Park at the north end of Lake Union for views of the Space Needle, downtown skyline, houseboats, floatplanes coming and going, and sailboats on the lake. - Any ferry departing downtown for Bainbridge Island or Bremerton. ... and of course if you're cruising from Seattle, all the views you'll get from the ship as you depart. -

Yes, Uber/Lyft (or onsite towncars - around the same price, more legroom) from the airport to the hotel and hotel to cruise terminal. Port Valet for your bags, then explore away. If you can't use Port Valet, maybe head to the airport and either check your bags (which airline?) or use the luggage storage service there. As for what to see and do, obviously it's your call, but if it was me, I'd probably hit Uwajimaya in the International District (5 min. walk from light rail) for a late lunch in their food court, also maybe browse the branch of Kinokuniya Books (Japan's largest book chain) within the Uwajimaya market, and maybe buy some unusual Japanese snacks for the flight. Then I'd be tempted to visit the Museum of Flight, at Boeing Field, halfway between downtown and Seatac airport. IMO it's the second-best air and space museum in the country, after the Smithsonian. Note that in a pinch, the Museum of Flight will store your bags while you tour the museum - good for a couple of hours or more. The Museum cafe is quite nice and the gift shop is to die for. If you do that, an Uber or cab to the airport won't cost that much. For the evening meal on arrival Sunday, the 5 Point is a hoot, or if you want something a little more upmarket, the Tilikum Place Cafe around the corner is very good.