I recently visited Seattle primarily to attend my friend’s wedding, but also to get to explore the city for the first time. I traveled with my wife Caitlin and stayed in Bellevue. I was told that most of the buildings in Bellevue belonged to Microsoft, but I didn’t find any labels on any of the doors. I spoke with a resident of the floors above my hotel regarding Microsoft, and asked him about any available tours the company might offer, but he didn’t know of any. One thing I was excited about doing while I was there, besides the wedding, was going on the Amazon corporate tour.
We spent Friday afternoon traveling, Saturday relaxing a bit before the wedding, attending the ceremony and reception, and Sunday exploring downtown Seattle and getting used to the bus schedules and routes. Monday was split into daytime Amazon tour, and evening travel. When we first arrived at the airport in Seattle, we were frantically looking for a way to get to our hotel, and ended up paying over $50 for a taxi, which ended up cheaper than both Uber and Lyft, due to “high demand.” No one seemed to know how the buses worked, and it wasn’t until we walked to the Bellevue transit center on Sunday that we discovered we could have spent only $6 to get to our hotel from the airport. Everyone we talked to told us that Uber and Lyft were the best options; go figure.
We ate at two places I would highly recommend, Maggiano’s Little Italy and Kells Irish Pub. At Maggiano’s I had a delicious sausage frittata for brunch with $2 mimosas. At Kells I had a Beef Pasty that was so amazingly flavorful I nearly ordered a 2nd one. These two places stood out to me on our trip, and I’m positive I will be returning to them the next time I visit.
We did visit the Space Needle, of course, and rode the monorail. Every site, or attraction, or museum, including the aquarium, was roughly $30 a person. We very much wanted to go into the Pop Art Museum, but we were on a budget. Maybe next time.
We were not able to take the “official” Amazon tour, as that is completely booked year-round, and the wait-list is better suited for locals, as they require background checks and 24 hour notice. However, luckily they offer a self guided audio tour for free. On weekdays, if you enter the Day 1 Amazon Headquarters building lobby from the west side, they provide you a map, free headphones, and instructions for the tour. You are allowed in the lobbies of any of the dozens of buildings on weekdays, but only on the official tour are you allowed in the employee zones. The most impressive of the buildings in my humble opinion are the domes. There is an understory to the domes that is open to the public and acts as a mini museum of the domes.
It took us a couple hours to complete the self guided walking tour, and it is tiresome. In comparison, the monorail to the Space Needle is about half the distance of the tour. We stopped frequently for breaks, and had to pause. If you walk a lot and are in shape, it might take you less time, but might not get to take it all in. We saw about half the Amazon buildings on the map they gave us; there are several scattered away from the main clusters we didn’t explore. All in all, it was a very impressive and insightful tour. It gives you a sense of scale for how big the company is, and how it functions within the city. We were told that they hand out free bananas daily, but we either missed the banistas’ banana carts, or they weren’t out that day. We did see someone in a banista shirt, but didn’t bother them.
The trip back home was easy peasy, no delays, and figuring out the buses made it easier on the wallet as well. If you’re thinking about busing between Bellevue, Seattle, and the Sea-Tac Airport, just remember two numbers: 550 and 560, those are the only two lines we rode the whole time, besides the monorail. Thank you for reading. I hope you found this helpful. Contact me on social media if you have questions or need travel advice.