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Unlike the guides on most tours, the hosts of the Queen City Cruise don't pay much attention to the sights
beyond the boat. The point of the Cruise is what happens
on the boat.
Because you'll probably be more interested in on-board sights while you're on the Cruise, we provide
this virtual tour guide jam-packed with just the sort of useless
trivia usually spouted by a too-friendly tour guide. As a special bonus, we'll avoid the bad jokes
that would often accompany this kind of sight-seeing patter.
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Alternate route
Which of several alternate routes the Goodtime takes is determined largely by the wait in Shilshole Bay or Salmon Bay to get into the locks. The delay can be significant on hot sunny days, but there is almost always enough time to greet Navy boats or take other alternate tour routes.
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Standard route
On its outbound journey from Pier 55, the Cruise usually follows its standard route closely. The trip around Magnolia Bluff toward the Locks will demonstrate just how fast the loaded boat can go.
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Capitol Hill
OK. It isn't
really a hill. It's part of a ridge. But it sure does feel like a hill if you're navigating its slopes. Other parts of the same occasionally-regraded ridge are called "First Hill", "Mount Baker", "Beacon Hill" and other names. There has never been a capitol building on this ridge, although one of the area's early developers proposed building one if the state would move its offices from Olympia (which also lacked a capitol building at the time).
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First Hill
The massive old-growth cedars and Douglas firs that once blanketed this steep hillside just east of downtown provided Seattle's first industry. Henry Yesler built a steam sawmill on the bay at the base of a skid road (now Yesler Way) that allowed the large logs to be pulled down the hill to the sawmill. San Francisco was booming at the time and gobbled up all the lumber that could be clear-cut from Seattle's hillsides.
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Downtown
The tallest building is the three-faceted black thing toward the south side of downtown. Locals will sometimes still call it "Columbia Center", but it is, officially, "Bank of America Tower". Second tallest is the brown glass-topped structure behind it, now a city office building. Some claim it looks like a penis. You decide. Third tallest is the black-and-white structure farther to the north that features a large flag above its sailor-cap brim.
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Denny Regrade/Belltown
This area was once Denny Hill, a twin to Queen Anne Hill. Seattle's early white settlers didn't much like the hilly and densely forested topography that they found here. They first cut down the trees and then set upon the task of cutting down the hills. Dirt from the first phase of the regrade was used to fill in the tide-flats south of downtown helping to make the flat area now called Sodo. The regrade process was started in 1899 but wasn't completed until 1930.
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Pier 55
This is where the Cruise starts and ends, at the Argosy Tours dock. See our
itinerary page for more information.
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SoDo neighborhood
The area's name once meant "South of the Dome", but is now interpreted as "South of Downtown" and includes the two stadia where the Kingdome once mushroomed from the ground. A large neon "SODO" sign once graced the clock tower of a huge building several blocks south of Safeco Field. Look closely for that clock tower and you'll notice that the Kilroy-like character now poking her eyes over the tower is the Starbucks siren. That's their headquarters building.
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Cruise ship terminal
The large cruise ships that take passengers through the Inland Passage to Alaska dock here at Terminal 30 or at Pier 66 (Bell Street Pier) on the central waterfront. During Seafair, Navy ships often tie up instead of the big cruisers. The Queen City Cruise reserves a special greeting to the boys in the Navy.
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Elliott Bay
The first permanent settlement by white/Euro folk along this bay was a handful of cabins near Alki Point, built in 1851. The settlements there and in the deeper part of the bay near what is now downtown eventually thrived largely because the booming metropolis of San Francisco craved the lumber and timber that could be easily clear-cut and transported from the old-growth forests on Seattle's steep hillsides.
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Who was Elliott?
Just exactly who this "Elliott" fellow might have been isn't precisely clear. He was probably a midshipman on the 1841 Wilkes mapping expedition. But the bay was already named after
someone by the time the Denny party (including Boren and Bell families) arrived in 1851 to set up the first permanent settlement by Europeans. (Which was, of course, a long way from being the first settlement.)
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West Seattle
The highest point in Seattle is on this peninsula in a neighborhood called, appropriately enough, "Highpoint". Most of its beaches are backed by steep hillsides or bluffs.
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Alki Beach
This is the longest stretch of sandy beach in Seattle which makes it popular with those trying to maintain some element of beach culture in meteorologically-challenged Seattle. Watch for beach volleyball, in-line skaters, and (of course) young, buff beach bums in general.
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Harbor Island
This heavy industrial site was built up from dirt dredged from what was once a meandering Duwamish River and from the Dearborn Street and Jackson Hill regrades. It was the world's largest man-made island when completed in 1909. Watch for large salt-water drydocks on the Elliott Bay side of the island.
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Queen Anne Hill
This is one of the few real hills left in Seattle. It's easily spotted from any direction by the three TV towers at its peak. (From east to west, they beam out signals for KING/KONG, KOMO, and KIRO.) The south face of this hill is the place where Frasier Crane's non-existent apartment would have been if there were a condo building at the southern crest instead of a public viewing (and photographing) area.
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Interbay (Smith Cove)
Long before Boeing made Seattle "Jet City", this inauspicious flat valley between Salmon and Elliott Bays was the industrial heart of Seattle. This is where James J. Hill's Great Northern trains connected with the Pacific. Puget Sound ports are closer to Asia than other west coast ports and Hill's trains on a relatively flat northern "high line" were faster to the east than other lines, including Tacoma's NP. Thus did the "Queen City" surpass the "City of Destiny".
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Magnolia bluff
The bluff, which rises up to 200 feet from the waters of Puget Sound, was misnamed in 1856 by Capt. George Davidson of U. S. Coast Survey. He mistook the many groves of flowering madrona trees on the bluff for magnolia trees. Although thousands of magnolias have since been planted throughout the area, they are not a native tree. The neighborhood north and east of the bluff is now also called Magnolia and features a good number of those trees.
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Discovery Park
Seattle's largest public park covers most of the land above the steep bluffs at the western edge of Magnolia. It was once an army base called Fort Lawton. You might notice large tanks through dense foliage at the spit of low land at the tip of the park. That is the Westpoint sewage treatment plant. But don't worry. The water released is cleaner than what's already in the Sound (or so they say).
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Shilshole Bay
This salt-water bay at the western entrance to the Locks features on its banks a huge marina, several restaurants, and pricey view homes. For several years, it also featured colonies of California sea lions, who used it as a kind of seafood buffet because it was so easy to catch salmon entering the narrow fish ladder at the locks. The name, by the way, means "threading or inserting", an apparent reference to the narrow entry to Salmon Creek which drained into the bay before the locks were built.
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Ballard Locks
Passage through the Locks is usually a highlight of the Cruise. Watch for costumed greeters especially on the outbound journey. It may be even more fun to greet the startled tourists who thought they there just to see boats rising out of a concrete pit. There is usually a significant delay both coming and going through the Locks, but you'll have a chance to enjoy entertainment and dancing onboard, or to interact with other boaters waiting with us for passage..
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Salmon Bay
The area just east of the Ballard Locks and including Ballard's waterfront has mostly retained its maritime-industrial character. Fisherman's Terminal at the southeastern corner of the bay and west of the Ballard Bridge is home berth for over 400 boats and several factory trawlers used mostly for Alaska fisheries. Even on a weekend, you'll likely see dozens of workers toiling away on ships and boats docked along Salmon Bay. Wave. They usually get a kick out of it.
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Ballard
The standard response if asked "Is this Ballard?" is "Yah, Sure. Ya'betcha!" Ballard, which was first settled by Scandinavian sea-going folk, retains its working waterfront and clings proudly to its Swedish and Norwegian heritage.
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Aurora Ave. Bridge
The Aurora Bridge carries State Road 99 -- once the area's major north-south highway -- over the Lake Washington Ship Canal. The steel arch-style bridge was first opened to traffic in 1932 and is now included on the National Register of Historic Places. A seismic retrofit is underway. The visually insignificant changes are designed to isolate earthquake forces on the bridge deck and the supporting piers.
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Fremont neighborhood
They call it "The Center of the Universe", and why not, since the neighborhood sponsors a parade each year in June that manages to be consistently
more flamboyant and fabulous than the Pride parade on the following weekend. In a neighborhood that features an abundance of quirky
objets d'art, including a huge statue of Lenin, the quirkiest of all might be the Fremont Troll under the north pier of the Aurora Bridge. It's a huge concrete sculture that grips a real VW Beetle.
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Lake Washington Ship Canal
This canal with its leafy banks was an important part of the same series of massive engineering projects that give us the Locks and the Montlake Cut. Completed in 1917, it connects Lake Union and Lake Washington (hence the name) with the Sound.
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Wallingford
This residential and commercial neighborhood includes one of Seattle's most notable movie houses, the Guild 45th. The then-booming area was described in the 1920s by the
Seattle Times as "the home center of the metropolis". The banks of the hillsides visible from Lake Union feature a large stock of modest bungalows with spectacular views.
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Green Lake
The Cruise won't make it anywhere near here. Nor will any other boat from elsewhere since it lost its feeding streams when Lake Washington was lowered for the Montlake Cut. Water is now pumped to the lake that's encircled by popular jogging paths.
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Gasworks Park
Gasworks Park features a popular kite-flying hill on its western edge. You're bound to see at least a few kites flying if there is even the slightest breeze. The main feature of the park is a huge old industrial works that was preserved with most of its tanks and pipes in place. It was once part of a coal gasification plant built in 1907.
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Lake Union
Once a center for maritime industries, this lake is now more noted for its large and ever-growing collection of lakeside restaurants and clubs. Many "houseboats" are permanently moored to various edges of the lake.
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Interstate 5
The two-tier I-5 bridge (aka Portage Bay Bridge) vaults over Lake Union at such an altitude that many drivers don't notice they're on a bridge. The much lower and much more stately University Ave. drawbridge is immediately east and almost under the huge piers of the I-5 bridge.
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Portage Bay
Before the Montlake Cut finally joined Lakes Union and Washington (and before Burke and Gilman built the railroad whose right-of-way is now a popular trail), products from the east and south sides of the big lake -- notably timber and coal -- had to be portaged over the ridge that separated Portage Bay on Lake Union from Union Bay Lake Washington.
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Montlake Cut
Engineers dissatisfied with Seattle's hilly topography dug through a low end of the ridge that makes up most of what are called hills in town. This cut allows for a direct connection between Lake Washington and Lake Union, and provides walls on which UW fraternaties paint their greetings.
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University of Washington campus
Most of what you see from Lake Union is the UW School of Medicine. From Union Bay, however, the main campus can be seen rising behind Husky Stadium. The campus was built on the grounds of Seattle's first world's fair, the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. Drumheller Fountain and Rainier Vista survive from the Expo along with a few other brick buildings. The school's first campus was downtown on land still owned by UW that comprises the heart of the business district.
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Union Bay
This was once the place where logs and coal barges awaiting overland transfer to Portage Bay would idle. The log booms in the bay now are usually for boats tied up for Husky football games or awaiting the parade of boats on Opening Day of yachting season.
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Washington Park Arboretum
Although the Cruise rarely makes it this far, the Arboretum presents a fascinating glimpse of nature with a wealth of birds and, sometimes, evidence of a beaver or two.
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SR 520 floating bridge
Locals who must travel on this often-clogged four-lane floating bridge during rush hour have several unofficial names for it. None are printable here.
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Madison Park
The Cruise has made it this far east a few times in its history. That would happen only if there is very brief wait at the Locks. Unfortunately, a brief wait at the Locks is usually a sign of less-than-ideal weather.
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Lake Washington
The town's founding fathers decided to name the big 20-mile lake after the nation's first president instead of using the then-popular alternative, Lake Duwamish. Maybe they figured they had done enough, having already agreed to name the town itself after the Duwamish tribe's chief, Seattle. The lake's level was lowered by eight feet and its original Black River outlet was stranded when the Montlake Cut connected it to Lake Union and the Ship Canal.
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Interstate 90
The Cruise won't make it anywhere near this set of dual floating bridges, but you would if you were coming to Pier 55 from Boston, Bismark, Butte, or -- perhaps -- Bellevue.
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