Last week we knocked off one Seattle tour we’ve been dying to do on our mini summer bucket list. A friend of ours made a group reservation for Ride the Ducks and we joined three other sets of twins for a quackingly fabulous time. It was nice that we were allowed to bring drinks and snacks and we all had seats together so the kids could ride with their friends.
Our fearless guide Jackie Sparrow showed us the town and I think it’s a pretty easy way to see a bunch of Seattle’s big tourist attractions without having to get in and get out of a vehicle everywhere. I snapped pics of a few of them, like the Great Wheel and the Seattle waterfront.
The famous Elephant Car Wash sign. (This is the guys’ favorite place to get our van silver bus washed.)
And the Space Needle.
We saw the Tom Hanks houseboat from Sleepless in Seattle when our ride became a boat but we weren’t really close enough to snap a picture with my phone. (You can also see this one for free with the Center for Wooden Boat Sunday tours)
My guys were thrilled to finally Ride the Ducks that they see driving all over the city. They loved their quackers and our little team of 8 preschoolers made for a really noisy chorus. They all seemed pretty amazed when the amphibious vehicle slowly splashed into the water. I think that was the quietest moment of the tour.
My favorite part of the tour was when we were driving on the highway and the guys’ hair got all crazy and windblown. You can’t get more summer than this.
And I actually found the tour a lot more entertaining that I thought it would be. Of course it was cheesy and noisy but I learned some facts about the city that I didn’t know before. I remember riding it ages ago too and it was so much more fun to re-live it with my kids. It was really cool to see my friends hanging out with their kids too, doing something so many people come to our city to see.
I really wish I remembered to get a picture of the kids walking down the stairs when we disembarked the vehicle. I think it would have made a really nice picture, especially because the duck was parked right under the Space Needle and you don’t get an opportunity for too many pictures like that.
(PS. I would suggest giving yourself a lot of time to find parking, especially street parking. We ended up paying 13 dollars for a 2-3 hours in the lot beside the EMP because we were a little pushed for time but I think you could park cheaper on the street or at least get more time for your money.)
(PPS. to make it a really crazy adventure you might even park at Pacific Place and take the Monorail to Seattle Center where the Ducks are only a short walk away. Oh and top it off with some food from the Seattle Center Armory to make it perfect.)
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)
We loved the Duck tour in Seattle, and, unfortunately, the quackers are still a presence in our house 😉