Spring Break in Dubai: Part 1, Seattle Overnight at the SeaTac Inn

For Spring Break we are heading to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This was not on our radar at all as a vacation destination, but when Emirates Airlines announced special fares to promote their new service from Seattle, we jumped on them. We booked these tickets back in May 2016 for less than $1299 round trip for the both of us. I’ve heard great things about Emirates, so although the flight is over 14 hours long non-stop, I’m actually looking forward to this…

But first we have to get to Seattle. Our flight leaves Saturday morning at 9:40am, so we had two options:

#1: wake up early around 3:00am and drive up to Sea-Tac airport by 6:00am; we’d have to find some parking and leave our car for a week and hope that we didn’t have any mishaps on the drive up that might delay us from getting to the airport

#2: leave Portland Friday night and fight through all the traffic up to Seattle and then pay for a hotel and pay for parking.

Lisa prefers the peace of mind of getting to Seattle early, so we opted for #2. We packed up our car early this morning and left soon after work. Instead of slogging through Highway 26 and then I-5 North, we followed the advice of the Waze app and took Cornelius Pass Road to Highway 30 and took this up to the Longview Bridge. Aside from a major slowdown on the bridge, this was a quick and efficient way to go. We made a dinner and outlet shopping stop in Centralia, and arrived to the SeaTac Inn a little after 8:00pm.

For less than $120, this motel provides a basic room for our overnight, parking for nine days, plus a free shuttle to take us to the airport. If we were truly hardy, we could actually walk to the airport from our motel, it is that close to the airport! Alas, while this is no-frills basic room economy, it does have a tube TV with plenty of cable channels, hot water, room to spread out, plus a small microwave and fridge that we won’t use. As long as we don’t get any bed bugs or weird bites from mysterious critters, and my car is still here when we get back, I’ll give this place the full amount of stars on TripAdvisor. I wish there were more outlets to recharge our electronics, but that is a minor inconvenience.