This past summer, we decided to make a vacation out of one of my work trips. While we normally take a lengthy international trip over the summer vacation, this time we decided to keep it mostly local.

View other posts in this series:

• Trip Introduction: Fun in the Pacific Northwest (this post)
• Review: Hyatt Regency Seattle
• Exploring Seattle with Kids
• Review: JW Marriott Parq Vancouver
• Enjoying Vancouver with Kids
• Family Dining in Vancouver
• PSA: Register Your Global Entry Cards
• A Case Study on Airport Hotels: Seattle Airport Marriott
• A Sad Place to Be: The Club at SEA

Purpose of the trip

Normally the timing of my work trips don’t work out well with when the kids are out of school, but this time it worked out perfectly. I had a conference I needed to attend in Seattle and flights were cheap enough that it made it easy to bring everyone along. From Seattle, we crossed into Canada and went to Vancouver for a few nights before crossing back into the US to come back home. That seemed more practical than having my company ask me questions about how this turned into an international trip.

What we booked

For this trip, the cost of my travel was covered by my company. I merely had to make sure everyone else ended up on the same flights as me. We flew between LAX and SEA airports flying Delta. Since we were on two separate flight itineraries, I was eligible to upgrade to first class in both directions, while the rest of the family wasn’t. Perhaps I’ll need to offer my thoughts on that arrangement.

In Seattle, we stayed at the excellent Hyatt Regency Seattle for four nights. While I had stayed here in 2021, this is my first time reviewing the property. We paid cash for our stay (with three nights being reimbursed by my company).

From there, we rented a car and drove up to Vancouver. I strongly considered taking the Amtrak train, but the times are not very conducive to traveling with young children—either you depart very early in the morning or you arrive very late at night. There were bus options, but at that point, we appreciated the flexibility of having a car. I will say that arriving at the Canadian border on a Wednesday at 5pm resulted in no line to cross the border.

While in Vancouver, we stayed at the JW Marriott Parq Vancouver. The hotel itself is a bit far from some of the tourist attractions, but this is where having a car helped. I’ll admit I hadn’t fully realized there was a casino at this hotel prior to arrival, but if you’re just coming to stay here and not play, you might not really notice the casino all that much. We stayed here using a combination of points and a free night certificate.

On the way back to the US, we hit a bit of traffic, but tried out the Nexus lanes thanks to our Global Entry cards. We had a bit of a hiccup with that, which I’ll explain in more detail in a later post. Even still, the regular line was projected to be over two hours long when we crossed on Saturday morning and even with the hiccup, we still made it through in about 15 minutes.

While we could have timed it to fly out of Seattle on Saturday, I thought it was less stressful to spend the night near the Seattle airport, so we used up Jenn’s last 50k free night certificate at the Seattle Airport Marriott. I have some strong feelings about this place, which I’ll address later.

As always, thanks for reading!