After arriving in the Puget Sound from our starting point down in Portland Oregon, we landed at Port Townsend just for a couple nights, but then opted to head down to Elliot Bay Marina in Seattle to stage up for a few weeks while we worked through the logistics of getting the kids back up to the boat, and settling into life in the Puget Sound.

We arrived at Elliot Bay Marina on the evening of June 22nd. We had called ahead and received a slip assignment on dock A. First impression: Boy oh boy, those slips are TIGHT. Even now, almost 2 months later, that Elliot Bay Marina slip was the most precise docking maneuver that we’ve had to manage.

We chose Elliot Bay Marina in Seattle due to the location and the fact that they give a hefty discount to any guests coming in for extended moorage of more than 10 days.

When we arrived at Elliot Bay, we just had me, Brenden, and Scott on the boat. We got in late and we were hungry so it was great to be able to walk up to the marina office and check in (they’re open until 11:30pm every day, how crazy is that!?) and then go right next door to Maggie Bluffs restaurant for dinner.

There are a couple restaurants on site at Elliot Bay Marina, and we ate several times at Maggie Bluffs during our couple weeks there. The Palisades restaurant is the more upscale option and we didn’t venture there with the kids.

Marina Amenities & Benefits

Elliot Bay Marina definitely caters to a pretty high-class group of boaters, and the marina fits the bill. It’s a large marina with full fuel dock, pump-out station, and dockside marina store.

They have restroom & laundry outbuildings at both ends of the marina, and the restrooms and showers are very nice.

The marina also offers free kayak and SUP rental for marina tenants on a first-come-first-serve basis. This was pretty sweet when we took advantage one afternoon.

There’s also a nice walking path all along the length of the marina and a small nature park nearby. There is no bus service to the marina – it would be a bit of a walk to reach the nearest bus line. However, Uber is available. Also, the marina offers no wifi at all, which was a big surprise to us, and we had terrible cell signal on our Verizon and T-Mobile carriers. We were barely able to work off our AT&T hotspot, and then only after we moved from our original slip (red arrow) to a new slip further out at the end of the dock (yellow arrow) on the assumption that the cell signal was not reaching us due to the high cliffs rising above the marina.

Let me know if you have any questions about Elliot Bay Marina in Seattle. I’d be happy to help with information if at all possible. Please check out my other marina and cruiser’s reviews here. Thanks for reading!  ~Rachel