Swantown Marina in Olympia has sort of become our home away from home. We spent a week there at the end of June and then ended up spending nearly 3 weeks there from the end of July on into August.
Guest docks at Swantown Marina are on the northern end just inside the breakwater. Best sunset views!
Swantown is a very nice marina and, in fact, is/was our number one choice for marina if we were to take a full-time liveaboard slip somewhere in the Puget Sound. Now that we’re up here and cruising around, we’re thinking more likely that we just don’t want to take a full-time slip anywhere. We’re still on their liveaboard waitlist though and might settle there for a couple months this winter – we’ll have to see how things shake out.
The guest rate is $1 per foot per night as seems to be the norm in the Puget Sound area. 30 amp power and water is included in the fee. You’ll be charged an extra $5 to make a reservation ahead of time and they also charged us $5 to park our rental car there for one night.
Amenities at Swantown Marina in Olympia
Swantown’s docks are some of the best kept that we’ve seen. They’ve got a full service pumpout station and fuel dock with diesel and gasoline. They’ve got ice and engine oil available for sale at the fuel dock, but not much else, unfortunately.
The grounds are very well kept, with nice laundry facilities (coin-operated), showers (coin-operated), and restrooms. There’s a very busy boat launch and trailer parking, too.
At the top of the guest dock, there’s a very nice shaded grassy area where we would take the kids to play daily and we made friends with a couple other liveaboard families there, including one family with 2 girls: one was 8 and the other was 3 1/2 and they got along GREAT with our kiddos.
Sunset view from the guest dock at Swantown Marina
Waterfront walking path extending north from the marina
Walkability and Access to Entertainment and Groceries/Necessities
The marina itself feels a bit isolated but you can walk into downtown Olympia in about 10-15 minutes. There you’ll find a nice farmer’s market, public playground and lots of fun kids activities (fountains and water features), and easy access to the city’s public transportation system.
This fantastic stream water feature was just down the road from the marina and great fun on a hot day!
There’s a Thriftway near the public docks at Percival’s Landing where you can do a full provisioning, albeit it’s somewhat spendy. I did provision there when preparing to leave after our first visit to Olympia. By my next visit, I’d figured out the bus system and took the bus to the Tumwater Fred Meyer and hopped an Uber back to the marina with my cart-load of groceries.
Overall, Swantown is a very nice marina and we won’t hesitate to stay there again whenever we need a slip in the Olympia area. Swantown Marina is MUCH desired over the run-down West Bay Marina on the western shore of Budd Inlet. We toured that marina when getting onto liveaboard waitlists a couple years ago and I certainly wouldn’t take our boat there unless it was absolutely the last resort.
Hope this marina review helps anybody looking for information on marinas in the Olympia area. See where else we’ve been and reviewed here. Until next time, cheers! ~Rachel