Visiting Seattle (MVP Summit 2024)
If you are intending on visiting Seattle anytime soon especially for the upcoming MVP Summit in March 2024 then this blog post will help. (you may need an esta, visa for the states – https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta)
Where to stay, ok so there are lots of hotels, my advice is either choose to stay near Redmond, google for the Aloft Seattle Redmond, this is near to the campus but not much to do at night, or go for somewhere in Bellevue, last year I stayed at the Hilton Bellevue (Address: 300 112th Avenue Southeast, Bellevue, WA 98004, United States) and it was good, lots of other MVP’s were staying there or in the other couple of hotels that were next to it, If you stay there its a 15 min walk into Bellevue, so just enough to work up an appetitite or long enough to have a laugh walking home in a group of friends.
Advice – use something like booking.com and get a hotel with a free cancellation, book early.
Ok so asuming you have flight and hotel booked what are the things to fo once in Seattle, here is a list of some of the things I found to be nice to see / good fun.
Downtown Seattle (not near much but its where the sightseeing is)
- Seattle Kracken Ice hockey was outstanding and would go back
- Space Needle, go up just as its about to get dark for some awesome photos and views
- Take the ferry to Bainsbridge Island, if you have a car deffo go for a drive, if not still worth doing, again try to come back in the dark as the views are awesome
- Seattle Spin, friendly bar with table tennis tables and its good fun, just dont fall and almost break your ankle like I did.
- Pike Place Market, go there and wonder about and check out all the shops downstairs, there is a lot to see, breakfast there is a good start to the morning.
- The original Starbucks is across he road from the Pike Place Market
- Seattle Underground
You can see most of the sights in Downtown in a day or less so look into other things to do.
Bellevue (where you will be a lot of the time when not at campus)
This list will grow over time as I update it.
- Joeys Bar
- Fogo de Chão – Brazilian Steakhouse
- CheeseCake Factory – does more than just cheesecake
- https://beechershandmadecheese.com/ – hear this is fab too
Other Tips
The week is a long week so pace yourself, you get to be on campus which is just amazing and you get a badge which means you get to use the free shuttle buses and taxis onsite to get from building to building. The Microsoft campus is huge and I do mean huge, checkout the visitor centre and the tree houses, from memory theyre behind build 32 – https://www.google.com/maps/place/Microsoft+Treehouse/@47.6434445,-122.126478,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x54906d7a717097e1:0x5bc5877a17a05faa!8m2!3d47.643441!4d-122.1216071!16s%2Fg%2F11hckqvgp6?entry=ttu
Most people fly home Saturday as there might and I do mean might be something on Friday, not always.
Summary
I wrote this quickly but any questions do let me know (ask on twitter) , oh and Vancouver is only like 2 hours away.
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