29 Hours in Tacoma, WA

June 10, 2012

Point Defiance Zoo

I needed to stay one more night at a Marriott Hotel by the end of June to maintain my Gold Member status. We decided Tacoma would be an ideal location for us to stay. It’s only about an hour away, offered a couple family destinations we’ve been wanting to visit, and we wouldn’t need to spend too much on a hotel.

Looking For Gold

First, let start with this Gold Member status. I don’t travel that much (50 nights for Gold) to actually get this status. A couple months ago Marriott sent me an offer for Gold Member status through end of 2014 if I stayed with Marriott 6 times between now and end of June. A couple weeks ago I stayed 5 nights in San Antonio at a Marriott Hotel for work. With only one more night to go, Laura and I decided to try for night 6 in our area to keep this perk. You can read the Marriott website about the perks that come with it.

Point Defiance Zoo

Zoo Time

We packed the car and headed south Saturday morning. The kids were eager to get to Point Defiance Zoo to see the polar bears and walruses, two species that are not available to see at the Woodland Park Zoo (where we normally visit). We arrived early, were the first in the zoo and for at least an hour seemed like we had the place to ourselves. It was very quiet. We spent the next 5 hours exploring the zoo. We saw every exhibit they offered. The kids enjoyed the animal show the zoo put on at noon where the birds fly around and animals pop out on stage. Unfortunately, Autumn got a bit scared by the evil guy that kept popping out on stage. The snake brought smiles to her face though.

Hotel

In the late afternoon we checked into our hotel downtown. We quickly got our luggage into our room and engaged in the kids second favorite activity on this trip: swimming! Ethan and Autumn talk about swimming a lot, especially when they know they’re going to be swimming. They leisurely swam around the pool and the hot tub.

We spent the evening enjoying a tasty dinner at Harmon’s Brewery (recommended), strolling around the waterfront, and checking out Chihuly glass sculptures outside his museum.

Hanging out in our hotel room

Seriously, Go To Sleep

If you enjoy having kids snuggle real tight with you or you relish in the a foot slammin’ into your head half the night, then you’d have a great night sleeping with our superstars. Laura and I enjoy our space when sleeping and had a terrible night. The kids started off sharing a queen bed but that didn’t last long. They did the usual giggling and then annoying each other. Laura split the kids up and I got Ethan and Laura shared the bed with Autumn. Upon being split apart Autumn yelled “Mean Mommy” until she fell asleep.

Point Defiance Park

The Next Day

We had a leisure morning lying in bed, watching kids shows on PBS, and eating bagels, fruit, and greek yogurt. The kids loved eating in bed while watching a show (a rarity in our house) while we enjoyed the low key atmosphere. We finished our morning with one more swim at the pool before checking out of the hotel.

We originally planned on visiting the Children’s Museum of Tacoma but with no rain in the forecast we headed back to Point Defiance Park to stroll around the park. We spent most of our time at Owen’s Beach where we walked along the water and enjoyed the views.

We made it back home in the early afternoon where we were greeted by Skylee. 29 hours was a reasonable amount of time for a getaway to Tacoma, and a teaser for the kids in anticipation of our summer vacation to California.