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WorldMark Seattle/Puget Sound Area

B

bryjake

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Oct 2, 2018
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Resorts Owned
Club Wyndham Access, Midtown 45
WorldMark has many options for the Seattle / Puget Sound Area
We would like to experience the wild orca whales out there

My family would like to experience a bit of Seattle, Puget Sound, and Vancouver (Vancouver Optional)

There are many choices out there

Any recommendations for WorldMark locations, length of stay per location, and preferred time of the year
 
Deer Harbor is amazing! You take the ferry with your car, and spend time on Orcas Island. We loved it there.
 
WM Seattle is in a good location if you want to see downtown Seattle and other area attractions. A ferry ride to Bainbridge Island on a nice day is scenic.

The WM Victoria is in a decent location and is walking distance to many attractions. The resort is in the harbor.

The WM Vancouver, the Canadian, is in the city and is close enough to the many area attractions. Things are a bit spread out but there is public transportation.

The WM Discovery Bay is one of my favorites for August. The squid come back to spawn and surround the docks. This resort has a boat dock and the bay is full of crab. I bring a boat and head into the Salish Sea. There is quite a bit of sea life out here. Protection Island has loads of seals and sea birds. A bit farther out is the halibut area. Salmon also run through this area.

The WM Birch Bay and the WM Blaine are probably the best locations to go whale watching, imo. There are new rules on top of the old rules regarding Orcas and how close a vessel can get.

I haven't been to the Deer Harbor resort but have cruised all around the San Juan Islands and Orcas Island is a really nice area. We regularly saw Orcas between Orcas Island and Canada while salmon fishing.

Bill
 
Weather in the Pacific Northwest is very changeable. May is often great weather, but not all tourist things may yet be open for the season. Summer is a great time to visit, and the middle two weeks of September is often the best weather of the year. (Not too hot, crowds are down, tourist shops offering end-of-season discounts.) Prepare for sun or rain, and dress in layers. You’ll be fine.

Puget Sound cuts the area in half, and a lot of things to see are on opposite sides of the water. There are few bridges, driving all the way around takes a long time, and you’ll usually need to catch a ferry, which in itself is pretty cool. A kind of mini-cruise, for not a whole lot of money.

Combining a whale watching trip with a timeshare stay requires knowing where and when for both. WM in Deer Harbor is a nice, quiet area on a beautiful island, but it’s more of a destination than a base camp for visiting a larger area. They do whale watching tours from that island, but also from Anacortes, and I think even from Seattle or Vancouver. WM The Camlin in Seattle gives you major urban options - it’s central to the metro area, but it’s also about 90 minutes plus traffic to Anacortes, where you catch the 1.5 hour ferry trip to Orcas Island, where Deer Harbor sits. The WM resorts in Blaine and Birch Bay (which are actually next door to each other) are freeway-close to Seattle (about 100 miles away, no ferry required.) But it’s another destination location, and is limited on tours. WM Discovery Bay is on “the Peninsula,” and is a good base camp for exploring the Olympic Nat’l Park area, but it’s otherwise pretty quiet in that area. (Port Townsend is the closest town to it, nice to see, but can be done in a few hours.)

I’d say plan a mix of your time. Stay in Seattle for as long as you want to check out the metro area, then go to Deer Harbor for a few days so you can go whale watching and enjoy the San Juan Islands. Then maybe try Vancouver or even Victoria, and whale watching from there, if it doesn’t work from the U.S. side. They have Orca pods in that area, too.

No solid answers, I’m afraid. There is a lot of options up here. :)

Dave
 
Additional options: There is a ferry from Orcas Island to Sydney, BC, on Vancouver Island. You could start your trip at WM The Camlin in Seattle, then go to WM Deer Harbor, catch the ferry to Sydney, then go to WM Victoria. Catch another ferry from there to Vancouver and stay at WM The Canadian, then drive back to Seattle. It’s about a two hour freeway drive (plus border crossing time) from Van to Seattle. No ferry required. Bring your passport. :)

Dave
 
The resident orcas pods travel around the Salish Sea, which is the Strait of Georgia (the area between BC and Vancouver Island on the north), the Strait of Juan de Fuca (between Victoria Island and the US Mainland) in the middle, and Puget Sound in the south. To view them, you need to know which area they are in - probably boating to get there. Several times we have been able to see them during ferry crossings, but that is far from certain.
 
The Orcas follow the Chinook salmon. That is their main food source. They seem to really like Chinook better than any other salmon. We see them when we fish for Chinook. Not so much when we fish Coho, which are smaller and tastier than fall Chinook, imo.

I read somewhere that Orcas will likely be off limits for boat whale watching excursions. The Chinook runs have petered out so the Orcas are starving because they are too finicky regarding diet.

Bill
 
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