Should You Rent a Car for a Seattle Cruise?

A round trip from Seattle puts the car question to you twice — once before the sailing and once the morning you’re back.

If neither end includes a mountain, a ferry or a long day east, skip the rental. The rides below cover the ship for less, and the desks near the piers keep office hours anyway.

If one end does, rent for that day and nothing else. Not the airport run, and not the night downtown.

Link light rail is a flat $3 one way for adults ($1 seniors and ORCA LIFT, free 18 and under); Sound Transit puts SEA to downtown at 38 minutes, trains every 8 to 10 minutes most of the day.

Two of you pay $6 to reach downtown. That’s about an eighth of the $48 meter to Pier 91 — a good trade if your bags can ride an escalator.

The port says there is no direct mass transit from SEA to Pier 66: Link light rail reaches downtown, then a taxi or rideshare. Downtown to Pier 66 is about 0.9 miles on our routing, roughly $5 on the meter before waiting time, our arithmetic.

Pier 91 is harder — the port says public transit is not available to Pier 91, and the Metro stop at the Magnolia Bridge and Pier 91 is permanently closed.

A cruise blog describes Link to Symphony station, then the RapidRide D Line to Elliott Ave and W Galer St and an 8- to 10-minute walk to Pier 91; neither Metro nor the port confirms it, and we haven’t walked it with bags. Treat it as a blog’s route, not the port’s.

Take Link if you’re staying downtown first or traveling light. Skip it with a family’s luggage — the last leg is a cab either way.

King County and Seattle’s joint rule sets the meter at $2.60 for the first ninth of a mile and 30 cents each ninth after ($2.70 a mile), 50 cents a minute waiting, and 50 cents for each passenger over two (children under 12 excluded).

Any taxi trip starting at SEA is at least $20, and the rule sets no flat rate between downtown and the airport — so even a short hop to an airport hotel costs $20.

A temporary fuel surcharge of $1 to $3.50 applies once gas holds at $5 to $7.50 a gallon for 14 days. AAA’s Seattle average was above $5 on Oct 2, 2026, so that surcharge may already be running; we couldn’t tell from the rule.

Taxis load on the 3rd floor of the SEA garage; metered cabs carry a three-digit number and one color, flat-rate cabs a four-digit number and two colors, priced by ZIP code, but the port publishes no amounts; wheelchair vans and 11-seat vans are available.

At four travelers one meter undercuts Carnival’s per-person price by about $103, our arithmetic. Ask for a van if the suitcases won’t fit one trunk.

Carnival sells its guests a SEA-to-pier transfer at $37.99 a person each way; flights must land by noon, and return flights leave no earlier than noon (read Sept 26, 2026).

At two people that’s $75.98, against a cab around $48 — the transfer costs more, not less, but it’s a fixed price with no meter to watch.

Of the lines we checked, only Carnival publishes a Seattle transfer price; Oceania includes it with round-trip air. Ask your line — we couldn’t price what isn’t published.

Seattle Express runs a scheduled shared shuttle from SeaTac hotels to both piers, extra bags $15 each; its own site shows no fare, and a Viator listing says “from $32”, which we couldn’t confirm. Its fare stays unconfirmed here until the operator posts one.

Uber and Lyft don’t publish a fare we could read — open the app for your date before you decide.

A $52 downtown car for one Rainier day is about $104 on our arithmetic, with Washington’s tax and about 209 miles of fuel. That’s before the $30 park entry.

The rule is distance from the city. A day you could reach on Link favors the train, and one that needs a mountain road or a ferry favors the car.

If the quiz said rent, book the car for the day trip alone — collect it the morning you drive, return it to a desk that’s still open, and ride to the pier.

Weekend hours are the trap here, not the rate. Check yours on the hub’s open-now checker before you choose the return time.