On these wild and raucous tours, a group of tourists load into a World War II amphibious landing craft that whirls around the city past the top sights and then drops into Puget Sound, offering breathtaking views of the Seattle cityscape.
Along the way a flamboyant and high-energy tour guide—who either drank eight cups of Starbucks before coming into work or is a close relative of Richard Simmons—shares facts about the city, plays funky music and cracks jokes that are laugh-out-loud funny. The tourists are all invited to enjoy the fun by blowing on yellow duck-bill-shaped noise makers.
I'm pretty sure our captain, who called himself Flip, drank 10, not the required eight, cups of Starbucks. He had more energy than anyone I've ever encountered. He was dancing, hooting, hollering and rattling off jokes throughout the entire tour: "That's Pioneer Square! I don't know whey they call it a square when it's really shaped like a triangle. Must have been budget cuts."
We rolled past the Space Needle, the Aquarium and bustling waterfront, through the hip Fremont District and under the Aurora Bridge where we got a look at the Ballard Troll before diving into Puget Sound where we motored past the Sleepless In Seattle houseboat. As Flip told a few jokes about Meg Ryan ("She drove over that bridge the wrong way), he turned on the movie's theme song, An Affair to Remember. In fact, Flip played music throughout the adventure, all of it cleverly chosen. When the Duck dove into the Sound, we listened to the theme song from the TV show Gilligan's Island.
The highlight of the tour: Flip invited guests to come to the front of the ship and sit in the "captain's seat." We decided that our 2-month-old baby had to visit the bow. Flip was so overwhelmed by her cuteness that he couldn't even think of a funny crack to make.
At the end of the tour, we got a special photo with Captain Flip.
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