Arctic Club Hotel — Hotel in Seattle

Between January and October 2025, I had the pleasure of staying at the Arctic Club about an average of three nights a week, affording me a rather unique opportunity to get to know the ins and outs of this gem of a lodging house. I'll try and break all of the impressions down into some sort of logical flow...|TRANSIT - Getting to and from the airport to the hotel is easy-peasy. Take the train from the airport, get off at Pioneer Square exit and walk across the street. 3 bucks. You can take a LYFT and save yourself about ten minutes, but the train is clean, quick, and costs about 60 bucks less. Getting around downtown is easy and almost everything is less than a mile a way. Two personal notes about this: Seattle is hilly, and I was surpriseed at the quality of exercise available just by walking around. LIME bikes and scooters are awesome with the amount of bike lanes available. Get over your fears and/or cool factor hang ups and get on one and you can get anywhere near downtown in less than 20 mins for about 5 bucks.|THE PROPERTY - Cool 1930's vibe with a lot of wood paneling and trim. Definitely a welcome break from the typical greige chain hotels. Have staff show you the Northern Lights Dome Room. French press coffee, electric kettle, in room snacks and fridge are all available. Beds are medium firm and I found them comfortable. Linens are good and everything was serviceable and in good condition. The only "quirky" bit is really the elevators: They are small, and the buttons can be temperamental. Remember to use your key card before selecting the floor and keep an eye on the light, make sure it stays lit up.|BREAKFAST - Breakfast is good - A step above the good national chains. They do not have a fancy-dancy espresso/latte/frappucino/macchiato/hot chocolate/sake/sparkling water/artisian choke cherry juicer combos, but the coffee is good. If you are leaving before breakfast, just let the front desk know (shout out to Iriana) and she will get you a to-go bag with fresh fruit, yogurt, granola, pastriees and whatever else you need. Definitely better than the pre-packaged muffin and banana you typically get.|BAR/DINNER - This is definitely a place to stay if you will be entertaining clients. The bar area is straight out of some posh gangster's fever dream. The bottle selection is solid, the crew makes fantastic standard mixed drinks, their custom drink menu is damn good, they have some delicious mocktails, and they also do a few "over the top" presentations including smoked drinks and some special hardware. The food menu is good and the chef has done a respectable job of creating variety and unique flavors including some asian fusion and new twists on classic staples. The real gem of the bar, however, is the bartenders themselves. Mike is a professional bartender, and he has hired some fantastic people. I travel a lot for work,notice a good team, and he has one. I spent hours discussing guitars and music, manga, Brandon Sanderson, cheesy 80s films, best local dives with Mike, Matt, Marice (sp?), Kairi, Brian, Nora, and Heather(?)..no Harper, maybe Hannah...Hazel... the one that needs a steep stool to see over the counter. They're all great.|OVERALL - Definitely recommended over the other hotels in the area. I stayed at most of them at somee point due to sold out rooms at Arctic Club and always came back. Sharon at the front desk was a life saver on a few occasions and the staff overall...

I usually try and be thorough in my reviews, some appreciate this while others might want a TL;DR approach. If you’re in the latter camp, skip to the bottom. If not – read on!

My wife and I had previously gone out to Seattle in 2018 where we stayed in an AirBNB out in the University district. It overlooked Portage Bay, but having never been to Seattle prior, we really didn’t have a lot of knowledge as to how the city is laid out, what there is/was to do and so forth. As it turns out, we quickly figured out that all the “cool, touristy” things were – you guessed it – downtown.

So when we planned a return trip this Summer, we decided to stay downtown and save ourselves many an Uber fare (though as we discovered the public transportation isn’t half bad). Enter The Arctic Club.

Finding a hotel in a major metropolitan city is “easy” in the sense that there are no shortage of places to say. Yes, they have the standard Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott and so forth, but we’ve found that we like some of the more unique places and came across The Arctic Club. One thing that we liked, aside from the price, was the location as well as the ability to choose the top floor (we don’t like folk stomping around on top of us and with the top floor this eliminated that).

The Location Depending on your perspective, it’s either located on 3rd and Cherry or 3rd and Columbia, but nevertheless it’s in the heart of Pioneer Square. This is both a curse and a blessing as anyone who knows the town will know that there’s a certain stigma with the area in that it has a large homeless population. We never had any issues with this, however. It’s also a block away from the Light Rail station and has a bus stop right outside – both of these came in handy if you don’t want to traverse the hills that dominate some of the downtown area.

As is the case with most any hotel in a downtown area of a large city, there’s the usual traffic noise. We heard police/fire sirens several times a day, but that’s part of the urban setting.

The Room We sprung for the King bed on the top floor. This gave us access to the rooftop terrace that spans the perimeter of the hotel. We had a great view of Mt. Rainer and even a sliver of the Space Needle as well as, of course, the stadiums and downtown in general. The bed was comfortable, we heard no noise from, well, anyone other than a seagull who made his home outside our door. A big screen TV, stocked bar (priced, of course) came in handy.

The Staff/Service Staff was very accommodating. We got daily text messages from them, and they were quick to respond about scheduling a room clean time, any issues we had and even extending our check out. In short, it was this personal touch that added to the stay. The hotel bar/restaurant was nice and the daily free breakfast was a nice touch as well (and most likely saved us a lot of money from having to go out for breakfast somewhere). And, to be clear, this wasn’t some orange juice/bagel free meal, fresh fruit, eggs, muffins, potatoes, etc. It was a good, filling meal/buffet and you had the entire restaurant in which to eat.

TL;DR Pros Location (this could also be a con) Service Room aesthesis/comfort Complimentary breakfast

Cons Noise from nearby (sirens, etc.) Location (Pioneer Square,...

Absolutely fantastic.

We stayed for 1 night in a Corner King room with a whirlpool (that we didn't use, oops). Bed was great. Blackout curtains were crucial. we put the mini fridge to use. Complimentary french press coffee is one of those details that many may never acknowledge or make use of, but it's that subtle message that the trend of cheap & easy (and wasteful!) K-cups aren't sufficient in a coffee town that appreciates (and needs) a quality cup of coffee to start the day. corner window view of the city is more than worth the added cost.

also, VALET. with how insane parking is in the city, the valet parking, at $50+tax for 24 hours, in a garage, is actually a steal in 2023 and reason enough to stay here versus other hotels who don't offer parking. there's lots just as far away from the stadiums that charge 50 dollars just for event parking a few hours. Valet at Arctic completely avoided massive headache regularly induced by uselessly circumventing a 10 block radius of downtown trying to find an affordable and safe place to park. to say it was a lifesaver, is putting it mildly.

location is great. great coffeeshops and bars within walking distance in any direction. 15 minute walk to Lumen field and TMobile Park make this place a no brainier for sports fans. anyone complaining about unhoused folks nearby is merely detached from the reality of a such a rapidly growing urban metropolis that is more and more unaffordable to live in, for a growing majority, with each passing day. on top of a local government which refuses to invest in long term solutions for the unhoused. but I digress.

beautiful building with interesting historical value. the history adds to the character and the overall theme (although, being immediately welcomed by lobby walls covered in black and white portraits of white men on every square inch is a decoration choice that may be a little jarring to walk right into—albeit, historically accurate to the building's inception). not necessarily a complaint, more of a heads-up for fellow travelers who may be sensitive to such settings. this isn't enough to effect my rating as EVERYONE on the staff was genuinely pleasant to interact with in a way that wasn't contrived or fake.

Mike at the bar in particular made us feel like guests in his home. the warmth and hospitality shown by the entire staff was a breath of fresh air. as far as service goes, any hotel can make you feel welcome, it takes careful attention of genuinely nice people to make you feel sad to leave. we'll certainly be...