Part 3
The next day I davned by the earlier minyan and we drove around an hour away to the Boeing Tour at the Future of Flight. The GPS took on a nice scenic route around the Seward Park Lake. I think the longer route was because it wanted to take us around the traffic but regardless it was nice route that I did not take us any extra longer.
Boeing Tour at the Future of FlightFor the factory tour we were supposed to be there 30 – 45 minutes before not sure why, if you order tickets online you do you need to be there to pick up your tickets but that takes five minutes even with a line. They did not allow camera’s or phone on the tour but they had lockers at the entrance to put valuables in. (They did have a big sign about not leaving valuables in the car.) Besides for the actual tour you were allowed cameras and cellphones in the other parts of the plant such as the runway observatory for Paine Field (Airport) and the few exhibits they had explaining how aerodynamics work.
The factory tour started with twelve minute video about Boeing’s mission. Then we were split up onto busses with an individual tour guide for each bus. We headed off on a five minute trip across the runaway to one of the biggest buildings in the world by capacity. This building is the main factory in Everett. Boeing has a few factories in and around Seattle as well on one of the East Coast that makes the 787-10 I think there were two stops on the tour. If I remember correctly this factory makes the 747 Cargo, 767, 777 and the 787 some army airplanes.
The first stop was 747 Cargo and the 767 and then the second stop we saw 777 and the 787-9 being made. Each production line had around five planes being made currently, all in different stages of production. You were able tell who’s the plane was being made since the plane’s wings were already painted those airlines colors.
When viewing the 787 on the production line there was ELAL Plane like 2 from the back. Another cool thing we saw was the new 777x with foldable wings. (This is back in August) We saw the two planes from far away. One was just a model; the other one was the real deal and is/will be the first plane 777x to fly.
Getting back on the bus and driving back over the Paine Field runway we saw a few planes finished planes waiting to get their “first start up”. When we got back to the main building, they let us out in the Boeing Factory Store.
After that we went to see the these few exhibits they had, some of the exhibits they had was understanding how lift and thrust work, a cutout of a fuselage seeing how high it is, you saw ceiling, the seats and then finally the floor underneath the seats where the cargo was kept. Finally, for a limited time there was mockup of new prototype of an interior of a plane in which you “board” with like 30 people or so and you get this controller and you get the answer questions about cabin like how did you feel in your seat, would you enjoy flying this plane on a flight of more than 5 hours etc… Whole experience lasted like 15 minutes I remember correctly. It was kind of cool.
In the same building they had this observatory in which you could view Paine Field runway (now a commercial airport), from there you were able to see the Boeing 747 Plane Loader (similar to the Airbus Bulga- used to transport parts), it was there at first it was there but when we came back from the Boeing Tour it was not there anymore. Regardless, from this rooftop you were able to see all the planes that came out of the factory and were being finished or waiting for a customer to take them. I assume if you get there at the right time it cool to see a brand new plane taking off.
We got to the factory for the 10:30 tour and we were finished by around 12:30. Looking for the next thing to do someone suggested Snoqualmie Falls so we headed there around an hour away from Boeing and around an hour away from Seattle as well.
Snoqualmie Falls A small tip: around Snoqualmie Falls there is a cheap place to fill up on gas.
The are two parts to the Falls the top part in which you can see the falls – there are three streams of water that fall down one “cliff”, these streams sometimes combine into. It was the summer so the falls were not so strong but they say during the winter or if when it rains a lot it gets really strong and you can feel the mist from the pathway. The falls drop 270 feet down. The top is nice and you either hike down a forest lined path to the bottom of the falls or you can take your car and drive there. We hiked. They warn you that walking down is like walking down a 30 story building. Actual time to hike I think took us around an around an hour, hour and half round trip from the top, chilling at the bottom and then coming back up. Either way the hike is nice and bottom of the falls are nice also. There is also a place to go “swimming” in the water and there were people swimming there. Overall nice waterfalls, nice scenic view at the top, nice scenic few at the bottom and a nice hike.
Museum of Flight, Well kind of!Driving back towards Seattle we still had time before Mincha so we took a drive or a few drives (!) and a stop the past the other Boeing Factory - the one that makes the 737’s and Museum of Flight. It costs money to go in to the Museum and it closed at 5 pm. So we when we got there close to the closing time it was not worth it to go in. Driving past though we got to see some cool planes from the Museum that partially viewable from the street and there were also some cool 737’s that were parked outside the 737 factory that we got to see We spent around a half hour – fourty five minutes there there just checking out the area and headed back towards Seward Park.
Our last ¼ of a day we spent in Seattle I davned by the Sefardi Minyan. Stopped by Seward Lake on the way out and went back to the airport. We dropped off the car by Silver Car, it took a little longer to check in" the car and what was weird was the SilverCar worker took our Car to pick someone up from the Terminal while we waited with for Jiffies Shuttle to come pick us up. Not sure why that happened….
The SEA-TAC airport was really crowded and had check in counters on the both sides of the departures hall. We checked in our bags and went to security, having TSA Precheck we thought security would be faster; another weird thing was when we got to one of the five security check point a TSA employee was telling everyone to go down the hallway to next line, and there was massive line even for TSA Precheck but still the line really moved and within 5 – 10 minutes we were through.
Airport LoungesWe checked out two lounges The Amex Centurion Lounge which was crowded but the non-kosher Chinese food smelled really good. It also had a shower in which I wanted to check out but I did not. As far as kosher options they did not really have any.
I wanted to go to the Alaska Lounges but they were too far away so in the end we went to The Club – South Satellite which was closer to gate and we actually had trouble finding it since we thought it was a floor above the terminal but in the end it was on the same level as the gates. It was crowded by we did find room to sit. They had better kosher snacking options and also cans of soda instead of a bar. After being there for like twenty minutes we boarded our Lufthansa flight to Israel via FRA.
I apologize for the lack of Pictures, but I’ll post what I have.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NPbtLodtXeOVF6fXKsEEWbq7qsaLicO9Feel free to ask me any questions.
