College Inn, Seattle, WA - Reviews and Hotel Information

The University District ihas a European tradition that is very much alive in the College Inn. The Inn was originally constructed to serve the Alaska Yukon Expo of 1909 a unique "worlds fair" that put Seattle on the map long before grunge music and Microstuffed. After the Expo the Inn became a weekend getaway where Seattleites would click out by cable car for a weekend in the , countryside. It's the real thing, the half-timbered gables are actually half-timbered, its odd garrets are actual garrets, and it's a european style hotel that is actually, charmingly, and sometimes even a little annoyingly European.
You know your not in the Hyatt anymore when you check in and find that the lobby is on the top floor. Then you see unHoliday Inn stuff like nice old furniture set for...you guessed it...continental breakfast. It's the sort of lobby one hangs out in, chatting with other guests in accents. There is always coffee and tea on hand and, as you expected, the coffee is really great.
The rooms have that offshore look right off the bat. They are small, oddly proportioned and antiquely furnished, but not in the instant-posh "botique hotel" way: they just have nice old furniture quirky sinks and lights, and little oddities like wide window seats and funny little pillows. It's no surprise that the Inn is generally full of bookbag types: europeans who prefer it to the more comfy/sterile (and much more expensive) AmeriHotels in the district, visiting profs from across the pond unfurling umbrellas for the one-block walk to campus, and the unmistakably seasoned travelers who have heard this is the place to go.
On the downside for some would be the down-the-hall bathrooms, but they are well-appointed and functional. But hey...it's cheap. Once again, by Seattle standards, but the $45 USD for a single room to $80 for a big room with two quilt-draped double beds beats the hell out of anything else in the area (there is no hostel in the University area: the one downtown runs $17 for a bunk). And don't forget you get breakfast.

The College Inn has some nice features right in the same building
The ground floor features a student-infested coffee house and a mini-market. The basement is the College Inn Pub, another place that just doesn't look like Kansas. Wood panelled and boothed, with glassed-in "cozy room" for study groups and meetings, with all sorts of imported and local micro beers with funny names and an active darts scene, the Pub doesn't actually try to be British, but does a better job of Rathskellery than all those fake-ass Irish pubs. Oh yeah, and this is significant in Seattle's bog of despond, a fireplace. You could go a long way and not find a nicer place for a nightcap and it's right downstairs.

College Inn, Seattle

College Inn

Seattle Hotels