Festive fun for families in Seattle.

Stay
With free milk and cookies from room service, a Teddy Bear suite, gingerbread displays and glitter galore, your kids will be wide-eyed with wonder at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel. Snuggle them up in their miniature bathrobes while you slurp oysters sent up from Shuckers. Fairmont Olympic Hotel, 411 University St., Seattle, WA, 206-621-1700, www.fairmont.com

Eat
Escape for some adult time at the new RN74, named for the Route Nationale that runs through Burgundy. Choose a pinot noir off the wine list displayed on a French-style train board, and watch the selections flip and refresh throughout your meal. The service is extraordinary (as are the house-made doughnuts to cap off your night). Reserve. RN74, 1433 Fourth Ave. (at Pike St.), Seattle, WA, 206-456-7474, www.michaelmina.net

Do
Space Centre
Take the monorail (half the fun) to the Space Needle whose observation deck currently features free photos with Santa in a spaceship and cosmic cookie decorating, plus priceless souvenir family photos like this one! www.spaceneedle.com

Play
The Holiday Carousel at Westlake Park in the middle of downtown is a classic, while giant toy sculptures lit up along Waterfront Park will bring out the kid in everyone. www.downtownholidays.com —Sarah Bancroft

With destinations like these, we could road trip to the Emerald City every weekend.

eat: Sitka & Spruce
Tucked into the back of quaint Melrose Market, this beautiful Northwest restaurant has us dreaming of the raw sockeye with crispy morel mushrooms. 1534 Melrose Ave. E., Seattle, 206-324-0662, www.sitkaandspruce.com


shop: AllSaints

Now that Vancouver has its own Anthropologie we need a new excuse to head south on the I-5. This stylish British export is exactly that. 1511 Fifth Ave., Seattle, 203-508-0018, http://www.allsaints.com/

read: Elliott Bay Book Company
With an average of 10 author readings a week, we feel like literati the moment we step inside. 1521 Tenth Ave., Seattle, 206-624-6600, www.elliottbaybook.com

drink: Tavern Law
That phone on the back wall? It’s the key to a private upstairs room where there are no menus, just a few dozen seats and a bartender who shakes up custom cocktails. 1406 12th Ave., Seattle, 206-322-9734, www.tavernlaw.com

treat: Molly Moon's

The homemade honey lavender ice cream is well worth waiting in the constant out-the-door lineup. Three locations, www.mollymoonicecream.com

—KD

Pack your gladiator flats and keep it simple with a getaway itinerary that can all be done on foot.

stay
With views over Lake Union, the Space Needle and the Experience Music Project, Pan Pacific Seattle lets you map out your day from the comfort of your soaker tub. Extras like steamers, bath salts and Herman Miller desk chairs make all the difference. From USD$249. 2125 Terry Ave., Seattle, 206-264-8111, www.panpacific.com

do
For the ultimate in eatertainment, stroll the aisles of the massive Whole Foods at the base of the hotel with its tempura bar, outdoor seating, and excellent bubbly selection. 2210 Westlake Ave., Seattle, 206-621-9700, www.wholefoodsmarket.com

shop
The adorable new Free People store near Pike Place Market brings to mind a quirky, American Audrey Tautou. Don’t miss its girlish lingerie. 101 Stewart St., Seattle, 206-441-3659, www.freepeople.com

spa
Adjacent to the hotel is the impeccable Vida Wellness Spa, whose Green Tea facial ($130) can take five years and 200 packs of cigarettes off one’s face in 60 minutes flat. 2200 Westlake St., Seattle, 888-865-2630, www.vidawellness.com

eat
A plate of oysters at dusk on the patio, paired with an Oregon pinot, may just be the prelude to a kiss—and if they say “get a room,” yours is mere steps away. Seastar Restaurant & Raw Bar, Pan Pacific Seattle, 2125 Terry Ave., Seattle, 206-462-4364, www.seastarrestaurant.com

Stay
Call it poetic justice: Seattle’s historic Arctic Club Building, once a private club for gentleman adventurers and Gold Rush tycoons, re-opened this summer as a chic 120-room boutique hotel—and one of Seattle’s best bets for a girlfriends’ getaway. We loved the absinthe fountain at the fireside Polar Bar and the glorious gilt and stained glass ceiling in the Northern Lights Dome Room. Suites are deliciously masculine, with steamer trunk bed tables, soaring ceilings, massive king beds and haunting sepia photos. Free Wi-Fi, free HBO and big flat screen TVs remind us which century we’re really in. From $275 per night.
700 Third Ave. (at Cherry St.), Seattle, WA, 206-340-0340, www.arcticclubhotel.com

Eat
At Arctic Club Hotel’s JUNO, Chef Thomas Kollasch dishes up eco-friendly takes on American classics. Grab a seat at the long backlit bar for such updated options as French toast made with cappuccino pound cake, a Kobe beef cheeseburger with jarlsberg, prosciutto-wrapped rabbit loin, or white chocolate avocado mousse. Virtually everything is free range, organic, or sustainably harvested, and the prices are wallet-friendly too.
700 Third Ave. (at Cherry St.), Seattle, WA, 206-631-8080, www.junorestaurant.com

Do
At Gene Juarez Salon and Spa, melt away the week with an Ayurvedic Balance massage. Tailoring the treatment to your personal dosha, (Vatas are the stressed multi-taskers, Pittas are the go-getters), the therapists here will have you balanced and ready to hit Nordstrom in no time.
607 Pine St., Seattle, WA, 206-326-6000, www.genejuarez.com

Shop
Eat chocolate. Help kids. It’s a win-win proposal from Chocolate Box. If, like us, you’re overwhelmed by the sheer volume of chocolatey choice in this 1,800 square foot confectionary, ask for the new Kelly’s View Collection featuring children’s artwork and benefiting Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle. So it’s true: chocolate really can make you feel good.
108 Pine St., Seattle, WA, 206-443-3900, www.sschocolatebox.com

If you’re addicted to sexy weekends at Seattle’s Ace Hotel time to plan a spring getaway to the brand new Portland location that opened last week.

It offers all the things you love about the original Ace: a heritage retrofit building, low platform beds, and featured artists in every room.

On top of that, the larger Portland outpost will have a coffee shop, room service, and a restaurant called Clyde Commons (opening April).  

But the best part? The same, affordable, Euro-style rates.

Opening special: deluxe rooms $125; standard rooms from $75.

View Seattle Ace and send a postcard to Portland at www.acehotel.com

A fun girl’s getaway to Seattle’s spanking new Hotel 1000 with its high-tech rooms and luxury tubs is definitely in order this fall.

Timed to the pre-Christmas sale season, chauffeured on a private coach, and organized by someone else, well, it sounds like a dream getaway.

Dream no longer.

West Vancouver’s new all-women travel company Women With Wings has organized just such an excursion, November 24-26, starting at $257 for two nights hotel and transportation.

What you spend at Nordstrom Rack, on the other hand, is another matter.

Read more about this and other upcoming trips at www.womenwithwings.ca.

If spring break conjures up a combination of Girls Gone Wild videos and Tara Reid, why not skip the drunken beach frenzy and head straight to the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in Seattle for a more refined weekend escape.

The epitome of old-world luxury, the Fairmont Olympic delivers with discreet staff, complimentary shoe-shines and the best in-room turkey clubs we’ve ever tasted, served with adorable mini-Heinz ketchups and Dijon.

Opt for the “Shopper’s Package” and you’ll be greeted with a $100 US gift certificate for Nordstrom www.nordstrom.com, a driver to shuttle you to and from your shopping excursion (à la A-list Hollywood celeb), and a complimentary cocktail in the terrace bar to numb your post-shopping guilt.

Now that’s a spring break worth going wild for.

The Fairmont Olympic Hotel Shopper’s Package starts at $399 US and includes accommodation and complimentary valet. Check it out at www.fairmont.com/seattle

Where to shop, eat, drink and sleep in Seattle right now:

shop
Red Light Vintage (Capitol Hill Store 312 Broadway Avenue East, 206.329.2200, University District Store, 4560 University Way Northeast, 206-545-4044 www.redlightvintage.com). A solid collection of vintage from Victorian all the way up to the early 80's plus a great selection of 40's dresses in pristine condition with prices that will make you think you've traveled back in time.

The Antique Mall in Fremont (3419 Fremont Place N., 206.548.9140) As far as the eye can see, everything second hand you could possibly imagine, from clothes and shoes to records, jewels, mid-century modern furniture and nick knacks.

eat
Bimbo's Bitchin' Burrito Kitchen (506 E. Pine Street, 206.329.9978). Blacklit bathrooms and an overwhelming amount of hot pink make this more than just your average tex mex stop. The wall by the bar proudly posts that Britney Spears scarfed down two of the jumbo burritos on her last visit.

drink
Chapel Bar (1600 Melrose Avenue, 206.447.4180, www.thechapelbar.com): is located just off Pike and Pine (equivalent to Vancouver's Main street) and, as the name suggests, is a bar housed in an old funeral home. With high ceilings and a viewing area, hipsters will think they've died and gone to heaven.

sleep
A favorite among indie rock stars, the Ace Hotel (2423 First Avenue, 206.448.4721, www.acehotel.com) has pristine modern white rooms, free continental breakfast of fresh fruit, yogurt and granola, and a great Belltown location for $100 a night.