By Nora Lindqvist · Updated · Affiliate links, explained in my disclosure
Space Needle & Chihuly Garden and Glass
Space Needle & Chihuly Garden and Glass Ticket
4.7 (2,761) · from $77.98
Space Needle tickets on GetYourGuide start at $77 for a food tour, and the cheapest one that lists deck admission is the Chihuly Garden and Glass combo at $77.98. That combo is also the most reviewed, rated 4.73 from 2,761 reviews. The deck sits at 158.5 m, according to Wikipedia, on a tower 184 m tall. I’d go about an hour before sunset.
| Tour | From | Rating | Length | Free cancellation | Book |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Space Needle & Chihuly Garden and Glass Ticket | $77.98 | ★ 4.7 (2,761) | 24-hour ticket | Yes | Check availability |
| Private Space Needle & Seattle Cultural District Tour | $270 | ★ 5.0 (6) | 2 hours | Yes | Check availability |
| Space Needle Food & Culture Tour with 6 Tastings | $77 | ★ 5.0 (1) | 2 hours | Yes | Check availability |
| Small Group Tour with Space Needle & Harbor Cruise | $244 | – | 5 hours | Yes | Check availability |
I compared every Space Needle ticket and tour that GetYourGuide sells right now: one combo ticket and three guided tours that include entry. Prices, ratings and inclusions come from the listings, checked in October 2026, in US dollars. GetYourGuide does not sell a plain Space Needle ticket, so I also give the official prices from spaceneedle.com for comparison. Links open GetYourGuide in a new tab, and I earn a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you.
The Space Needle was built for the 1962 World’s Fair, and it is the tower most people picture when they think of Seattle. These are the numbers that sit behind the Space Needle tickets below, each with its source.
Considered to be an icon of the city, it has been designated a Seattle landmark.
Two levels matter for a visit. The open-air observation deck has tilting glass walls and angled glass benches, according to the combo listing. Below it is the Loupe, which Wikipedia describes as an indoor observation deck with a revolving glass floor that takes 45 minutes to complete a full turn. The official site calls it the only revolving glass floor of its kind.
| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| Levels | Open-air observation deck plus the indoor Loupe with its glass floor, per the listings and Wikipedia |
| Address | 400 Broad St, Seattle, WA 98109, per Google Maps |
| Opening hours | Friday 9:30 AM to 9:30 PM, Saturday 9 AM to 9:30 PM, Sunday 9:30 AM to 8:30 PM, Monday to Thursday 10:30 AM to 7:30 PM, per Google Maps |
| Google Maps rating | 4.6 from 59,882 reviews |
| Time to allow | 2 hours for the private and food tours, 5 hours for the small group tour, per the listings |
Hours vary by season, so before you buy Space Needle tickets, open the official hours page for the date you plan to go.
If you want a ticket that lists real observation deck admission, the Space Needle and Chihuly Garden and Glass combo is the listing I would start from. It costs $77.98, carries 4.73 stars from 2,761 reviews and includes admission to the Space Needle, with the next available entry after you arrive, plus an admission ticket to Chihuly Garden and Glass. Everything is self-guided and nobody meets you at the tower.
The listing describes a 42-second elevator ride up, the Loupe glass floor and the open-air deck with its glass benches. Wikipedia says the elevators reach the deck in 41 seconds, so expect under a minute either way. After the tower you walk over to the glass museum, which is 90 m away by my calculation from Google Maps coordinates. Reviewers praise the gallery and the garden as much as the view, and one wrote that the rotating glass floor was impressive.
Space Needle & Chihuly Garden and Glass
My pick: My default for a first visit: $77.98, 4.73 stars from 2,761 reviews, self-guided, with Chihuly Garden and Glass added to the deck.
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$77.98
Space Needle tickets and prices run in three bands. The official general admission range is $35 to $55 on spaceneedle.com, the combo with Chihuly Garden and Glass is $74 there and $77.98 on GetYourGuide, and the guided tours that include entry start at $77. The dearest of these Space Needle tickets is a private tour at $270.
The private option is the Intrepid Urban Adventures walk of Seattle Center, led by a local guide, with timed entry to the deck at the end. It is a 2 hour tour that starts in front of the Grass Blades sculptures at 300 Harrison St and passes the Chihuly glass museum, the Museum of Pop Culture and the International Fountain. At $270 for the private booking it is the dearest listing in my comparison, so it suits a family or a small group that wants a guide and no queue to organise. It is rated 5 stars, but from only 6 reviews, and every one of them praises the guide by name.
Intrepid Urban Adventures
My pick: A private 2 hour guided walk around Seattle Center with timed deck entry at $270, rated 5 from only 6 reviews: for groups that want a guide.
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$270
Most people searching for Space Needle tickets in Seattle want to know where to buy them and whether it is the same ticket. The official site sells timed general admission, and that is the cheapest way up if you only want the view. The GetYourGuide listings on this page are all bundles, and I would use them when you want something around the tower: a museum, a guide, food or a harbour cruise.
The tower stands in Seattle Center, the park built for the 1962 World’s Fair, so it is easy to combine with the neighbouring sights on foot. Chihuly Garden and Glass is about 0.09 km (0.06 mi) away, and the Museum of Pop Culture is just across the lawn. Pike Place Market is 1.35 km (0.84 mi) from the tower, according to my calculation from the Google Maps coordinates, which is close enough to walk before or after a late ticket.
None of the Space Needle tickets here buys a table, and you can no longer sit down to a full restaurant meal on the Needle. Wikipedia records that SkyCity, the restaurant that replaced two older ones in 2000, closed in 2017, and the top was rebuilt with the Loupe in 2018. What the official site lists today is smaller: the Loupe Lounge, a seasonal multi-course cocktail and food experience from September to May, a walk-up Sunset Bar on the observation deck, the Revolving Bar on the glass floor, TipTop Cafe, and a brunch.
None of the four Space Needle tickets here includes a meal at the top. The one that gets closest to food is the Eat Seattle tour below, which eats at ground level in Seattle Center. If you want to dine up high, check the lounge dates and the brunch booking on the official site, because seasonal menus change and the lounge closes for part of the year.
Booking Space Needle tickets online ahead of the day is what I would do for any weekend or summer visit, because the entry is timed. The combo listing says to visit the tower at the time you select, and you can visit the Chihuly gardens at any time during their opening hours. The three tours are tagged as skip-the-line, but that only covers the timed entry to the deck, not the walking parts.
All four listings give free cancellation up to 24 hours before the start for a full refund, which makes booking early low risk. I would still pick a slot in daylight if the forecast is clear, and one that finishes before sunset if you want to catch the colours from the open-air deck. My planner further down the page shows the sunset time for any date.
The height behind these Space Needle tickets is 184 m tall, according to Wikidata, which matches the 605 ft that Wikipedia lists for the tip of the spire. The public deck is lower: Wikipedia’s list of observation decks gives 158.5 m, while the Space Needle article itself says 520 ft (160 m). I use the 158.5 m figure, and the two sources differ by about a metre and a half.
The tower has six floors and three elevators, and John Graham and Company were the architects. It opened on 21 April 1962. Its height matters mostly for the view: from 158.5 m the horizon is about 44.9 km (27.9 mi) away on a perfectly clear day, which is enough to include the Cascades and the Olympics in good weather.
Space Needle hours decide which tickets for the Space Needle make sense, and they change by day of the week and by season. Google Maps and the official site agree on Friday 9:30 AM to 9:30 PM, Saturday 9 AM to 9:30 PM and Sunday 9:30 AM to 8:30 PM. From Monday to Thursday the deck opens at 10:30 AM and closes at 7:30 PM. The official site adds that the tower is open year-round but hours vary by season.
For tickets to the Space Needle at night, that makes Friday and Saturday evenings the days for a night view, and Monday to Thursday the days when sunset can fall after closing in summer. Last entry is usually earlier than closing, and I could not find that time, so check the official page before you plan around it. The tours among these Space Needle tickets set their own start times, which are not the tower’s opening hours.
There is no secret code for discount Space Needle tickets, but there are three legitimate ways to pay less than the sticker price. The official site says that bundling with Chihuly Garden and Glass saves up to 25%, depending on the time of day, and it lists discounts for groups, schools and special events. A CityPASS at $119 to $139 is also on the site, which pays off if you plan on several other Seattle attractions.
On GetYourGuide the lowest-priced listing is the Eat Seattle food tour at $77, which is $0.98 below the Chihuly combo. Read that carefully. The listing describes a chef-guided walk through the Space Needle area, Seattle Center and Lower Queen Anne, with lunch and a discount card for partner vendors. It does not list admission to the observation deck, so I can’t tell you it takes you up. Treat it as a food tour that starts under the tower, and it has a single review so far, 5 stars.
Eat Seattle Tours
My pick: The lowest price here at $77: a 2 hour chef-guided food walk with six tastings that starts under the Needle, but deck admission is not listed.
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$77
For the top of the Space Needle tickets price range, there is the See Sight Tours small group tour at $244. It runs 5 hours with a maximum group of 10 and bundles the Space Needle with the Beneath the Streets underground tour in Pioneer Square and a Seattle harbour cruise. It goes past Smith Tower, the Seattle Art Museum and Pike Place Market. It is the one I rank last, because it has no rating yet and the Needle is only the first stop.
Calculator
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from per person, before any child or group discount
Prices are the lowest per-person prices on GetYourGuide when I last checked; the final price depends on the date, time slot and age.
If you are pricing a whole group, use the calculator above. It is honest about what you pay now, but remember that the official ticket is much cheaper if all you want is the view. The tour is for people who want to see the whole city in one day and would otherwise piece it together with several tickets.
See Sight Tours Inc
My pick: A leftover in my ranking but a full day: $244 for a 5 hour small group tour with the Needle, an underground tour and a harbour cruise; no rating yet.
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$244
Reviews of Space Needle tickets are good, and they are consistent. Google Maps shows 4.6 stars from 59,882 reviews. The combo with Chihuly Garden and Glass sits at 4.73 from 2,761 reviews on GetYourGuide, and that is a rating I would trust because of the volume. The tours have fewer reviews, so treat their 5 star scores with caution.
The complaint I saw most in the combo reviews is about the weather, not the tower.
I just wish it were clearer so we had a better view.
That is the real risk of any Space Needle tickets you buy for a fixed slot, and the weather section below helps you manage it. Another reviewer on the same listing said the day was clear and the views were magnificent, so the outcome is mostly down to the date you choose.
The view you get from Space Needle tickets depends on the sky, and Seattle’s sky changes a lot through the year. I used a full year of Open-Meteo data for 2025 at the tower. July was the clearest month, with 36% average cloud cover, 13.2 hours of sunshine a day and one rainy day. September (47%) and June (50%) followed.
| Month | Sunset (Los Angeles time) | Cloud cover | Sunshine a day | Rainy days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 16:45 | 61% | 5.4 h | 8 |
| Feb | 17:33 | 73% | 5.1 h | 13 |
| Mar | 19:15 | 85% | 6 h | 19 |
| Apr | 19:59 | 60% | 9.9 h | 11 |
| May | 20:40 | 64% | 10.6 h | 10 |
| Junclearest | 21:09 | 50% | 12 h | 3 |
| Julclearest | 21:02 | 36% | 13.2 h | 1 |
| Aug | 20:20 | 54% | 11.5 h | 5 |
| Sepclearest | 19:20 | 47% | 9.8 h | 5 |
| Oct | 18:20 | 65% | 6.6 h | 14 |
| Nov | 16:32 | 87% | 3.6 h | 20 |
| Dec | 16:18 | 83% | 3.5 h | 22 |
The worst months are November (87% cloud, 20 rainy days), March (85%) and December (83%, 22 rainy days). Sunset moves from 16:18 in December to 21:09 in June, so the best light for your Space Needle tickets changes by almost five hours across the year. Arrive 45 to 60 minutes before sunset to catch the daylight, the colour and the lights coming on.
Sunset planner
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book this entry time (50 min before sunset)
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sunset, Los Angeles time
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typical cloud cover that week
Sunset and cloud cover for the same dates in 2025 at the deck (Open-Meteo historical weather (ERA5), 2025); sunset moves by about a minute between years.
What do Space Needle tickets get you? On a clear day the deck looks over downtown Seattle, Elliott Bay, Puget Sound and, according to the private tour listing, the Cascade Range and the Olympic Mountains. The calculator shows how far you can see from the deck height.
Calculator
159 m · 522 ft
km
to the horizon ( miles)
km
with typical atmospheric refraction
Geometric horizon d ≈ 3.57 × √h (km, h in metres); refraction adds about 8%. Haze and clouds usually limit the real view first. Formula: Distance to the horizon.
These are the places I would look for, with straight-line distances from the tower worked out from the Google Maps coordinates. Chihuly Garden and Glass and Seattle Center are both 0.09 km (0.06 mi) away, so you are looking almost straight down on them. Kerry Park, the classic postcard viewpoint, is 1.28 km (0.80 mi) south, and Pike Place Market is 1.35 km (0.84 mi). The Seattle Aquarium is 1.53 km (0.95 mi) away, the Seattle Great Wheel 1.68 km (1.04 mi), and Smith Tower 2.45 km (1.52 mi). The Fremont Troll is 3.4 km (2.11 mi) away, and Discovery Park, the farthest of the group, 6.82 km (4.24 mi).
Historical landmark
4.6 · 48,105 Google reviews
305 Harrison St, Seattle, WA 98109, United States
Open in Google Maps
Tourist attraction
4.7 · 25,359 Google reviews
305 Harrison St, Seattle, WA 98109, United States
Park
4.8 · 19,851 Google reviews
211 W Highland Dr, Seattle, WA 98119, United States
Historical landmark
4.6 · 80,151 Google reviews
85 Pike St, Seattle, WA 98101, United States
Tourist attraction
4.3 · 23,976 Google reviews
1483 Alaskan Way Pier 59, Seattle, WA 98101, United States
Tourist attraction
4.6 · 12,672 Google reviews
1301 Alaskan Wy, Seattle, WA 98101, United States
Historical landmark
4.6 · 3,332 Google reviews
506 2nd Ave, Seattle, WA 98104, United States
Tourist attraction
4.5 · 11,178 Google reviews
North 36th Street, Troll Ave N, Seattle, WA 98103, United States
Tourist attraction
4.8 · 8,460 Google reviews
Seattle, WA 98199, United States
If your Space Needle tickets are sold out or the weather is wrong, Seattle has a few other places to look at the city from. The table compares them by Google rating, reviews and distance from the Space Needle. I could not confirm which of them charge, so I mark them to check locally, except for the Sky View Observatory, which has its own page on this site.
| Deck | Google rating | Reviews | Distance | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Space Needle | 4.6 | 59,882 | the deck itself | Paid |
| Sky View Observatory | 4.7 | 3,914 | 2.26 km (1.40 mi) | Paid |
| Water Tower Observation Deck | 4.6 | 324 | 2.77 km (1.72 mi) | Check locally |
| Bell Harbor Marina Observation Deck | 4.7 | 19 | 1.06 km (0.66 mi) | Check locally |
The Space Needle is the one with the history and the glass floor, and it has by far the most reviews. The Sky View Observatory at Columbia Center is a taller downtown alternative, and the two together make a good pair if you want to see the tower itself in the skyline.
The official site lists general admission at $35 to $55, depending on the season and the time of day. On GetYourGuide I found a Space Needle and Chihuly Garden and Glass combo at $77.98, rated 4.73 from 2,761 reviews. The official combo with Chihuly is listed at $74, so the marketplace listing adds a little for booking convenience.
The official site says you can save up to 25% by bundling the Space Needle with Chihuly Garden and Glass, though the saving varies by time of day. It also lists discounts for groups, schools and special events, and a CityPASS at $119 to $139. I found no discount code on the sources I checked, so book early and compare.
I think it is on a clear day. Google Maps shows 4.6 stars from 59,882 reviews, and the combo with Chihuly Garden and Glass holds 4.73 from 2,761 reviews on GetYourGuide. One reviewer wished it had been clearer, so check the cloud cover for your month. July is the clearest, at 36% cloud cover.
I'd go about an hour before sunset and stay as the lights come on. You then see the city, Puget Sound and the mountains in daylight, then the skyline lit. The deck is open until 9:30 PM on Fridays and Saturdays, per the official site, but only until 7:30 PM Monday to Thursday, so a night visit depends on the day.
Not a full restaurant any more. Wikipedia says SkyCity closed in 2017. The official site now lists the seasonal Loupe Lounge from September to May, a Sunset Bar, a Revolving Bar, TipTop Cafe and a brunch. Book the lounge or brunch separately; none of the tickets on this page includes a meal at the top.
For the view, July. Open-Meteo data for 2025 shows 36% average cloud cover, 13.2 hours of sunshine a day and one rainy day in July, with September next at 47%. November, December and March are the cloudiest, at 83% to 87%. If you can only go in winter, book a flexible ticket and watch the forecast.
It is the last hour or so before sunset, and that time moves a lot. The Open-Meteo monthly averages put sunset at 16:18 in December and 21:09 in June. I'd arrive 45 to 60 minutes before sunset. The planner on this page gives the sunset time for any date you pick.