An hour out of Anacortes and through the islands. Reserve the car ahead - it is the one part of the trip worth planning.
Kenmore Air comes down onto the water from Seattle in about an hour, the San Juans laid out underneath you the whole way.
Washington State Ferries sail from Anacortes to Orcas Island, a crossing of about an hour. If you are bringing a car in summer or over a weekend, the reservation is the part of the trip to sort out first - sailings fill weeks ahead, and the island is not somewhere you can improvise a plan B.
This is the one people miss. Orcas and Friday Harbor are the two terminals where eastbound vehicles need a reservation too - Lopez and Shaw don't, which is where the "you only book one way" advice comes from. Book both legs in the same sitting, or you can find yourself in a standby line on the day you were meant to fly home.
Space is released in three batches, each at 7:00 a.m. Pacific. Peak summer sailings can go in minutes, so it is worth being at the keyboard for the first one.
Roughly a tenth of each boat is held back for standby, so missing all three is not fatal - it just means arriving early and waiting. If that is where you end up, the terminal cameras on Orcas360 will show you how long the holding lanes already are before you drive down.
On foot or by bike, none of this applies. Walk-on passengers and bicycles never need a reservation in either direction - turn up, buy a ticket and board. Tell us if you are arriving that way and we will sort out getting you up to the lodge from the landing.
Kenmore Air flies floatplanes daily from Seattle - Lake Union and Boeing Field - straight to Orcas, which turns a half-day journey into about an hour and is a spectacular flight in its own right. You can also fly into Orcas Island Airport (ORS) with San Juan Airlines. Both land a short drive from the lodge, and neither involves a ferry queue.
Check in 30 minutes before, in both directions. A reservation holds your space only until then; arrive later and you lose it and travel standby like everyone else. Build the buffer into the drive rather than the ferry queue.
Cancel by 5 p.m. the day before, or you are charged. A no-show costs between a quarter and the whole of the one-way vehicle and driver fare. If plans change, cancelling is free right up to that deadline, so cancel early rather than hoping.
From Seattle it is about an hour and a half north on I-5 to the Anacortes ferry terminal, then the crossing. Fill up on gas and do the big grocery run before you sail - the island has both, at island prices - and note that the terminal is a few minutes outside Anacortes itself, not in town.
Questions about the trip? Email info@timberlodgeorcas.com and we'll help you work out which sailing to aim for.