We stayed at the HI Express near the Space Needle post-cruise two summers ago. You may want to note that parking is really tight there. We had rented a car (asked for a full size but the smallest they had was an SUV that was way too big and made it more difficult to find a decent parking space). We only took out the car one day out of three to drive down to Olympia.

We ended up walking to the Space Needle a lot. There's a mall with a food court but only one store (go figure). There's a Children's Museum in the basement -- really for small kids only. We spent a big chunk of time at the Pacific Science Museum -- we all enjoyed it. It's just a weird walk over from the hotel -- have to walk all the way to the intersection. But doable. Some people complained on tripadvisor.com but I think they were exaggerating the distance. There was also a Thai restaurant within walking distance that we got take-out from (there's a frig and microwave in your room) and we asked some people for their recs and we were directed toward a local diner (Ma's or something like that).

Our room faced the highway (the one you can't cross but need to walk around) but we didn't have a problem with noise.

The one other thing I remember is that my hubby and daughter went for a swim in the hotel indoor pool and they said it wasn't heated.