Birthdays, bachelorettes and nights out
Party buses and stretch limousines from Gig Harbor, Port Orchard and the South Sound into Tacoma and Seattle. Dinner, a show, a concert or a bar circuit, several stops on one booking, and the vehicle still there when you come out.
- Multiple stops,
one booking - The vehicle waits
between stops
Party bus and night out limo hire in Gig Harbor
Gig Harbor Limo runs chauffeured evening bookings for birthdays, bachelorette and bachelor parties, anniversaries, concerts, games and general nights out, from Gig Harbor, Fox Island, Port Orchard and across the South Sound into Tacoma and Seattle. Bookings are hourly with a minimum, because the vehicle waits between stops rather than dropping and leaving. A typical night is four to six hours: pickup at one address, dinner, one or two venues, and door-to-door drop-offs at the end.
A 20 to 30-passenger party bus is $300 to $350 per hour with a five-hour minimum, from $1,500, which is about $60 a head on a full bus. Stretch limousines are $175 to $225 per hour, and a ten-passenger Sprinter van is $175. Downtown Tacoma is roughly 25 to 35 minutes from Gig Harbor and Seattle is 60 to 90. Every passenger must be 21 or over. Friday and Saturday nights, holiday weekends and New Year's Eve carry higher rates and book out first. Call 253-333-0265.
Six versions of the same night
The vehicle does the same job in all of them. What changes is the number of stops, how late it runs, and whether the ride between places is meant to be part of the evening or just the gap between two parts of it.
Milestone birthdays
Thirtieth, fortieth, fiftieth, sixtieth. Usually a dinner plus one venue, a mixed-age group where somebody would otherwise have volunteered to drive, and a photo outside the vehicle that ends up being the one everyone posts.
Bachelorette and bachelor parties
The most-booked single reason after weddings themselves. Often a tasting run in the afternoon rolling into dinner and a venue at night, which makes it a longer booking than a straight night out. See weddings and bachelor parties.
Concerts and games
Tacoma Dome, Cheney Stadium, the Seattle arenas and stadiums. The value here is not the ride in, it is not sitting in the car park for 40 minutes afterwards while 20,000 people leave at once.
Dinner and a show
The Tacoma Theater District, where the Pantages, the Rialto and Theatre on the Square all sit within a few blocks. Dropped at the door, collected at the door, and no hunting for parking on Broadway at seven o'clock.
Girls' night and group dinners
Six to twelve people, one restaurant, maybe a second stop. The SUV or the Sprinter rather than the party bus, and often the cheapest booking on this page once it is split.
Holiday and office parties
December is the second-busiest month of our year after prom season. Company parties, team dinners and New Year's Eve, usually with drop-offs across half a dozen towns at the end. Book these in October.
A Tacoma night out, hour by hour
This is a fortieth birthday for fourteen people: pickup in Gig Harbor, dinner downtown, a show, one bar after. Yours will differ, but the two things that catch groups out are always the same, and both are at the end rather than the start.
Five hours, four stops
- Pickup, one addressEveryone meets at one house rather than being collected from six. It saves close to an hour of the booking, which is real money.
- Dinner, downtown TacomaDropped at the door. The chauffeur parks nearby and waits rather than going elsewhere, so running twenty minutes long costs nothing but time.
- The showTheater District or the Spanish Ballroom at McMenamins. Doors are a two-minute walk from where you are set down.
- One more stopOpera Alley or 6th Avenue. The chauffeur is told a rough finish time, and will come and find the group at it rather than waiting to be phoned.
- Drop-offs, every doorEach person to their own address in a sensible order. Nobody stands on Pacific Avenue at midnight refreshing an app.
The two things groups get wrong
Booking to the end of the show rather than the end of the night. A 9pm show finishing at 10:45 is not a five-hour night if anyone wants one more drink, and they always do. Overrun is charged in 30-minute increments at the hourly rate, which is a bad conversation to have at 11:50pm.
Multiple pickup addresses. Collecting fourteen people from six houses across Gig Harbor and Fox Island adds 45 to 60 minutes to the front of the booking. One meeting point is the single cheapest decision you can make. Drop-offs at the end are a different matter, and those we do individually as standard.
Late finishes
Dispatch runs overnight, so a 1am or 2am finish is routine rather than a special arrangement. If the night is likely to run long, book the hours you actually expect rather than hoping to extend, because on a Saturday the vehicle may well have a 6am airport run after you.
December is our second-busiest month after prom
Company parties, birthdays and New Year's Eve all land in the same four weeks. Book those in October, not in December.
A party bus is not the cheap option
For pure transport, a handful of rideshares is usually cheaper than a party bus, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Below is roughly what a fourteen-person night out to Tacoma looks like either way. The reason to book the bus is what the other columns say, not the first one.
| Option | Typical total | Group together | Waiting between stops | Main risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Four rideshares, each leg | $600–800 | No, arrives in four waves | 5–20 min each time | No cars west of the Narrows at midnight |
| Party bus, 5 hours | $1,500 | Yes, start to finish | None, it is parked outside | Highest cost of the three |
| Two SUVs, 5 hours | $1,500 | Split across two vehicles | None | Two vehicles to coordinate |
| Somebody drives | Fuel and the bridge | Yes | None | One person has a worse night than everyone else |
Where the maths actually flips: above about twenty people, on multi-stop nights where you would be re-hailing three or four times, and on any late return to Fox Island, Purdy or the Key Peninsula, where rideshare supply after midnight is thin enough that groups have genuinely been stranded. Below eight people going to one place and coming home, rideshare is the sensible answer and we will tell you so on the phone.
What you are actually paying for
Three things. The group arriving together and leaving together, which is the difference between a night out and four separate nights out that overlap. The vehicle being parked outside for the whole booking, so nothing has to be re-arranged between stops. And the ride itself counting as part of the evening rather than the gap between parts of it, which for a milestone birthday is often the point.
If none of those matter to your night, book the rideshares. That is a reasonable thing for us to say and we would rather say it than take a booking someone regrets.
The twenty minutes after the encore
Event nights are the easiest booking to justify and the one people think about last. A full house at the Tacoma Dome empties more than twenty thousand people onto a handful of streets and the I-5 on-ramps inside about twenty minutes. If you parked, you are in that. If you called a car, you are competing with several thousand other people calling a car at the same moment, on a surge multiplier, in a pickup zone that has been moved for the event.
A pre-booked vehicle is a different problem entirely. The pickup point is agreed before the night, not decided in a crowd, and the chauffeur is already in position rather than eight minutes away and dropping. On a Seattle arena or stadium night the difference is bigger again, because you are also avoiding the drive home over the bridge afterwards.
Tell us the event rather than just the address when you book. Venues move their pickup zones for large events, and dispatch would rather know which show it is than guess from the postcode.
- Pickup point agreed before the night
- Chauffeur in position before the doors
- No surge, the price is fixed at booking
- Late returns across the Narrows
Districts and venues we run to
Not a restricted list and not a partnership list. These are the places that come up most on our evening bookings, grouped by how far you are travelling and therefore by how many hours the night needs.
Gig Harbor
4 hoursThe shortest and cheapest booking on this page, because nothing crosses the bridge. Dinner on the waterfront plus a taproom is a comfortable four hours including door-to-door drop-offs.
- Downtown waterfront
- Tides Tavern
- The NetShed No. 9
- Ocean5
- 7 Seas Brewing
- Heritage Distilling
- Uptown restaurants
Tacoma
5–6 hoursTwenty-five to thirty-five minutes over the bridge and the densest set of options in the region. Most of the Theater District, Opera Alley and the waterfront are walkable from each other, so one drop can cover several stops.
- Pantages Theater
- Rialto Theater
- Theatre on the Square
- McMenamins Elks Temple
- Spanish Ballroom
- Opera Alley
- 6th Avenue
- Jazzbones
- Tacoma Comedy Club
- Proctor District
- Point Ruston
- Museum of Glass
- Tacoma Dome
- Cheney Stadium
Seattle and beyond
7–8 hoursSixty to ninety minutes each way depending on the hour, which makes it a longer and more expensive booking than most groups expect. Worth it for a specific show, less so for a general night out.
- Climate Pledge Arena
- Lumen Field
- T-Mobile Park
- Paramount Theatre
- The Showbox
- Benaroya Hall
- Capitol Hill
- Belltown
- Ballard
- White River Amphitheatre, Auburn
- Washington State Fair, Puyallup
- Emerald Queen showroom
Venues and districts are listed to show the routes we cover and do not imply an affiliation, partnership or endorsement. Bars and restaurants change hands often, so we confirm your stops are open and can take your group size before the date. Several downtown restaurants will not seat a party of twelve or more without a reservation made well in advance, and that is worth sorting before you book the vehicle rather than after.
What a night costs, split
Priced hourly at the published rate. The last column is what each person pays on a five-hour night with the vehicle full, which is the number that decides whether the group commits.
| Vehicle | Passengers | Minimum | Hourly rate | 5-hour night | Per person |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Luxury SUV | 6 | 3 hours | $150 | $750 | $125 |
| Sprinter Van | 10 | 3 hours | $175 | $875 | $88 |
| Lincoln Stretch | 10 | 4 hours | $175 | $875 | $88 |
| Chrysler Stretch Limo | 10 | 4 hours | $200 | $1,000 | $100 |
| Hummer Stretch | 14–20 | 5 hours | $200–250 | $1,000 | $56 |
| Cadillac Stretch Limo | 16 | 5 hours | $225 | $1,125 | $70 |
| Party Bus | 20–30 | 5 hours | $300–350 | $1,500 | $60 |
Hummer per-person is calculated at 18 passengers and the party bus at 25. Higher rates and longer minimums apply on Friday and Saturday nights, holiday weekends, December and New Year's Eve, and your quote confirms the exact rate and minimum for your date before you book. See the full fleet and rates.
Party bus or stretch limousine
A party bus has perimeter lounge seating, standing room, a sound system you can actually hold a party around, and colour lighting. It is the right call when the ride between stops is meant to be part of the night, and above about sixteen people it is the only sensible option.
A stretch limousine is lower, quieter and more formal. Bench seating around the sides suits a group that wants to sit and talk, and it photographs better outside a restaurant than a bus does. Ten to sixteen seats depending on which one.
A Sprinter van is the practical middle. Ten forward-facing seats, easy in and out at four stops, and the lowest per-head cost of anything under sixteen passengers. Less of an occasion, more of a good decision.
On board
- Sound system with aux or Bluetooth, your playlist
- Colour lighting and climate control set before you board
- Coolers and ice on request, brought out at each stop
- Complimentary bottled water
- Licensed, background-checked chauffeur in formal dress
- Fuel, taxes, tolls and the Narrows Bridge crossing
- All agreed stops, with the vehicle waiting at each
- Individual door-to-door drop-offs at the end
House rules, stated plainly
Most of this is Washington State law rather than company preference, and all of it is better said now than at the kerb at eleven o'clock.
Age and alcohol
Every passenger must be 21 or over on a night out booking, and the chauffeur may check ID. If your group includes anyone under 21, say so when you enquire and we will set the booking up correctly, with no alcohol on board. That is a normal request rather than an awkward one, and family birthdays come up often.
Alcohol is permitted in the limousines and party buses for guests of legal drinking age, subject to Washington State law and company policy. Tell us at booking and glassware, coolers and ice are set up before you board. There are no open containers in the sedans or SUVs, which are not licensed for it.
Cannabis is not permitted in any vehicle, at any age. Consuming it in a vehicle is illegal in Washington regardless of who is driving and puts the operating licence at risk. No smoking or vaping of any kind, either.
On the night
The chauffeur can decline service to anyone who is clearly unwell or has been over-served, and can end a booking that has become unsafe. This has come up a handful of times in the life of the business, and it is written here so nobody is surprised by it.
A cleaning fee applies to spills and damage. Standard across the industry, rarely charged. Coolers and bins help, and the chauffeur will sort both if you ask.
Capacity is a legal limit, not a guideline. A twenty-seat bus takes twenty people, and the chauffeur cannot take one more because somebody's friend turned up. If the group grows after booking, tell us early and we will move you up a class.
Nominate one organiser. One person holds the booking, confirms the route and settles the bill, and everyone pays their share to them. On a night with four stops and fourteen opinions, it matters that one person can change the plan.
Other reasons groups book us
Daytime version of the same booking
Casino runs to Emerald Queen and Little Creek, tasting tours through Olalla and the Kitsap taprooms, and the Tacoma brewery district. The chauffeur waits at every stop.
See casino and tasting tripsWhen the night has a wedding attached
Bachelorette and bachelor parties, plus full wedding day transport: bridal party vehicles, hotel-to-venue guest shuttles and the getaway car, built around your run sheet.
See weddings and bachelor partiesNight out and party bus questions
How much does a party bus cost for a night out
A 20 to 30-passenger party bus is $300 to $350 per hour with a five-hour minimum, so a night out starts at $1,500, which is about $60 a head on a full bus. A ten-passenger Sprinter van or Lincoln stretch is $175 per hour, from $875 for five hours. A six-passenger SUV is $150 per hour. Friday and Saturday nights, December and New Year's Eve carry higher rates and longer minimums, confirmed on your quote.
Is a party bus cheaper than getting rideshares
Usually not, and we would rather say so. For fourteen people going to Tacoma and back, four rideshares each way with late-night surge lands somewhere around $600 to $800 against $1,500 for a five-hour party bus. What you get for the difference is the group arriving and leaving together, the vehicle parked outside between stops, and the ride counting as part of the night. Above about twenty people, on multi-stop nights, or on a late return to Fox Island or the Key Peninsula where rideshare supply is thin, the maths flips in our favour.
How many hours should we book
Count from the first pickup to the last drop-off, then add an hour. A dinner and a show in Tacoma with one stop after is a five to six-hour night; Gig Harbor only is four; Seattle is seven or eight because of the driving. The most common mistake is booking to the end of the show rather than the end of the night. Overrun is charged in 30-minute increments at your hourly rate.
Can we make several stops on one booking
Yes, and it is included rather than charged per stop. Send the list when you book and we will put them in a sensible order and check the drive times. The chauffeur waits at each one rather than dropping and leaving, so a stop running twenty minutes long costs you time rather than money. Adding an unplanned stop on the night is usually fine too, as long as it fits the hours.
Can we drink on the party bus
Guests of legal drinking age may drink in the limousines and party buses, subject to Washington State law and company policy. Tell us at booking and glassware, coolers and ice are set up before you board. There are no open containers in the sedans or SUVs, which are not licensed for it. Cannabis is not permitted in any vehicle at any age, and there is no smoking or vaping in any vehicle.
Does everyone have to be 21
On a standard night out booking, yes, and the chauffeur may check ID. If your group includes anyone under 21, say so when you enquire and we will set it up as a different booking with no alcohol on board. Family birthdays and mixed-age group dinners come up regularly and are perfectly straightforward, it just needs to be arranged up front rather than discovered at the kerb.
Do you do concerts at the Tacoma Dome and the Seattle arenas
Yes, and event nights are one of the better reasons to book. The pickup point is agreed before the night rather than decided in a crowd, the chauffeur is in position before the show ends, and the price is fixed at booking rather than surging with everyone else's app at the same moment. Tell us which event rather than just the address, because venues move their pickup zones for large shows.
Can you pick everyone up from different addresses
We can, but it is the most expensive decision in the booking. Collecting fourteen people from six houses across Gig Harbor and Fox Island adds 45 to 60 minutes to the front of the night, and that hour is billed at the hourly rate. Have the group meet at one address. Drop-offs at the end are different: those are individual, door to door, and included as standard.
How far in advance should we book
Two to four weeks for a normal Friday or Saturday, and six to eight for December, New Year's Eve or a big event weekend. December is our second-busiest month of the year after prom season, and company parties book it out early. Midweek nights are often available at short notice. If your date is close, call 253-333-0265 anyway.
How late can the booking run
As late as you need. Dispatch is staffed 24 hours a day, so a 1am or 2am finish is routine rather than a special arrangement. Book the hours you actually expect rather than planning to extend, because a Saturday night vehicle may well have an early airport run after you and the extension may not be available.
Can several people split the payment
Split it between yourselves rather than through us. One person holds the booking, pays the deposit and balance and confirms the route, and everyone else settles up with them. It keeps it clear who can change the plan on the night, which matters more than it sounds like it should once a group is three stops in and has opinions.
What if someone has had too much
Getting everyone home safely is the point of the booking, and the chauffeur will do that. The vehicle is parked outside throughout, so anyone who wants to sit out a stop can. What the chauffeur will not do is continue a booking that has become unsafe for the group or the driver, and service can be declined to anyone who is clearly unwell. Bottled water is on board and coolers come out at each stop if you ask.
Plan the night
Send the date, the group size and where you want to go. We will come back with a plan that fits the hours, and tell you honestly if a couple of rideshares would serve you better.