This is true....and sometimes even the "cheap" hotels around Sea-tac aren't cheap. My wife and I got stuck at Sea-tac last March and we literally walked along the street with the hotels looking for something reasonable for a quick night's sleep...Motel 6 was sold out and the Red Roof Inn I think was nearly $100! We found a place called the Sea-tac Inn that was only $49....we should have known what kind of place it was going to be when we saw the sign at the front desk that said, "no refunds after 10 minutes"....yikes! At least we got a decent nights sleep and they had an airport shuttle in the morning. I know SEA has some really nice parts of town, but the area around the airport and even the sights along the light rail route to downtown don't provide visitors with a very good first impression.