46. Carpenter Recreation Center
City: Denver, CO
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (303) 255-7800
Address: 11151 Colorado Blvd.
Description: The Carpenter Recreation Center is a fantastic indoor 15,000-square-foot aquatics center, which includes artificially generated waves, lap swimming, a raindrop play area with waterfall and Jacuzzi, a lazy river, and a waterslide.
47. The Golden Community Center
City: Denver, CO
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (303) 384-8100
Description: The Golden Community Center has an indoor pool that kids will love, with a raindrop play area, waterslide, and hot tub as well as a lap pool and leisure pool.
48. Water World
City: Denver, CO
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (303) 427-7873
Insider Pick:
Description: Metro Denver’s biggest outdoor water park, Water World offers more than 64 acres of aquatic fun. Float down a circular series of chutes and pools on an inner tube. Ride a huge rubber raft down a torrent. Sit on a plastic sled that plunges almost straight down and builds up enough speed to aquaplane across the pool at the bottom. Or try the newest attraction, the Zoomerang. Water World has it all. The park also added a Journey to the Center of the Earth ride, in which you cruise through caves where moving dinosaurs menace you. Water World is open from late May to the end of summer. If you’re age 60 and older or age 3 and younger, it’s free. Check the website for promotional discounts.
49. Westminster City Park Recreation Center
City: Denver, CO
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (303) 460-9690
Address: 10455 Sheridan Blvd.
Description: This indoor facility has a large children’s pool with a tile beach sloping gently at one end, a fountain, and a slide just for kids. The main pool for lap swimmers bulges out at one side under a waterfall. You can go behind the waterfall and look through windows to get an underwater view of the next pool, one floor above and dedicated entirely to swinging out on and dropping from a rope fastened at the ceiling 3 stories up. Above the rope-swing pool is the beginning of a waterslide that ends with a splash in the main pool.
City: Denver, CO
Category: Tours & Attractions
Address: 6715 W. Colfax Ave.
51. Gunther Toody’s
City: Denver, CO
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (303) 399-1959
Address: 4500 E. Alameda Ave.
Description: The staff at Gunther Toody’s dress like characters from Grease at this 1950s concept restaurant, and they usually do such a good job of acting their sassy, gum-chewing parts that there must be a Gunther Toody’s acting school somewhere. The only games are a few classic pinball machines, and it’s not exclusively a kid restaurant. But that’s why we’re mentioning it here, because it deserves wider recognition as a great, non-arcade dining place for kids and their families. Additional locations include: 9220 E. Arapahoe Rd., Englewood (303-799-1958); 7355 Ralston Rd., Arvada (303-422-1954); 8266 W. Bowles Ave., Littleton (303-932-1957); and 301 W. 104th St., Northglenn (303-453-1956).
52. Pikes Peak Cog Railway
City: Denver, CO
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (719) 685-5401
Description: Adults become kids again when riding the world’s highest cog train. Kids who most enjoy the experience are those of an age and temperament to tolerate a long ride. Reservations are required.
53. Platte Valley Trolley
City: Denver, CO
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (303) 458-6255
Address: 2785 N. Speer Blvd.
Description: This turn-of-the-20th-century streetcar tour is for all ages, but those who grew up watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood on television may recognize its near-exact resemblance to the streetcar on the TV show. You’ll enjoy a narrated tour along the Platte River, with bits of history and expositions on features of this area such as Sports Authority Field at Mile High and Golda Meir’s former residence. The hour tour goes up Lakewood Gulch, along the tracks where the interurban trolley used to run from Denver to Golden. Children 6 or younger may prefer the half-hour tour. The trolley closes during winter months, operating between April and October. To get to the trolley, park at the Children’s Museum of Denver and walk east to the Platte River.
City: Denver, CO
Category: Tours & Attractions
Address: 7711 E. Academy Blvd.
55. Buck Recreation Center
City: Denver, CO
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (303) 797-8787
Address: 2004 W. Powers Ave.
Description: If your child loves butterflies, this place is a perfect destination. More than 1,600 butterflies live in a 7,200-square-foot tropical forest. At the emergence viewing area, you can watch the last two stages of metamorphosis as butterflies emerge from their chrysalides. Outside is a butterfly garden, with flowers designed to attract butterflies. The center is also home to a variety of other insects, arachnids, aquatic invertebrates, and plants. The pavilion is open daily, but closes on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.
56. Denver Botanic Gardens
City: Denver, CO
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (720) 865-3500
Address: 1007 York St.
Insider Pick:
Description: Kids of all ages enjoy these lovely gardens and the tropical conservatory but chances are good that children will be more interested in the changing menu of year-round kid activities, such as the Pumpkin Fest and the summer evening concerts. It’s also a pretty place to run around, with a couple of grassy knolls that small kids love to climb on and roll down. It’s a nice place for a picnic. The gardens are open daily, with reduced winter hours.
57. The Denver Museum of Nature and Science
City: Denver, CO
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (303) 322-7009
Address: 2001 Colorado Blvd. (in City Park
Insider Pick:
Description: This museum, is one of the greatest places around for kids. When you walk under the claws of the huge Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton as you enter the front door, you know you’ve entered a place of wonder. The museum has some great children’s educational programs, but they fill up frighteningly fast once their scheduling becomes public knowledge. The museum is open daily.
58. The Denver Zoo
City: Denver, CO
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (303) 376-4800
Insider Pick:
Description: You can’t miss with a zoo, and the Denver Zoo may well be Metro Denver’s most popular kid place of all. It’s open daily, with some wonderful special events centered around the seasons.
59. Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge
City: Denver, CO
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (303) 289-0232
Description: Take a 2-hour bus tour of one of the country’s former toxic waste sites, now overrun with all kinds of wildlife. On this tour you hear the history of the area as well as its environmental cleanup. If you’re lucky you’ll also see eagles, hawks, mule deer, and prairie dogs. If the wildlife is out romping, this will be one of those “WOW!” experiences. Entrance is free. The refuge is open daily except for holidays.
60. The Wild Animal Sanctuary
City: Denver, CO
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (303) 536-0118
Address: 1946 County Rd. 53
Description: Located northeast of Denver, this 720-acre refuge for large carnivores is a rescue center for animals that have been abandoned or subjected to neglect or cruelty. More than 200 animals, including tigers, leopards, bears, lions, wolves, and other animals, roam freely in any of 21 separate habitats. Overhead walkways provide a bird’s-eye view of the animals.