Things to do with your Family in downtown San Diego!

Need to spend some quality time with your family? Here is a list of family-friendly fun places in downtown San Diego!!!…

• The New Children’s Museum. Think, play, create and visit The New Children’s Museum. Check out the newly designed green building with transparent, flexible spaces exposing the buildings construction and design. Visit the gallery childsplay or give the kids a chance to create at one of the many studios. Open daily from 9a.m. to 4 p.m, closed wednesdays. Adults and Children: $10, Seniors and Military: $5, Children under one: Free NCM Members: Free. Designed for children from toddler to teen. 200 West Island Avenue,Downtown San Diego. Corner of Front Street and West Island Avenue. www.thinkplaycreate.org

• Get ready to enjoy the sights and sounds of the magnificent San Diego Bay as you embark on a Hornblower cruise! Hornblower Cruises & Events welcomes you aboard comfortable yachts touring beautiful San Diego Bay. Relax in comfort on the observation deck while a professional crew narrates the rich history, local points of interest and facts about San Diego landmarks and military. Catering to your interests, Hornblower cruises boasts several boating options. www.hornblower.com

• The Omni San Diego Hotel, the ONLY MLB Park physically connected to a hotel, links Padres fans to PETCO Park via a skybridge. Within the hotel is also a complimentary baseball memorabilia museum featuring the gloves, bats and uniforms of famous players as well as photos and other miscellaneous treasures. Among the most notable items are the cleats Joe DiMaggio wore during his 1941 56-game hitting streak. 675 L Street. www.omnihotels.com

• Old Town Trolley Tours invites you to come along with San Diego’s best tour conductors as they combine colorful anecdotes, humorous stories and well researched historical information into a fast moving two hour narrative that’s both entertaining and educational. Join them as they turn back the pages of history and relive San Diego’s early days as it became the Birthplace of California. In Old Town San Diego (sometimes called the “Jamestown of the Pacific”), you will experience early Americana with its distinctive “West Coast Style” Spanish flavor. You will have the opportunity to get off at any of the convenient stops situated close to all popular attractions, shops and restaurants. When you’re ready, just re-board the trolley and it’s on with the tour! Spend as much time as you like in any of the locations as you make one complete loop. On the tour you will see and visit: Old Town State Park, Seaport Village, Horton Plaza, Coronado Island, Hotel Del Coronado, San Diego Zoo, Gaslamp Quarter, San Diego Museum of Art, Natural History Museum, Aerospace Museum, Lindbergh Field, Naval Station San Diego, Balboa Park, El Prado, Heritage Park, Star of India, Whaley House and much, much more! www.trolleytours.com/San-Diego/

• Now there’s a faster, more exotic way take in the awe-inspiring scenery of San Diego Bay. Next Level Sailing offers the ultimate sailing experience: racing, leisure cruising, day charters or learning to sail on 80-foot International America’s Cup Class (IACC) yachts. It’s by far the finest sailing experience America’s Finest City has to offer. In a 2 hour excursion you can sit back and relax as you glide through San Diego Bay, breezing by popular sites including America’s Cup Harbor, Coronado Bay Bridge, San Diego Convention Center, Downtown San Diego Skyline, Cabrillo National Monument, North Island Naval Airstation and much more. www.nextlevelsailing.com

• Enjoy Balboa Park – a special place where you can experience San Diego’s natural beauty, wonderful art and culture and stunning Spanish Revival architecture. There are so many things to do and see in the Park: museums ranging from art to science to air and space to natural history or anthropology, performing arts from plays at the Tony Award® -winning Old Globe to concerts on the magnificent Spreckels Organ Pavilion outdoor stage, lush landscaping and lovely gardens, the world famous San Diego Zoo, places for fun with families and recreation for all and, of course, unique shopping, restaurants and casual outdoor dinning. www.balboapark.org

• Make a Splash on the SEAL TOUR! Experience San Diego as it was meant to be appreciated, by land and by sea! The brand new “Hydra Terra’s” provide you with the unique ability to see America’s Finest City on San Diego’s only amphibious sightseeing tour. This 90-minute fully-narrated journey departs from Seaport Village located on Harbor Drive at the Embarcadero. As you travel along our beautiful Big Bay by land, you will hear the stories of early sailors as well as the history of our 14-mile long working bay. You also will learn about the importance of the military here in San Diego. The tour on land takes you past the San Diego International Airport dedicated to aviator Charles Lindbergh, just one of the many people you will hear about on your tour. www.sealtours.com

• Live the adventure! Experience Midway Magic at the USS Midway San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum. Honor the legend aboard the longest-serving aircraft carrier in U.S. Navy history–a 47 year odyssey that spanned the end of WWII and the liberation of Kuwait in 1991! Located downtown in San Diego at Navy Pier, Midway provides a dynamic and enriching experience “from boiler to bridge.” A visit to Midway instills a greater appreciation for courage, freedom, and service to country. The museum features a self-guided audio tour with admission to more than 40 exhibits and 21 restored aircraft, interactive, story-telling docents, many of them Midway veterans, more than 40 exhibits and displays, access to engineering, mess deck, berthing spaces, foc’s’le, hangar deck, officers country, flight deck and the island superstructure, two types of optional flight simulators and 21 completely restored aircraft, with more on the way! www.midway.org

• Experience Seaport Village, the 14-acre waterfront shopping, dining and entertainment complex, recreating a harbor side setting of a century ago. Includes 57 one of a kind shops, 13 casual dining eateries and four fine dining waterfront restaurants. Walk along the four miles of meandering cobblestone pathways bordered by ponds, lakes, fountains and colorful, lush landscaping. A monthly calendar features live musical entertainment including blues, jazz, country and swing. A talented cast of street performers and artisans including jugglers, caricaturists, mimes, face painters, balloon sculptors and oriental brush artists complete the line up. Be sure not to miss the historic antique carousel with hand carved animals by Charles Looff in 1895. This carousel features 54 animals, 13 of which are menagerie animals, including a giraffe, dragon, teddy bear, elephant, camel, dog, lion and more. It also includes 2 horse-drawn chariots. “This is one of the two best carousels in the entire nation,” says Brad Perron, owner of Historic Carousels. “Most of the carved animals on carousels of this vintage have been sold to individual collectors. And they just don’t make them this way anymore.” www.seaportvillage.com

• The stirring San Diego Maritime Museum north of the B Street Pier (1306 N. Harbor Dr., 234-9153), which is home to the majestic, 142-year-old barque, Star of India, the world’s oldest ship still able to go to sea. The Star of India is berthed with the historic steam ferry Berkeley and the historic steam yacht Medea. Over her remarkable career, the beautifully restored Star of India, which started her career as a cargo ship sailing between Great Britain and India, circumnavigated the globe 21 times, bringing tens of thousands of colonists from Britain to New Zealand and even serving a stint in the Bering Sea. www.sdmaritime.com

• A spoonful of downtown’s “Rowdy West” heritage makes the history lesson go down as pure pleasure. The Gaslamp Quarter Historical Foundation, which is located in the 150-year-old William Heath Davis House at 410 Island Avenue (“New Town” San Diego’s oldest structure), is the point of departure for a leisurely self-guided audio tour, narrated by “Wyatt Earp” and his misses. For a more touchy-feely experience, the Foundation offers guided walking tours at 11 a.m. Saturdays, also departing from the Davis House. Donations are suggested for both tours. The Foundation will even customize a special-focus group tour (Ghosts of the Gaslamp, anyone?), given a month’s notice. For information on tour options, call 233-4692 — and don’t be startled when “Alonzo Horton,” the Father of New Town San Diego, answers. www.gaslampquarter.org

• Be sure to not miss out on the famous Ghirardelli Soda Fountain & Chocolate Shop. Take a seat and enjoy the warm day with an ice-cream cone or stop in for an after-dinner treat which is sure to be a hit with the kids. Designed to be shared among many people their sundaes come loaded with bananas, eight different toppings, whipped cream, nuts and of course cherries! For more information call 619.234.2449 or visit www.ghirardelli.com

- SDGoDowntown.com

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