Don’t forget the Denver Zoo has its annual Zoo Lights event in December. The zoo lights up a large portion of its park with Christmas lights of all kinds and an array of animal light sculptures. If you are looking for places to take kids to see Christmas lights in Denver, Zoo Lights should be at the top of your list. You can find more information about Denver Zoo Lights 2011 on the Undefeated Daddy blog along with other useful dad parenting tips.
More Christmas events and attractions coming soon!
The Denver Federal Reserve building is in downtown Denver on 16th Street between Curtis and Arapahoe. The free 16th Street mall shuttle bus passes directly in front of the Federal Reserve, a large gray stone building with a wrought iron fence surrounding it. Until recently, the only way members of the public could see inside the Federal Reserve in Denver was as part of an official tour group. Now, the downtown Denver Fed bank offers a new Denver tourist attraction called the Money Museum.
Unlike tours of the Denver Mint or the main Federal Reserve building, no reservations are required for the Money Museum in the Denver Federal Reserve Bank. (Tours of the Federal Reserve building require reservations made at least two weeks in advance.) The Money Museum hours are open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, except for banking holidays.
Admission to the Money Museum is free. People older than 18 have to provide a photo ID for admission.
Highlights of the Money Museum include a display of $30 million in cash, displays of historical U.S. currency, various interactive exhibits and a station where you can design your own money. Visitors to the Money Museum also receive a bag of actual U.S. dollar bills that has been shredded by the bank because it is no longer fit for circulation.
With its location right downtown, the Denver Money Museum makes a great stop not only for travelers sightseeing in Denver, but also for people attending events at the Denver Convention Center, or just for people who work downtown on their lunch hour. There is no public parking for the Money Museum, so you’ll need to grab a parking meter or park in a parking lot or parking garage downtown.
If you are looking for information about the Denver Federal Reserve Bank online, you’ll find it under the Kansas City Fed’s website. The Denver bank is a branch of the Kansas City Federal Reserve.
Although, it also has to do with money, the Denver Mint is a different organization and not directly connected with the Federal Reserve. You can find information about touring the Denver Mint at the the United States Mint website. Note that tours of the Denver Mint do require tickets which can be purchased in advanced. Standby tickets can be picked up starting at 7:30 a.m. at the mint. Tours there are free as well, but you generally cannot just show up and walk in because the tours sell out in advance.
Be sure to hop on the free 16th Street Shuttle bus and have lunch or dinner at one of the many great restaurants in the downtown Denver.
Colorado is world famous for its natural beauty, and there are TONS of fun things to do in Denver that are artistic, scenic, or historic, but sometimes, what you’re really looking for is a big ball of man-made fun.
Boondocks in the northern Denver Metro area is a family amusement park with go carts, bumper boats, video games, and miniature golf all in one location. Unlike Denver’s indoor amusement park, Funtastic Fun, most of the good stuff at Boondocks is outside, but with 300 days of sunshine per year, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
There are some really great things to like about Boondocks, especially for families with children looking for a way to have a good time for the whole family, including Mom and Dad, and not just by watching the kiddos have fun either.
The first thing about Boondocks that makes it a fun place to go in the Denver area for families is that it has go-carts. Of course, lots of place have go karts. What makes Boondocks fun for family groups is that it has different types of go carts. There are little kiddie go carts that the kids can drive on their own. They go slower around a small track, but that is no downside to a four-year old who gets to drive their own go cart all by themselves!
Of course, slow moving go carts are only so much fun for children and their parents. What would be really fun would be if parents and kids could go on a go cart together around the regular full-speed track.
Can I get an amen?
Boondocks has two-seater go carts for adults and kids to ride together. They go out on the regular track with the regular go carts, so if you have one child who is old enough to drive a full-sized go cart by themselves, but another kid who isn’t big enough to steer a go kart on their own, they can still go out and race together with Mom or Dad in the driver’s seat.
If Go Carts aren’t your thing, there is other fun stuff to do at Boondocks. During the warmer summer months, they have two-person boats, perfect for parent with child, that not only motor around the little water lagoon, they also have water guns on the front that you can use to squirt other riders with.
Unfortunately, there is not a no-squirt zone, so you just have to get over it and get a little wet, or skip this ride.
One important boat ride squirt tip: Don’t just pick your favorite color boat. Watch the other riders and note which boats have a squirter that fires on a low trajectory. Nothing is worse that being squeezed up against another boat getting soaked while your water jet fires harmlessly over their head!
The miniature golf course at Boondocks gets a mixed review. While the two full-length 18-hole putt-putt golf courses give you plenty of play and plenty of length, they actually get pretty boring after a while. Its seems that Boondocks decided that windmills and waterfalls and all the things that make mini-golf great are best looked at instead of played on.
The windmill that you see from the I-25 highway is indeed part of the mini-golf course, but it doesn’t have anything to do with it. You don’t hit a ball past the spinning blades, or even bank a shot off of its sides. In fact, there are no tricks to Boondocks putt-putt course. It’s just AstroTurf with a spot to put your ball down and then a hole. Sometimes there is a curve or a little hill, sometimes not, but there isn’t ever anything unique or interactive.
If you remember the days of jumping your ball over water ramps, or a swinging cowboy arm going back and forth in front of the hole, save your money for a different miniature golf course. If you just want to putt the ball without any challenges or distractions, Boondocks mini-golf is for you.
Inside Boondocks is a decent collection of video games. They aren’t cheap and the cavernous room is really loud with the games turned up so you can hear them and the music turned open so you can hear it over the games. Don’t expect Grandma or Grandpa to hang out here and Mom and Dad probably won’t be huge fans either unless they find a fun game to play.
In all, Boondocks gets recommended for what it has outside.
Funtastic Fun is a fun place to take kids in Denver. Funtastic Fun discounts can be hard to come by, but it never hurts to search for coupons online or for printable coupons. If that doesn’t work, try taking a peak at all of those free parenting magazines that that put out all over town.
Like many Colorado attractions, Funtastic Fun has different hours for summer and winter. In the summer, when kids are out of school are parents are looking for something fun to do with kids in Denver, they look for playgrounds, amusement parks, rides, and carnivals. Many of them end up at Denver’s Fantastic Fun on those summer days when it is too hot to be outside, because Funtastic Fun’s best feature is that it is INDOORS with air conditioning.
However, when fall rolls around and the kids head back to school, a big chunk of Funtastic Fun’s target age group becomes unavailable Monday through Friday, and so like many other kid-friendly places in Colorado, Funtastic cuts back the hours it is open during the week.
This is too bad for the parents of young children who either are not in school yet, or who are in half-day Kindergarten, because everyone knows that it is the busiest on weekends. The good news is that Funtastic Fun is open two weekdays in the Winter and Fall. The standard weekday Winter hours for Funtastic Fun are open on both Thursday and Friday at 10:00 AM. If you have preschoolers, this is the perfect time to take them for some uncrowded fun on carnival rides like a Ferris wheel, teacup rids, and for some jumping and running in a bouncy castle.
Of course, they are open on weekends too, also at 10:00 AM. Older kids can accompany younger siblings then. Even though it makes sense to be inside on a cold winter days, Funtastic Fun is still busier in the summer than in the winter, so don’t hesitate to drop by, even if it is a weekend day.
With it being off season, you might have better luck finding online coupons for Funtastic Fun or printable coupons with discounted admission to Funtastic Fun.
Categories: For Families, For Kids Tags: amusement parks, bouncy castle, carnival rides, colorado attractions, denver kids, Families, ferris wheel, Fun, funtastic fun, printable coupons