Downtown Aquarium

It opened in June 1999 as Colorado's Ocean Journey, a $93 million nonprofit that went bankrupt within three years; Landry's bought it in 2003 and runs it as the Downtown Aquarium, part exhibit hall and part restaurant. The exhibits follow two rivers to the sea (Colorado and Indonesia) through more than a million gallons of tanks, plus a stingray touch pool, otters, a 4-D theater and, oddly, Sumatran tigers. The Aquarium Restaurant seats you around a 150,000-gallon tank. Adult admission runs about $28 to $30, which reviewers call high for a one-hour visit; Denver CityPASS knocks it down. It sits at I-25 and 23rd across the Platte, on the summer Denver Trolley line.

Why go. A dependable indoor two hours with kids when it is snowing or 98 degrees.

Buy tickets online or with CityPASS, go on a weekday morning, and skip the restaurant unless the tank view is the point; the food is average and priced for tourists.