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CN Tower – Rise to the heights. Start early to
avoid lines at the world's tallest freestanding structure (1, 815 feet,
553 meters), the CN Tower. Street level, walk through the Observation
Pre-Show display of historical building techniques. Zoom up to the Look
Out Level: 1,136 ft above the street with the best view of the whole
city. Kids, keep your eyes peeled: lightening strikes the tower during summer
months more than any other spot in Toronto. |
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Next stop, one level down and probably kids' most popular
spot: the Glass Floor, 256 feet of glass designed to "withstand
the weight of 14 hippos." What kid can resist jumping around seemingly
suspended 1,122 feet in the air? |
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Back down on the ground floor is the Ultimate Roller Coaster,
a virtual reality ride through mountains and forests. For really little
ones, try the tamer "Easy Glide." |
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Hungry after all that jumping
and zooming around? Two restaurants at the top have spectacular views, a
cafe on the ground floor has kid menus. |
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Tip: To avoid waiting in line,
use your Toronto
CityPass. |
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Union Station in the middle of town is a great way
to get almost anywhere: access to the rail, subway, and PATH systems. |
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Getting Around the core is easy in all kinds of weather because
of the PATH system: a 10 kilometer underground pedestrian shopping
area running below street level from Union Station to City Hall, with signs
indicating streets above. Kids like the strangeness of a subterranean world,
and may be a little more willing to walk and shop here. Reach the PATH
from any downtown subway station and many major buildings, including hotels
and shopping centers. Click
here for a PATH map. |
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Virtual Hockey
– Play Virtual Hockey at the Hockey Hall of Fame, in downtown's BCE Place. Dedicated to Canada's favorite sport, kids will have a
blast putting on masks & gloves to "play" against Wayne
Gretzky or Mark Messier. Admission prices are a bit stiff, but
it is a day pass with in-and-out privileges, and this really is a must-do
for hockey fans. In the TSN Broadcast Zone try your skill
at a play-by-play of famous games. The Bell Great Hall holds the
holy grail of hockey: the Stanley Cup, along with other NHL trophies and
other hockey memorabilia. Finally, walk through a replica of the Montreal
Canadiens dressing room. Click here for schedule and ticket info. |
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Museums – |
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Science Centre –Don't miss the Ontario Science Centre on Don Mill Road: kids who love
science will be in heaven, kids who don't may catch the bug! The Centre
has over 800 exhibits, demos, and an OmniMax theatre, so you'll have to
pace yourself. On a schedule? Skip the OmniMax (expensive and a distraction
from the exhibits) and have each kid pick a "must do" among the
dozen exhibition halls, such as the "Information Highway," "Human
Body," "Sports," "Food." The most popular exhibit
is "Timescape: Unearthing the Mysteries of Time" where you play
with past, present, future. (Tip: Use your Toronto
CityPass.) |
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Royal
Ontario Museum – The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is Canada’s largest museum, considered
one world's best. The collection includes archaeology, natural history,
and decorative arts. Best bets: The ROM's Discovery Gallery is
a hands-on mini-museum of things from the Museum's collections. Kids can
use microscopes and ultraviolet lamps for self-directed exploration, try
on armor or dig for dinosaurs. Really little kids will like Franklin's
World, based on the children's series, with a little pond, meadow, and
Franklin's house. Don't miss the Hands-on Biodiversity interactive
gallery, with hundreds of specimens you can handle and activity stations,
including discovery boxes, touch tables, costumes, and "living displays,
such as an active Beehive. (Tip: Use your Toronto
CityPass.) |
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Next
door to the ROM you'll find the Children's Own Museum with tons of
interactive exhibits geared towards kids under 8, including a "Main
Street" where they can play at being shop keepers, or hang out in the
workshop to sculpt, paint, and build. |
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Art
Gallery of Ontario – The Art Gallery of Ontario is Canada’s oldest art gallery with an impressive
collection paintings and drawings in several collections. You may want to
focus on the Canadian Historical and the Contemporary Collections to really
get a Canadian perspective. |
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Visit on "Family Sundays," with special kid-oriented
activities (they may get to work with painting, sculpture, printmaking or
dress up like the figures in famous paintings!). Super Sundays are the first
Sunday of every month and include performances, authors, illustrators, family
tours and films. |
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Bata
Shoe Museum – The Bata Shoe Museum is a fun stop starting with
the architecture: the museum is made of limestone and glass at odd angles,
making it a Toronto landmark. Inside are over 10,000 shoes spanning 4,500
years, from Egyptian sandals to Chinese bound foot shoes to Elton John’s
platforms and Picasso's pony boots(!) This is one museum likely to have
everyone giggling. Plan to spend lots of time here: after touring the collections
kids will want to do shoe "dress up," check out the puppet theater,
and try crafts. |
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Metropolitan
Toronto Police Museum and Discovery Centre at Toronto police headquarters
has a collection of weapons and tools for criminal investigation collected
since 1946. There are historical and modern exhibits, and interactive displays.
Besides the exhibits, kids can climb onto a motorcycle, "drive"
a police car, or see what it feels like to sit on the wrong side of the
bars in a jail cell. |
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Theater – Toronto is only behind London
and New York in the English language world for number of theaters and performances:
no matter what your taste or the ages of your kids, there are likely to
be several choices that will fit your family. |
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The
Elgin & Winter Garden Theatre Centre is a national historic site:
the last stacked Edwardian theater in the world. Built for vaudeville in
1913, if your kids have never experienced a "grand" theater this
magical place will knock them out. Downstairs the 1,500-seat Elgin theater
is a gilt and ornate plaster beauty with "royal boxes" where
big shows like "Cats" or "Peter Pan" are presented.
The smaller Winter Garden upstairs gets its name from thousands of beech
boughs and lanterns hanging from the ceiling and trompe l'oeil paintings
garden scenes on walls. |
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Tip: Don't miss out on a locals favorite: several public
libraries in town, such as the Woodside Square Library and the Barbara Frum
Library, often mount (free) performances for kids! |
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Chinatown – Chinatown in Toronto is
one of the largest Chinese communities in North America. Start on Spaldina
Avenue (behind City Hall): sculptures of mythical figures "guard"
the entrance. Explore Chinese herb shops with their huge displays of medicinal
herbs, get a great meal in the food court or the many really authentic restaurants
here (you'll find vegetarian and Vietnamese as well). This is a great place
to bargain hunt for Chinese-made clothes, toys, and things for the home. Tip: Take a streetcar and make getting there part of the fun. |
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Parks – |
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Queen's
Park is home to the Parliament of Ontario. It's a great place to walk
around, or go inside for a tour of the beautiful building. |
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On
rainy days when you wish you were outdoors but can't be, try the Allen
Gardens Conservatory. With its six greenhouses on 16,000 square feet
, you'll find hundreds of beautiful plants, including a "Palm House"
that will almost make you think you're in the tropics.If that's not
enough, check out the Bay-Adelaide Cloud Conservatory, a huge greenhouse run by the Parks Dept. just off Yonge Street. |
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Riverdale Farm – Riverdale Farm is
one of the great family sites in Toronto. Incredibly, it's a working farm
in the heart of the city! (In the Old Cabbagetown area on Winchester Street.)
There are daily farm demos (milking, butter making, wool spinning, etc.)
as well as special events all year long. At the 1858 barn, you'll find cows,
horses, sheep, pigs, goats, chickens, ducks, geese – the whole
range of typical farm animals. |
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Harbourfront is its own little world, filled
with shops and cafes, a great place to just stroll around: |
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The H.M.C.S. Haida Naval Museum features
a World War II destroyer you can tour (with guides dressed in vintage WWII
sailor uniforms). Time it right an you'll hear the forward gun salute. |
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The Toronto Music Garden opened in 1999. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma worked with
landscaper Julie Messervy to interpret the first of Johann Sebastian Bach's
Suites for Unaccompanied Cello as a garden, and this is the fantastic result.
Each part of the musical piece is represented in a different part of the
garden: Prelude is the river scape; Allemande is a forest grove; Courante,
a wildflower meadow, Sarabande is a conifer Menuett a pavilion, Gigue as
giants grass steps. |
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A
great way to get on Lake Ontario is to take a ferry ride from Yonge
Street to the Toronto Islands (connected by bridges). At Ward's Island
head for the Centreville Amusement Park with its animal shaped paddle
boats, or rent a bike. Check out the beaches on Hanlan's Point for a picnic (complete with washrooms and fire pits) and the historic Gibraltar
Point Lighthouse, but stick to the wading pools: lake water is polluted. |
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Ontario Place – Ontario Place is a
huge amusement park right at the foot of the city. You'll find the IMAX
theater, an amphitheater, lots of places to eat, and then there's mini-golf and peddle boat rentals (peddle boats are included with the Play
All Day Pass), the Thrill Zone with its interactive games, as well
as some more unique experiences: |
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The Water Park alone has a ton of choices: Rush
River, a huge waterslide 873 feet long, The Pink Pipeline shoots
you on two-man tubes along twists and through dark tunnels, the Hydrofuge is like the world's longest slip-n-slide, dunking you into a six foot
pool. |
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Rides of the motorized kind abound as well. Pre-schoolers
can try the Mini Bumper Boats, and there's Bumper Boats for
bigger kids and adults too. Whole families can jump into the Adventure
Ride that takes you through "forests and canyons" in a simulated
river trip. |
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Sports – Toronto is a big sports town, with several major league
teams. If you love watching the stars play live, check out the locals. The
Skydome Stadium is just a couple blocks from the CN Tower, the Air Canada
Centre is near Union Station. If this is a "must do" for your
family, you may want to buy your tickets well in advance to be sure of getting
in. |
