San Diego Area Attractions

SeaWorld
500 Sea World Dr • San Diego, CA • 619.226.3901
One of the best-marketed attractions in California, SeaWorld is a main draw for many visitors coming to San Diego and celebrates its 40th year of operation in 2004. With each passing year the educational pretext increasingly takes a back seat to slick shows and rides, but the 165-acre aquatic theme park--owned by the Anheuser-Busch Corporation--is perhaps the country's premiere showplace for marine life, made politically correct with a nominally informative atmosphere. At its heart, SeaWorld is a shoreside family entertainment center where the performers are dolphins, otters, sea lions, walruses, and seals. The 20- to 30-minute shows run several times each throughout the day, while visitors can rotate through the various open-air amphitheaters.

San Diego Zoo
2920 Zoo Drive • San Diego, CA • 619.234.3153
More than 4,000 creatures reside at this celebrated and influential zoo, operated by the Zoological Society of San Diego. The Society was founded in 1916 with a handful of animals originally brought here for the Panama-California International Exposition (many of the buildings you see in surrounding Balboa Park were built for that fair). Legend has it that the zoo's founder, Dr. Harry Wegeforth, a local physician and lifelong animal lover, once braved the fury of an injured tiger to toss medicine into its roaring mouth.

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego Downtown
Opened in 1993, the downtown branch is the second location of the Museum of Contemporary Art (the original branch is in La Jolla). Two large and two smaller galleries present changing exhibitions of nationally and internationally distinguished contemporary artists.

San Diego Aerospace Museum
2001 Pan American Plaza • San Diego, CA • 619.234.8291
The other big kid-pleaser of the museums (along with the Fleet Science Center, above), this popular facility provides an overview of the nation's air-and-space history, from the days of hot-air balloons to the space age, with plenty of biplanes and military fighters in between. It emphasizes local aviation history, particularly the construction here of the Spirit of St. Louis. Highlights include the only GPS Satellite on display in a museum, and a World War I-era Spad. The museum is housed in a stunning cylindrical hall built by the Ford Motor Company in 1935.

Giant Dipper Roller Coaster
3190 Mission Boulevard •San Diego, CA 92109 • 858.488.1549
A local landmark for almost 80 years, the Giant Dipper is one of two surviving fixtures from the original Belmont Amusement Park (the other is the Plunge swimming pool). After sitting dormant for 15 years, the vintage wooden roller coaster, with more than 2,600 feet of track and 13 hills, underwent extensive restoration and reopened in 1991. If you're in the neighborhood (especially with older kids), it's worth a stop, but adults may find the whole experience a bit too spine-rattling. You must be at least 50 inches tall to ride the roller coaster.

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