Huntington Children’s Play Area

Fairmont tiki bar with indoor rainstorms.

A grand old Nob Hill hotel with beehives in the rooftop garden and a family room with a bunk bed. A band plays on a boat in the Tonga Room, the hotel's old indoor pool, and at the holidays there's a life-sized gingerbread house.

Recreation center with a children's play area.

Nob Hill classic with holiday teas at Top of the Mark that school-age kids remember.

Free, and fun for machine-obsessed kids: you can watch the giant wheels pulling the real cables under the streets.

One-floor Chinatown museum in a Julia Morgan building. Small enough for a rainy half hour, and better with school-age kids than toddlers.