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This spectacular water playground has a special children’s area with scaled-down water slides and bouncing lily pads. The most popular feature is the “Fujifilm Blimp,” complete with squirt guns.

These two attractions come as a package. Watch the dolphins give a brief but characteristically perfect performance, then go on a tour, which includes underwater viewing. The Secret Garden is an oasis of trees and greenery, with unusual residents, including an elephant, a snow leopard, panthers, Bengal tigers, and rare white lions. You are allowed to stay in the garden as long as you like.

Children will find the dramatizations of folk tales, children’s classic plays, musical comedies, and fantasies such as No One Will Marry a Princess with a Tree Growing Out of Her Head absolutely riveting. Performances of several works are presented each year.

Quarter-size holes in a plaza at this residential shopping center unexpectedly spurt out water at regular intervals throughout the day. Bring your youngsters dressed in their bathing suits so they can play while you relax on the café terraces.

It may be swimming weather outside, but kids who like to ice skate can cool off at the indoor Ice Gardens, where there are both hockey and ice skating rinks. Ice-skating queen Surya Bonaly works out at the rink when she is in town.

Adult Gran Prix Cars, sprint karts, go karts, kiddie karts, plus the Dragon Coaster, Super Slide, and lots of arcade games make this a favorite off-Strip destination for Las Vegas kids as well as visitors.

This is a miniature golf course with a Scandinavian accent – all the mini-buildings are patterned after those in northern Europe.

This Old West theme park, which is 45 minutes west of the Strip, may lack the slickness typical of others in Las Vegas, but its rough-and-ready charm usually wins the children over. Among the best features are staged gunfights, stagecoach rides, a zoo, and stores with merchandise from the days of yore.

Las Vegas has a lot of bowling alleys, but the Orleans, which has no fewer than 70 lanes, is consistently voted the favorite in the annual newspaper poll. Reasons for its success include the spacious surroundings, numerous tables and chairs, a state-of-the-art computerized scoring system, and a snack bar with a big choice of items.

The pampered cats are bathed, dried, and groomed daily before being transported to the enclosure at the MGM Grand. Few children can resist the lure of baby animals, and lions are very special. When the cubs are old enough to leave their mothers, they can be watched in a special “nursery” where they play with toys – and with the humans who feed and care for them.