Build a Glowing Mosaic Lamp Together

On the Sidney waterfront, the makers of colour-shifting Empress 1908 Gin hand you bitters and garnishes and let you play bartender.

Greater Victoria's only aquarium packs 3,500 local sea creatures and a touch pool into one low-key Sidney afternoon, closed Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Victoria Film Festival's single-screen cinema on Douglas, where beer is served, most screenings are 19+, and the film has actual soul.

An 18-hole haunted-house mini-golf course downtown with rocking chairs, transforming portraits, and a private ping pong lounge for the rematch.

Three heated adults-only mineral pools at the Boathouse Spa, a eucalyptus steam room, a stargazing sauna, and Mount Baker filling the horizon across the strait.

Downtown's most licensed way to throw sharp metal at things, with a scoreboard that'll tell you everything you need to know.

Two and a half hours of guided pottery-wheel work, a lopsided keepsake fired by the studio, and sessions that fill fast.

Victoria's downtown climbing warehouse where the staff are famously patient and nobody looks graceful for the first twenty minutes.

Nearly forty pinball machines, beer, and pizza in Chinatown, where competitive instincts emerge one quarter at a time.

UVic's repertory cinema since 1971, cheap tickets, locally famous popcorn, and films the multiplex wouldn't touch with a pole.

Four escape rooms by Bastion Square, 60 minutes each, with actual hidden compartments and a lot to learn about your date.

Horror rooms on Broughton, detailed sets, a 45-minute clock, and the scientifically fastest way to stop being strangers.

Forty classic cabinets, twenty-five pinball machines, and the largest pinball collection in Western Canada, in atmospheric Trounce Alley.

Seventy-plus shops, a Purdys Chocolatier, and a food terrace with skyline views to wait out the rain in downtown style.