Indoor things to do in Vancouver

Science World puts hands-on exhibits and live science shows under its dome on False Creek, which makes it an easy yes if you're both the curious type. Over in Vanier Park, the Space Centre lets you recline your seat beneath a projected night sky, and honestly, that's a pretty nice way to sit next to someone.

The Maritime Museum was built around the St. Roch, a 1928 RCMP schooner that crossed the Northwest Passage twice and now sits indoors; the first Sunday of each month is pay what you can. The Vancouver Police Museum still occupies the 1932 coroner's court and morgue where it began, so the building is part of the collection. At UBC the Museum of Anthropology stands its totem poles against sea and forest, at half price on Thursday evenings after 5pm, and downtown the Vancouver Art Gallery hangs the world's largest Emily Carr collection inside a former courthouse, free from 4 to 8pm on the first Friday of each month and closed on Tuesdays.

The two big historic venues ask very different things of you. The Orpheum, a 1927 theatre under a gilded dome and home of the Vancouver Symphony, is for sitting still and taking it in; the Commodore Ballroom's 1929 sprung floor was built for dancing. On Granville Island the Arts Club stage seats 440, and the Improv Centre builds its shows from audience suggestions, so the actors find out how the story ends at the same moment you do.

If it were us, we'd plan at least one evening around a film. The Cinematheque has screened restored classics and international arthouse since 1972, the Rio on Commercial Drive is a 1938 single-screen house that lets you bring a craft beer into the film, and Kitsilano's Hollywood Theatre, a 1935 Art Deco survivor, now pours drinks between films and live comedy nights.

Most of the city's warmest indoor options involve water. Hillcrest Aquatic Centre in Riley Park, an Olympic legacy, puts a lazy river and a hot tub behind a drop-in price; Willow Stream has mineral pools and eucalyptus steam on the fifth floor of the Fairmont Pacific Rim; and Miraj in South Granville, which calls itself Canada's first hammam, runs steam, scrub, mud and mint tea. Then there's HÄLSA on West 4th: a side-by-side float in body-temperature salt water with no screens. Our take? It's the rare date where doing nothing is the whole plan.

Families can cover a lot in one afternoon, and we'd do it in this order so everyone's properly tired by the end: Science World for hands that need to touch everything, the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park, Canada's largest, for jellyfish walls and sea otters, the Space Centre for a reclining break under the stars, and Hillcrest's lazy river to finish. The family outings guide adds child prices and age guidance.