need advice for a weekend trip to denver.

[Semidevil]

so originally, my wife was suppose to visit a friend out of state. After the she got confirmation that the friend will be free, and can take her around town, wife bought the ticket. next day, friend cancelled, saying cannot take her around and 'hopefully' the ticket is refundable.

just my wife's luck, she bought ticket online, and it is non-refundable. With this in mind, I decide that we will just reschdule her ticket(pay the freaking penalty fee), and have her go to Denver instead. I will buy a ticket for myself and we will go together and just enjoy the weekend together.

What to do on a 2 day trip? we will most likely arrive friday morning, play all day saturday, and leave sunday afternoon.

my main concern is that we will not rent a car, so I was hoping there will be a bus that can take us to all the places?

will there be a bus in denver that can take us to our hotel, and then are there a lot of buses that can take us to various attractions?

suggestions please.

 

[pyonir]

If you have any interest and they are in town, i'd suggest a Rockies game or at least a tour of the stadium. Gorgeous stadium.

 

[dmcowen674]

PM Citrix

There is a light rail around the city and the 16th st Bus is free.

Denver is a lot of fun, enjoy.

 

[daveshel]

Get a car. Drive up to the mountains. You can do a day trip to Estes National Park.

 

[pyonir]

Originally posted by: daveshel
Get a car. Drive up to the mountains. You can do a day trip to Estes National Park.

And you can go see the Continental divide. That was a pretty cool view.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Light rail won't be of much use as it's mostly used for commuting. It doesn't really go anywhere interesting, unless you need to get down to the Denver Tech Center for some reason. There's buses and bus stops all over the downtown area. I never actually used them though, since I lived in the Capitol Hill area and could walk everywhere.

In Denver there's the Art museum, zoo, aquarium, botanic gardens, six flags, parks, 16th street mall, homeless people, LODO, good eats, bars and clubs.....lots of microbrews in and around Denver. I highly recommend trying to get a seat at Potager. Great place to eat with locally grown seasonal menus (they have their own garden). Pricey, but it's the best food I've ever had. They don't do reservations though.

Lastly, if you can, you should definitely at least try to get out to the foothills. Redrocks amphitheater is cool and there's also a wall of fossilized dinosaur footprints somewhere nearby. If you can get to the actual mountains, say to the top of Mt. Evans or something, it'll beat any attraction you'd see in the city.

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

Originally posted by: pyonir
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: daveshel
Get a car. Drive up to the mountains. You can do a day trip to Estes National Park.</end quote></div>

And you can go see the Continental divide. That was a pretty cool view.

go do a gold mine tour while your up in the mountains, i always wanted to do that...

 

[syee]

I'm not sure where you're staying, but in terms of transit, there's a few options:

1. There's a bus that goes from the Airport to downtown and I think some other locations. The AF I believe is the bus number. I only ever took it once. Check the RTD site (www.rtd-denver.com) and look up SkyRide. It goes pretty much all over town. Looks like it's around $6-$10pp

2. There's van shuttle services as well. A bit more expensive but they'll take you right to your door. Look for SuperShuttle or BlueSky shuttle. There's a few more also. They have counters on the left and right of where you exit from at DIA. Just tell them where you want to go and they'll direct you to the right one. They're about $20pp, but it's cheaper for the 2nd person ($10 I believe)

I'd probably advise staying in teh downtown area if you won't have a car. Maybe see if you can get a day tour around town. There's a visitor's center downtown on 16th & California St that you can go to to get information.

Just off the top of my head, downtown you have the Mint, 16th St Mall, Civic Center (although I personally wouldn't recommend it because of all the bums), catch a show at the Peforming Arts Center, Elitch Gardens (it used to be a Six Flags), or a Rockies game. They're all within the downtown area (or 5 min cab ride).

If you want to go further out, I'd have to say get a car. You can then go see Boulder, Red Rocks, Lookout Mountain, Colorado Springs, Garden of the Gods and all that other stuff.

Since it's really only a day trip (2 at most), I'd just go get one of those day trips with Gray Line or a company like that and just have them drive you around. That way you don't have to deal with a car, and directions.