My wife and I are visiting our 2 and 1/2 year old grandson in San Francisco. What fun things can we do?

Have already gone to the zoo and the aquarium.My wife and I are visiting our 2 and 1/2 year old grandson in San Francisco. What fun things can we do?
My recommendations:

Visit the Golden Gate Bridge.

Visit the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Visit Alcatraz.

Take a boat tour of the bay.

Take the ferry to Sausalito and spend an afternoon there.

Visit the San Francisco Ferry Building Marketplace

Take a walking tour of Chinatown.

Visit Pier 39 “Fisherman’s Warf”

Visit Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill

Take a cable car ride

Visit the cable car museum

Go to a Giants game.

Have cocktails at the “Top of the Mark” located atop the San Francisco InterContinental Hotel. The panoramic view of the skyline is great!

View the San Francisco skyline from Treasure Island during the day and at night there is the reflection of the skyline in the water.My wife and I are visiting our 2 and 1/2 year old grandson in San Francisco. What fun things can we do?
If you visit Golden Gate Park you can visit the Botanical Gardens and bring some bread to feed the ducks. It's a beautiful place. Also in Golden Gate Park, there's a carousel, some buffalo, trails to walk/ride bikes, and if you go all the way to the ocean there are a couple of big old windmills to see.



The Musee Mechanique near Fisherman's Wharf is fun, bring some quarters and play with the old nickel machines.



Check out the Sea Lions at Pier 39.



Ride a cable car and let him ring the bell.



Go to Ghiradelli square and share a hot fudge sundae.



Take a ferry to Alcatraz or Angel Island and go exploring.



Go see an IMAX movie at the Metreon.
Just going to the beach to play is great for a 2-1/2 year old. He will have more fun playing in the sand than sightseeing.

So many people go to sight-see and never stay in a place long enough to see the real world. I don't remember all the sights I've seen in my travels as a child, but I remember playing at the beach every summer since I was a baby.

Just go to the beach every day and talk to the locals. Take him on your daily walks around the neighborhood. Let him pet all the dogs and cats he meets along the way.

As for you, take the time to get to know one area, rather than take in all the different tourist traps. Find the best restaurant and store on your block. If residents of the historic buildings are outside watering their gardens, stop and ask them questions about the neighborhood. Junior will love to smell all the flowers in the gardens, he will love to just look at the boats in the harbor, he will love to see the millions of different trucks on the road, and he will surely love to just play on the sand and in the water on a hot day.My wife and I are visiting our 2 and 1/2 year old grandson in San Francisco. What fun things can we do?
If he lives in San Francisco (thus you're visiting him), he probably already has things he likes... so ask him/his parents and do those with him. I remember when I was 2 to 4ish, I much preferred riding the carousel in children's playground, and sitting on Haight Street and watching people with 3 feet high mohawks walk by (which wouldn't be very fruitful these days, but), and feeding buffalo in the park to riding on cable cars (though I LOVED BART) and visiting stupid museums.



I remember really loving the Exploratorium, though: http://www.exploratorium.edu/ . And I still do. It's amazing for all ages. Interactive science museum for kids (though adults love it as much as kids)... even this thing where you stand in the middle of an artificially created funnel cloud, and a giant light shadow box (where it flashes and freezes the image of your shadow on the wall), etc... They even used to have a bubble room with bubbles everywhere and things to make giant bubbles (don't think it's there anymore, though).



Also, as someone else said... the beach is great. The police horse stables in Golden Gate Park (across from the buffalo) are very friendly and often there are a couple out to pet. Can't really feed the buffalo anymore, since they double-fenced the area off. Bah. The carousels at both the Children's Playground and Pier 39 are great. Musee Mechanique at Pier 45 has lots of vintage arcade games and fortune telling machines, from the 19th century onward, and 2 photobooths. So (again, at any age, but especially being a kid) bringing a bag of clothes to dress up in and take photobooth pictures of yourself is always fun.



The Steinhart Aquarium is amazing, but won't be reopening until September, so...



However, personal peeve... contrary to what someone else said, ask before petting dogs. Many little kids don't full understand the concept of being gentle, and most dog owners don't like having their dogs attacked by little kids (not long ago I even needed to take my dog, who's old, to the vet coz some kid jumped on his hips and I needed to get him steroids because it injured him... the parents seemed completely disinterested in this happening and refused to pay the vet bills because "he's just a kid" [yeah, if my dog wasn't so friendly and bit your little brat, would you accept "he's just a dog"?], and I didn't feel like fighting it so just yelled at them and left... ugh! /rant). So yeah... ask first, and make sure he's gentle.



Anyway... yeah. He probably already has things he loves (places to go, eat, etc...) so your best bet would be taking queues from him.
If you like history, down by Fisherman's wharf they have a WW2 submarine, the USS Pampanito. They also have a liberty ship. If you have a good budget you can check what's playing at the Orpheum theater. In January or February they'll have Wicked. Barring that, there's always food. I'll grant that its a little scary, but near the Tenderloin they have some great Indian food.My wife and I are visiting our 2 and 1/2 year old grandson in San Francisco. What fun things can we do?
head over to oakland and visit children's fairyland. they have scenes that reproduce famous fairy tales. very fun for little kids, even 2 year olds. near lake merritt in oakland.
You should go to Fisherman's Warf, Ghirahdeli Square, Crooked Street, umm.... downtown San Fransisco is fun, oh and the Exploratorium you HAVE to take him there!!!! have fun!
Exploratorium - it's awesome for all ages!
im going to sf and im going to the wax muesem