Three Lakes, FL Indoor Activities

When the University of Miami's Lowe Art Museum began in 1952, the school could comfortably display its entire collection in three unused classrooms. Those days are long past. Today, the museum stands as Miami's most comprehensive collection of western and non-western art. The permanent collections feature pieces drawn from across human history, with notable works including Claude Monet's Waterloo Bridge and a recently acquired face mask from the Dan people of Côte d'Ivoire and Liberia, forged from wood, cloth, and fur. A sizable trove of Native American artifacts includes pieces from the Southeast such as a beautifully embroidered bead shoulder bag. Other exhibits include paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, and photographs from the Middle Ages through the present, including the Samuel H. Kress Collection of Renaissance and Baroque art, as well as pottery, sculpture, and metalwork from ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, dating from the first millennium BCE through the 4th century CE.

A few miles away, the tower of the 1939 Old Police and Fire Station rises above the street, gazing down on an unusual blend of sleek, depression-era modernism and Mediterranean revival ornateness. Founded in 2003, the Coral Gables Museum Corp. completely renovated the old municipal building. Spanish touches were added—the new Fewell wing and a 5,000-square-foot plaza—and the space was opened in 2011 as a museum dedicated to the civic arts of architecture, urban design, historic and environmental preservation, and sustainable development. Today, it holds regular art and design exhibitions, educational events, and concerts.

Led by the baton of Italian guest conductor Nicola Luisotti, the Cleveland Orchestra brings 94 years of euphony-crafting experience south to Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center. The concerts kick off with the sprightly strains of Verdi's Triumphal March and Ballet Music from his opera Aida, sweeping audiences up in romantic drama while sparing time-traveling gossip columnists the burden of keeping up with ancient Egyptian love triangles. Acclaimed soprano and MacArthur fellow Dawn Upshaw joins her instrument-bearing brethren to essay modern composer Osvaldo Golijov's Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra in its Miami debut—a work composed specifically for Upshaw. Prokofiev's Symphony no. 5 finishes off the evening, its grandeur composed in the throes of World War II to glorify the majesty of the human spirit and show up all his snobby friends who said that writing four symphonies was "pretty good."

Gymboree offers a bevy of baby-engaging classes in which parents and wee ones work together to build tots' creativity and encourage development through play. Offered in monthly sessions, weekly classes are available for every age from the freshly born sapling to the 5-year-young wise wanderer. This deal includes rhythm-building music classes, imagination-expanding art classes, and Gymboree's most popular class, Play & Learn. The one-month membership (a $75 value, plus $60 membership fee) allows you to take one class per week, with makeups available during enrollment if you miss a class. This deal also includes unlimited attendance at Gymboree's open-gym sessions (contact location for schedule). One Groupon must be purchased for each child, and each child must be accompanied by at least one adult (but more than one adult is welcome).

As they observe the vibrant exhibits of aquatic life inside the Miami Seaquarium, many guests don't realize that they are walking through a movie set and a hospital. In the onsite lagoon, bottlenose dolphins swim through waters once traversed by Flipper, who filmed several television episodes and films at the venue. The Seaquarium is also recognized as a manatee critical care facility. Its staff has accomplished several historic treatments, including monitoring the conception and arrival of the first manatee born under human care and conducting the first manatee neurological surgery.

These facets of the Seaquarium—along with its many conservation efforts, educational programs, and shows—underscore a united commitment to wildlife consciousness. The animal attractions enable visitors to witness the allure and fragility of oceanic fauna up close, whether they are petting the back of a stingray or washing a dress shirt on the rough back of an 8-foot nile crocodile. Special encounters decrease the distance even further, sending patrons on underwater Sea Treks through the reef display or helping them to lead marine-mammal training routines.

It's hard to pinpoint the biggest personality inside the Seaquarium tanks, but Lolita the killer whale—who performs daily alongside pacific white-sided dolphins—claims the title of heaviest, period. On the other end of the scale, macaws and cockatiels perch around the Tropical Wings section of the park, and endangered sea turtles lounge at Discovery Bay. Elsewhere, a watery playground and three-story ropes course keep legs from growing too wobbly after a trip to Shark Channel or a smooch from a sea lion.

Drivers hunch over the steering wheels of their Technicolor cars, bearing down on the accelerator as wheels squeal in delight. Around the corner, a basketball thwacks on hardwood before swishing through the hoop. All of this seems to move in sync with the digital babble of arcade machines at GameTime, where a pantheon of video games tests hand-eye coordination and helps overcome fears of checkered racing flags. Players roll skee balls, drop coins, and spin wheels to earn tickets to redeem for a selection of prizes, including kid-size acoustic guitars and stuffed replicas of television characters such as Bart Simpson and SpongeBob Squarepants.

At the adjoining Arena Sports Bar & Grill, fans cheer on their favorite team or mascot trying to escape bath time as the action plays out on 20 flat-screen televisions. Plates of pasta, pizza, and sandwiches clatter, drowning out cheers from sports games that simulate the joy of athletic achievement.