South Florida Visit Soon: Where to Go

I am anticipating a trip to South Florida in the next couple of weeks, and I am wondering what I should do down there (besides visiting a close relative).  After all, I have heard that the Dania Beach Hurricane roller coaster at Boomer's in Dania has shut down.  Well, that turns Boomer's into "Bummers" as far as I am concerned.  The beach is always an attractive option, I suppose.  But what else is there?

My memory of the area is full of great places like the Crandon Park Zoo on Key Biscayne, the Miami Seaquarium on Virginia Key (where they once had a segregated beach for blacks: hopefully this has changed by now in 2012), Haulover Beach (the formerly and unfairly "whites-only" beach where I went with family in the early 1960's and is, I believe, now a nudist beach), and the Museum of Science and Space Transit Planetarium in Coconut Grove. Then, of course, there is downtown Miami and Miami Beach as possible attractions in themselves. And I once worked at a business in Miami Shores, walking during my lunch breaks through the tiny, beautiful residential community of neighboring El Portal.

I would like to experience walking through downtown Miami, but is there a pedestrian/shopper friendly area there akin to Time Square in Midtown Manhattan?  I don't know, but maybe now is the time to find out before I go down there. And turn down the wrong street!

And that reminds me: downtown Hollywood is a pleasant place to stroll around; since the only coaster the area had is gone, I guess it's time to find another tradition to start...