The tour itself- not so hot. The trouble was mainly our guide. She told everyone to hold their questions for the end of the way too short tour. Then, she couldn't answer any of the questions anyhow. Along the way, we walked past a plethora of interesting antique equipment. None of this equipment was addressed at all in the tour, and of course, we had to hold our questions for the end, so no information at all. I really enjoy learning about the history of this type of thing, and this tour was not at all about this history of the US coin making process, it was mostly about upcoming collector's coins that they were planning to mint and the state quarters that are coming up. No information about the history of minting to speak of. The entire tour was maybe 30 minutes. To top it off, they weren't event minting anything the day we were there, so we just looked at idle equipment.

--Why is your reservation no good after 15 minutes prior to tour start? Because of standbys who got there 20 minutes prior to tour start.
--So, if you don't have a reservation that you made weeks and weeks before, can you get in? Yes!

The above two points are linked. First, try to make an online reservation, and THEN GET THERE 20 MINUTES EARLY BECAUSE IT WILL BE GIVEN AWAY IF YOU DON'T.

And, because, of point one, if you don't have a reservation, you are likely to get in if you allow some flexibility for your day in downtown Denver. I understand about half of the online reservation-makers are deemed no-shows (I now realize they may be late-comers thinking they are arriving on time.)

They start giving out standby tix at 7:30 am, which isn't very difficult for Easterners to accomodate, given the time change. We got there at 8 am and there were about 6 parties in front of us already.

Because the rare event may occur that all or most of the reservation-makers show up early, you are warned by phone that you may not get into your selected standby slot, which is issued in numerical order according to your arrival to the standby line. Then, the ticket guy tells you, just go back to the standby booth and get another time slot. Our ticket guy seemed pretty confident that most, if not all, standbys get to go in the day they wish, and quite likely, the time they pick.

One more tip: we are a party of 5, which gave the tix guy pause to consider carefully what time slot he might offer to ensure our getting in. He offered a few slots, and my husband asked: which slot is our best bet? You should ask too.

After getting our standby tix, we had time to walk to tour the US State Capitol, which opened early, then walk to the Colorado History musuem, then walk to have sandwiches at Jimmy Johns' at the 16th Street Mall.

The tour itself is excellent. So is the gift shop.

We fortunately were able to get reservations a little over a month ago for a tour at the Mint. We had a few last-minute people in our group, but most who had reserved spots were there and on time. Like another poster stated, you NEED to be there at least 15 minutes before tour time. They quickly ushered us into the security screening area and were getting the walk-ins ready to go 15 minutes prior to the scheduled time. The security procedure does take a few minutes and is thorough. To avoid issues, dress without much metal in your clothing, including belts.

The tour itself was OK. Our guide was doing it as a summer job and wasn't as knowledgable or professional as we expected one might be. The security guard who followed us through the tour did add information when asked and could give a different side of some things than the guide could (we were near the back of the group and could hear aside conversations with him). The high point was watching the machines stamp the pennies and quarters. Our kids (12 & 14) could have watched that process much longer than we had time for.

Overall, it's a good, educational tour. We feel fortunate that we live close enough to be able to go through since only Denver and Philadelphia offer tours at all. I'd recommend it for kids five and above. The little ones in our group didn't seem to be attentive enough for it, and they were bored quickly.

You might scope out the parking situation beforehand. We parked down the street in a lot and ended up paying $9 for parking. We should have gone a bit earlier and found other options.

The Denver Mint does give FREE tours, however, you must make reservations. I made my reservations online about a month before we went. It was me , my husband and 2 daughters ages 11 and 8. The tour is about 45 minutes long but they recommend that you arrive 15 minutes prior to start time and bring your confirmation sheet with you. The tour was very informative and the guide was hilarious. Even the security guards were nice. MAKE SURE YOU LEAVE YOUR BELONGINGS IN THE CAR, as you are not allowed to bring anything in there like a camera, purse, backpack, water bottle etc. You can bring something as small as a wallet that can fir in your pocket. Don't try to sneak anything either because you will have to go through a metal detector. Since we knew that no pictures were allowed, we took our pictures before hand outside the Mint building- ( a guard even offered to take our family picture). After we took our pictures we had to walk back to our car to leave the camera and other belongings in the car. There is ample parking in the area, but of course you have to pay. We basically parked in the garage about a block from the Mint and left the car all day since there were so many other areas od Downtown Denver to see and explore that are within walking distance, like the 16th St Mall up the street. During the tour we got to see the machines used to make pennies and quarters and you would see the blank pennies and quarters in these big bins waiting to be "made" into money. The guide gave us a little history about the money, the Mint building etc. Very, very informative and my kids loved it