At the high-tech, high-test Metreon, children will thrill to ‘Wild Things’ and video delights. But it’ll cost you.

During our Saturday at San Francisco’s Metreon center I found myself biting my lip so I wouldn’t repeat my father’s admonition on my family’s first trip to Disneyland 32 years ago: “See everything here because we’re never coming back.”

For those who hate crowds, noise or staying inside all day, the four-story, 350,000-square-foot monolith south of Market Street that opened in June is serious torture. For most kids older than 5 or 6, it is pure pleasure. For them it’s a tantalizing mix of electronic and science-themed shops (the Discovery Channel Store, a Microsoft store), a video arcade, three activity centers and 15 movie screens.

We hit all the main attractions plus the IMAX theater (at 100 feet by 80 feet, one of the largest screen in North America) and even returned to our favorite activity--virtual bowling--for a second go-round.

It is sensory overload: oversized exhibits, bright colors and noises bouncing off hard, modern surfaces to assault parents’ sensitive ears--and delight their children. But Metreon designers worked hard to make visitors not feel cooped up, opening up one side of the building with windows looking out on the adjacent Yerba Buena Gardens, a jewel of the newly trendy South of Market area.

Our sons, Forrest, 6, and Kenny, 10, were in awe, rushing to activate touch screens that told them about what lay ahead.

Our first stop was the ticket booths. My husband, Bob, stood in line to buy passes for the 2:30 p.m. show of “Fantasia 2000” ($10 each), the remake of the Disney classic, while I got four Attraction Access tickets ($20 each, and advertised as the best buy for people visiting all the activity centers), carrying 2,600 points. To make sure I understood, I asked the ticket seller whether the pass would get us into all the exhibits, thinking the points were only for arcade games. “Oh, yes,” she said, smiling.

We headed for the Airtight Garage on the second floor, an amped-up video arcade that was especially alluring to our video game-deprived children. Friendly workers wearing orange mechanics’ uniforms suggested we try HyperBowl first, and we were glad they did. We tired our arms out spinning a stationary ball that sends a video ball catapulting down everything from a standard bowling alley to a San Francisco street.

An hour zoomed by, and we rushed off to see “The Way Things Work,” a 3-D movie on David Macaulay’s physics-is-fun book, followed by a room full of pulleys. At the entrance, we experienced a bad surprise: Two of our Attraction Access passes were already depleted of points. Confused, we used the other two twice and forged ahead.

Soon we were hungry, so we headed to the food court at ground level. There are seven places to eat at Metreon, but the first floor offers the greatest selection, from a sushi bar to a place with a wood-fired pizza oven.

The boys chose pizza, and Bob and I had noodles from Long Life Noodle Co. All were delicious, far better than food at any theme park we’ve visited. But they were not cheap: $7.50 for a single-serving Margherita pizza, $6 for a bowl of garlicky Dragon’s Breath noodles and $1.35 for hot tea.

As we discussed it, Bob and I realized we had misunderstood the ticket situation: All passes are merely points, and everything, including entrance to attractions, costs points. Most of the video games are 250 points (about $1.85) each play, which lasts less than five minutes. The larger venues such as “The Way Things Work” cost 600 points ($4.50). The $80 for four passes we had budgeted, and spent, would not be enough.

The steep prices were more irritating to Bob and me because all the exhibits are commercial; sponsors are prominently displayed, their products are on sale and you have to pass through themed gift shops to get to the attractions.

But three times during lunch Kenny turned to me and shouted “Thanks, Mom, for bringing us here!” And the food buoyed us, so much so that after lunch we bought two more Attraction Access tickets, happy to learn they were discounted 20% because a private party was taking over the second floor at 5 p.m.

We had been smart to get there at the 10 a.m. opening time. In the morning we had the arcade and hallways largely to ourselves, but by 1 p.m., losing a child in the crowd became a reasonable worry. We each grabbed a boy’s hand and headed for the third floor.

There we found what we ranked as the most ingenious attraction in any theme park we’ve visited: Disneyland, Universal Studios and Magic Mountain, among many others. Through a gift shop and the “Night Kitchen” cafeteria we entered the world of “Where the Wild Things Are,” based on the characters of Maurice Sendak.

The pen-and-ink texture and pastel colors of the drawings and gigantic characters are so true to the book that Forrest instantly recognized one of them. Kenny, clearly impressed by a whole exhibit dedicated to a childhood favorite, said, “I didn’t know this book was this big.”

Halfway along we were met with a row of inviting-looking buttons and levers, with no instructions, but Forrest, a natural fiddler, started tinkering with them anyway. It didn’t take long to figure out what was up: We were working the exhibit below, making giant monsters roar their terrible roars and wart-nosed birds swoop down on other unsuspecting patrons.

We pulled ourselves away to get into the long IMAX line. Bob went for drinks but, thwarted by another line, returned instead with two small bags of candy.

Back to one last game of virtual bowling a little before 4 p.m., we were met by the same friendly helpers, who informed us the games were closing. “What about the 5 p.m. cutoff?” we asked, taking our complaint to a manager and then that manager’s boss. “We changed our minds,” was the only answer. We negotiated a short game for the boys and downplayed our frustration for their sakes, but we left feeling burned, with more than 2,500 unused points.

The Baldwin Hotel, a newly refurbished place we had found on the Internet, was just a brisk walk away. Rooms proved small and simple but meticulously clean. The price also was right: $89 a night for the four of us, and just steps away from Union Square and the Chinatown gates.

I was determined to show Forrest and Kenny a contrasting low-tech San Francisco, the one I grew up with, so we walked through Chinatown and into North Beach. We chose P.J. Mulhern’s on Green Street for its creative menu and lack of a wait. It turned out to be a brand-new restaurant co-owned by P.J. Carlesimo, the fired Golden State Warriors’ basketball coach.

We sat in a comfy wooden booth and shared a tasty dinner highlighted by a lemon-infused pasta, a delicious crab salad and a good bottle of Italian red wine. Forrest chose a tuna Napoleon, sandwiched between homemade potato chips, and Kenny devoured a grilled pork chop.

The next morning I continued my quest for a Metreon antidote. Amid the boys’ complaints of aching calves, we hiked uphill to the Cable Car Museum.

We learned more about the way things work at the museum, which is free, and saw those theories applied by riding a cable car. We returned to Chinatown for lunch at the first place I ate dim sum when I was Kenny’s age: the Hang Ah Tearoom, on a small alley off Sacramento Street.

A full meal of dumplings and bao buns set us back less than $20, and I felt satisfied that we had balanced out the previous day’s extravagance and techno overload.

Amy Pyle is a writer in The Times’ Sacramento Bureau.

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Budget for Four

Air fare, LAX-S.F.: $368.00

Metreon, six Attraction Access tickets: 112.00

IMAX tickets: 40.00

Lunch: 36.84

Candy for movie: 6.42

Baldwin Hotel: 101.46

Dinner, P.J. Mulhern’s: 154.03

Breakfast, Cafe de la Presse: 40.34

Cable car rides: 8.00

Dim sum lunch, Hang Ah Tearoom: 20.00

FINAL TAB: $887.09

Metreon, 101 4th St., San Francisco, CA 94103; tel. (800) METREON, Internet https://www.metreon.com. Baldwin Hotel, tel. (415) 781-2220.