Holiday Clubs (HAF)
Funded holiday clubs with food included, ages 4 to 18, for families on benefits-related free school meals. Worth a look even if you assume you won't qualify.
North West England
Soft play & indoor play in the North West
Somewhere dry when the forecast falls apart. Frames, ball pits, sensory rooms and bowling.
44 places1 free
This list is a good deal shorter than the number of soft play centres in the North West, and that is deliberate. A bad one is genuinely miserable: sticky, deafening, and somehow with nowhere for an adult to sit down.
Warrington is unusually well supplied for a town its size, with Jellybeans, Fun2b, Giggles and Tenpin all within a few miles of each other, and Jellybeans' mini bowling solves the toddler-plus-seven-year-old problem better than most places manage. Bubbles World of Play on the Wirral is the biggest in the region and priced accordingly. Play Factore at the Trafford Centre is enormous and gets very loud by eleven on a Saturday. Two things are worth checking before you set off, because neither is usually on the front page: whether grippy socks are compulsory and sold at the door, and whether the ticket buys an hour or the whole day. That second one is often the difference between a cheap morning and an expensive one.
Parks & outdoorsSoft play & indoor playFarms & animalsAdventure & ridesWater & swimmingMuseums & science
Every option
Bubbles World of Play
Billed as the UK's biggest soft play. A long drive for soft play, but it's the one that turns a rainy day into an actual event, and the seafront is right there.
Family & Friends Playcentre
Soft play with a full role-play village attached, which is the bit that holds a four-year-old's attention long after the frame stops being interesting.
Flip Out Chester
A big warehouse of trampolines, drop slides, laser tag and e-karts on the business park before Chester. Loud, sweaty and reliably popular - the off-peak slots are the value play.
Fun2b
Straightforward multi-level soft play with a café that adults can actually sit in. Nothing fancy, reliably works.
Funtastic Play Centre
The long-standing Radcliffe centre, and the one that refuses to charge more at weekends or in the school holidays. Multi-tier frame, proper toddler section, home-cooked cafe.
Funtazia
24,000 square feet in the middle of Blackburn, with go karts, bumper cars and laser tag alongside the climbing frames. Not really soft play any more, more an indoor funfair.
Giggles Play and Adventure
Adults go in free and you only pay for the children who actually play. Giggles takes birth to ten in Lancaster Leisure Park, with the frames split by size so the crawlers are not flattened.
Giggles Play Mill
Two-tier soft play frame, low climbing wall, pirate ship, crawl tubes and a bouncy slide, plus Messy Monday and sensory sessions during the week.
Jellybeans Play Centre
Bigger than the average soft play: multi-level frame, a spooky room, an astro slide, a climbing wall, two mini bowling lanes and a slot racing track. The bowling is what makes it work when you have a toddler and a seven-year-old to keep happy at once.
Jungle Mayhem
Radcliffe's jungle-themed centre: a four-lane slide, a ball pool with suction tubes, a sports zone and a disco room. Adults get in for nothing, which is rarer than it should be.
Mini Monsters Funhouse
Somebody put a soft play inside a garden centre on the Chester High Road at Neston, which means free parking and a shed full of plants for any adult who has had enough. Frame, slides, nets, ball pond, separate nought to two area.
Monkey House
Adults go free, which is not universal. A small Wallasey soft play scaled for under fives: frames a toddler can actually get round, a baby area, and a cafe with proper coffee and seats facing the frame.
Play & Sensory Centre
Council-run indoor play and sensory space. Quieter than commercial soft play, which suits some days better.
Playtopia
Bolton's biggest recent soft play opening, with a sports court and a gym room alongside the frame. Adults are a pound, which is the number that decides where you go on a wet Tuesday.
Playtown
Southport's main play centre, on Ocean Plaza by the marine lake, with a big frame and a drop slide. Priced by age band, so babies are almost free.
Prescot & Whiston Play Centres
Space World in Prescot, Sensory Hive in Whiston and Boomerang: the council-listed indoor options when it rains and everyone is climbing the walls.
Salt Ayre Leisure Centre
Lancaster's council leisure centre doing triple duty: Energy soft play, XHeight climbing walls and a 33m pool with a waterslide and inflatable sessions. Cheaper than the private soft play chains, and everything is under one roof for a wet day.
Tenpin Southport
Twenty lanes on the Southport seafront at Ocean Plaza, with a laser tag arena, pool, table tennis and an arcade attached. Bumpers mean a three year old can take part.
Tenpin Warrington
Soft play plus bowling under one roof, which solves the two-different-ages problem in a single trip. Ask for the barriers if anyone is under about six.
Tiny Teds Soft Play, Stretford
The council's under-5s soft play session at Stretford, £3.45 for an adult and a child including juice and biscuits. The cheapest indoor hour in Trafford by a distance.
Yellow Sub
Liverpool's most Liverpool soft play: a twenty-foot yellow submarine in the middle of the frame, a helter skelter, an astra slide and a football pitch, ten minutes from the Albert Dock. Open 9.30 to 6 every day.
Adventure Forest
Three tiers of frame, a sports court and mini quad bikes in Trafford Park, with unlimited play on weekdays and a hard two-hour limit at peak. Autism-friendly sessions monthly.
Antz In Your Pantz
Three levels with a climbing wall, an aerial glider and a disco room, and the cheapest adult ticket in Trafford at £2.50. Priced by age, so a one-year-old is not charged like a nine-year-old.
Head Over Heels Chorlton
A big indoor centre on a Chorlton trading estate: a gated area for nought to threes, a space themed sensory room with bubble tubes, a role play castle and village, an LED disco room, a music zone and a sports court.
Imagine That!
A warehouse of hands-on pretend in Wavertree: a child-sized village with a diner and car wash, an art zone where they paint a real car, water play, and a slime pot to take home. The child ticket stings, but under-tens get a full session out of it.
Inflata Nation Inflatable Theme Park Manchester
A warehouse of connected inflatables in Trafford Park: drop slides, an assault course, a climbing wall and a separate toddler zone. Louder and bouncier than soft play, and priced accordingly.
Play Factore
One of the biggest soft play arenas in Europe: a vast frame, go-karts, laser tag and a zip wire that crosses the entire building. Older primary kids do not age out of this one.
Spaceworld Play Centre
8,000 square feet of frame over four tiers on a Prescot business park, built round a 20ft rocket, with a 25ft spiral slide, spinning poles and an elevated football pitch.
Cheeky Cherubs
A community-run centre in Urmston with a sensory room alongside the soft play, split above and below four. Pay on the door most of the year, which almost nobody else does now.
Fidgets Soft Play Centre
A smaller neighbourhood centre north of Bolton, open 9am to 6pm every day of the week, with a separate baby and toddler area and a hairdresser in the same building.
Flip Out Blackburn
Trampolines, a ninja course and an inflatable obstacle run, with a foam-padded soft play area for the ones too small for all that. Shut on Tuesdays and Thursdays in term time.
Flip Out Liverpool
The city-centre trampoline park's family floor: toddler soft play, a ninja playground, interactive football and a ball pit alongside the main arenas. Sessions are timed, book ahead.
Imagination Bay Adventure Play
Beach-themed play in a converted mill: indoor sand, role play, a craft corner and a dance floor rather than the usual three-storey frame. Timed two-hour sessions and no walk-ins.
Jump Maniax Preston
A big indoor play centre at Fishwick Park off Mercer Street, mixing soft play, slides, inflatables and arcade machines with a separate toddler section and a cafe. Prices are nowhere on the website.
Kinderworld Playbarn
A nursery playbarn on Bispham Road that opens to the public on weekday mornings, pre-booked. Small, quiet and aimed squarely at the under fives.
Little Luxe Soft Play
A small independent built around inclusive play, with a multi-sensory calming room off the main floor. The one to try if a big noisy centre has gone badly before.
Little Sparks Southport
A small Scandinavian style play cafe in a Churchtown cottage, built entirely around role play: pale wood, small scale stations and no ball pit. Under fives only, and enforced. Proper cafe attached doing homemade food.
Little World for Scholars
Role play rather than climbing frames: a vets, a supermarket, a petrol station and an aeroplane, in 75 minute booked sessions in the middle of Altrincham. For the child who narrates everything.
Party and Play Funhouse
An independent at Westhoughton with an outdoor play area as well as the indoor frame, go karts on top, and a baby sensory room for the under ones. Free parking.
Rascals Play Centre
Preston's big indoor centre at Bamber Bridge, minutes off the M6, with a sports court, a disco room and a quieter SEN session on Tuesday evenings.
Temple of Fun
Darwen's independent play centre with a sensory room, open five days a week in term time and every day in the holidays. Somewhere to sit that is not a plastic bench.
That Fun Place at Jump Xtreme
The soft play bolted onto Bolton's big trampoline park, so the four-year-old and the eleven-year-old can both be occupied in the same building. Over 115 trampolines next door.
Zippy's Playworld
A unit on Chester's Grange Park business estate filled with frames for nought to ten year olds, with a 4 foot 9 height limit. Admission buys a two hour session.