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.
Soft play & indoor play in the North West
Somewhere dry when the forecast falls apart. Frames, ball pits, sensory rooms and bowling.
15 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.
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.
Play & Sensory Centre
Council-run indoor play and sensory space. Quieter than commercial soft play, which suits some days better.
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 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.
Bubble Planet Manchester
More than ten rooms of bubble-themed sensory spectacle at Depot Mayfield: a giant balloon-filled ball pit, an LED underwater room, an infinity mirror room and a VR section. Kids love it, adults are mostly there for the photos, and the run ends on 27 August.
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.