Rainy day activities for kids that are not soft play

Wednesday of half term, and the rain radar is solid green from the Irish Sea to the Pennines. Every soft play within ten miles is either booked out or feral by 10.15. This is the standard North West condition, and the region has responded by building more good indoor days out than anywhere in England outside London. Most of the best ones are free, and none of the ones below involve a ball pool. Until the last section, where I admit when the ball pool wins.

Museums first, because they are free and enormous

World Museum is five free floors of dinosaurs, aquarium and space, and the strongest single wet-weather venue in the region. It sits on William Brown Street next to Walker Art Gallery, where the Big Art for Little Artists gallery lets small children touch the exhibits on purpose, and Liverpool Central Library, where the atrium stairs are the event. You can hop between all three without being outside for more than a minute, which on a wet Saturday is the entire plan.

Manchester's wet-day bench is nearly as deep. The Science and Industry Museum runs daily demonstrations with actual steam and noise. Manchester Museum has the T. rex and a vivarium of live frogs. Manchester Art Gallery keeps a family gallery with its own play space, though it shuts on Mondays, as does The Lowry, whose free 360 room drops you inside a Lowry painting. Further out, Bolton Museum has a recreated pharaoh's tomb that beats half the paid attractions in the region, and The Harris gives Preston a free rebuilt landmark with a proper children's library.

Science you can poke

Catalyst Science Centre in Widnes is small, cheap and hands-on, with a glass rooftop observatory looking out over a rain-lashed Mersey, which is honestly a better view in bad weather. World of Glass in St Helens is free and better than it sounds: the glassblowing demonstrations are the thing the kids will describe at tea. Eureka! Science + Discovery on the Wirral waterfront is the paid option, and the ticket converts to an annual pass, so one washout funds every washout for a year.

Swimming, the option everyone forgets

Rain stops mattering when you are already wet. Family swimming at a council pool is the cheapest two hours on this page, and the holiday inflatable sessions are the ones kids ask to repeat. Salt Ayre Leisure Centre in Lancaster puts a 33m pool with a waterslide, climbing walls and soft play under one roof, all at council prices. And Sandcastle Waterpark in Blackpool is the UK's biggest indoor waterpark, kept at tropical temperature, with toddler pools at one end and serious flumes at the other. Swimming is the most underrated rainy day out there is, and I will keep saying it.

Underground, Tudor and Roman

Stockport Air Raid Shelters are a labyrinth of Blitz tunnels carved under the town centre, explored by audio tour, kids free with a paying adult. Best for age 7 and up, and it stays cool underground all year, so bring a layer even in August. Speke Hall gives you a Tudor house to shelter in and a hedge maze to sprint round between showers, free with National Trust membership. Ordsall Hall in Salford is a Grade I Tudor manor, free to walk round, closed Fridays and Saturdays, which catches people out weekly. And the Deva Roman Experience in Chester does costumed legionaries and deliberately bad smells; it suits age 5 and up and takes card only.

Climbing, flying and golf

Depot Climbing in Trafford Park runs coached kids' sessions at £11 an hour including shoes, no ropes, just deep mats. Sign the waiver online before you arrive, not in the doorway. Zip World Manchester is about a fiver a head for an hour of indoor play, which makes it the cheapest big-name activity in the region and my default answer to a wet Tuesday. Treetop Adventure Golf in the Printworks is two indoor jungle courses; note that everyone over five pays the adult rate, so price the family ticket first.

The odd ones

Blue Planet Aquarium at Ellesmere Port runs a moving walkway through a shark tunnel, and going round twice is expected behaviour. The Museum of Transport in Cheetham is a 1930s garage holding about 70 historic buses, staffed by volunteers who know every rivet, and under-16s go free. Up in Carlisle, Tullie lets all under-18s in free, and you can post a letter to Tullie Mouse. Replies have been known.

When soft play is the answer

Sometimes the honest answer is padded walls and a coffee you did not make. Day four of a wet week, an under-5 with energy to burn, a birthday to survive: nobody hands out medals for dragging a 3-year-old round a Tudor hall in horizontal rain. When it is that day, go big. Play Factore has a zip wire crossing the entire building and go-karts, so older kids do not age out of it. Bubbles World of Play in New Brighton is billed as the UK's biggest and sits next to a free beach with a pirate ship for afterwards. Inflata Nation hands the whole arena to preschoolers at its Inflata Tots sessions three times a week. And Imagine That! in Wavertree swaps the ball pool for a child-sized village where they paint a real car. The child ticket stings; the four quiet hours do not.

But start with the tunnels. Stockport's shelters hold 12 degrees whatever the sky is doing, kids go in free, and they come out quiet, full of questions and slightly awed. No ball pool has ever managed all three.