Zip World Manchester
The cheapest real activity anyone is recommending this summer, and it's indoors. An hour of play for a fiver a head, with picnic benches for when you need to sit down.
Little World for Scholars
Trafford, Greater Manchester
A role play centre in the middle of Altrincham, which is a different proposition from every other entry on this page. There are no climbing frames. There is a vets, a supermarket with trolleys, a construction zone with a digger, a petrol station and a road, a letter box, a woodland house and an aeroplane, and children move between them making up the story as they go.
It suits three to six roughly, and it suits a particular child: the one who narrates, who wants to be the shopkeeper rather than get to the top of the frame. If yours is a climber they will have finished it in twenty minutes.
Sessions run 75 minutes, four a day, six days a week, and capacity is capped so you book. Prices are not published on the site. There is a coffee shop and a small shop selling fairy wings and toy tools, which is a well-placed trap on the way out.
Know before you go
- Sessions are 75 minutes, four a day, capped, and you have to book. This is not a turn-up-and-see place.
- It is opposite the clock tower with no car park of its own. Stamford Quarter and the Tesco car park are the nearest.
Looking for more soft play & indoor play near Trafford?
Also in Trafford
Legoland Discovery Centre
Two rides, a 4D cinema, build zones and Manchester's skyline done in miniature bricks. Squarely aimed at 3 to 10, and it knows it: adults can only visit with a child.
Sea Life Manchester
Ocean tunnel, rays, seahorses and rockpool touch sessions, sized for smaller legs - you can do the whole thing in a morning and pair it with Legoland next door.
The Snow Centre Manchester
Real snow all year round at the venue Manchester still calls Chill Factore. Little ones get the Snow Park with sledging and slides; older kids can learn to ski or board on the UK's longest indoor slope.
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.
Dunham Massey
A Georgian house in a deer park where the fallow deer wander right past you. This summer's Play Hub adds giant games and den building in the North Park, and the winter garden is the area's best cold-day walk.