
World Museum, Liverpool
Five floors, free, and it covers three things small children reliably love: giant dinosaurs, an aquarium and a space gallery. The best wet-weather day within half an hour.

The famous ferry run as a fifty-minute sightseeing loop with commentary, and the truth is children rate the boat above every museum on the waterfront. Wind, wake, gulls, the skyline doing its thing.
Hop off at Seacombe and Eureka! Science + Discovery is directly outside the terminal - ferry plus museum is the assembled Wirral day.
What it costs: River Explorer Cruise: adult £14, child 5 to 15 £9, under 5s free, concession £12.50, family of two adults and up to two children £39, two adults and three children £42. Combo tickets with Eureka! Science + Discovery (a cruise plus an annual Eureka pass) are £23.95 adult and £21.45 for a child aged 5 to 15.
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Five floors, free, and it covers three things small children reliably love: giant dinosaurs, an aquarium and a space gallery. The best wet-weather day within half an hour.

A Tudor hall with woodland walks, a maze and a natural play area in the grounds. Free if you have National Trust membership, and the indoor house is a good rain fallback.

The city's story with an overhead railway carriage to climb aboard and Little Liverpool, a dedicated hands-on gallery for under-6s. Free, on the waterfront, and the window views are half the fun.

Closed. The Maritime Museum and the International Slavery Museum next door are shut for essential maintenance ahead of a major redevelopment that National Museums Liverpool says is subject to funding, and no reopening date is published. The Albert Dock around them is still worth the walk, and the city's other national museums are free and open.

South Liverpool's favourite park: lake, playground, ancient trees and the Storybarn, The Reader's hands-on storytelling space in the old coach house. The neolithic Calder Stones are older than Stonehenge, which is a good fact to deploy.

A rare-breeds conservation farm inside the 500-acre Croxteth estate, with a miniature railway, play areas and free country park all round it. The farm entry is cheap and the pigs are enormous.
One email a week: what is on this weekend within a sensible drive, and the places worth booking before they go.